198 Report on Writing Indian Words [No. 8, New Series, 



I would place the mark above, because in conformity with 

 native usage and because, in manuscript, the circle would often 

 become a dot and thus create confusion. 



But might not both anusvara and visarga be expressed 

 by their original characters ♦ and • which would comport 

 very well with Roman type and be not at all unseemly ? 



Further, I would adopt for the palatal n, which Wilson 

 represents by to, the Spanish n ; for the guttural n the double 

 letters ng or n ; for the cerebral n an n and for the Tamil 

 palatal n an h. 



Wilson has no distinction between the Nagari 3J" 3T 



and the Hindi j and Tamil p all of which he expresses by 

 r or ri and ri. 



The sounds are altogether different. I would write 

 ri ^2^" ri 



J ' 



P V jb\h tY 



The letter 5f{ is usually written kska and I am free to 



confess these letters represent the sound perfectly. But many 

 Orientalists particularly those of France use an x. This prac- 

 tice is in accordance with axiom 4. 



Tamil Alphabet. 

 The only letters that call for notice in Tamil, are : — 



P 



4P 



The first, which is also common to the other southern 

 dialects, is an original Sanscrit sound, and is found in the old 

 alphabets of that language. It is a hard /, which is appro- 

 priately marked by a point below or I 



The next letter, if only representing the prolonged sound 

 of r as uttered in perfection by the Todas of the Nilagiris, 

 would easily be distinguished by a diacritical mark. But in 



