Oct. 1858.— Mab. 1859.] In Roman Characters, 199 



its re-duplicated use it becomes tt* and as there are already 

 and which are written tt and tt, I would recommend, as 

 proposed above, that this character should be expressed by 

 V and pp by Vt\ 



This is contrary to the 3rd proposed fundamental rule 

 but the genius of the Tamil language and its poverty in 

 phonetic signs require a relaxation of the axiom, to provide for 

 differences of sound of the same letter, under different circum- 

 stances, as in the cases of s, &, p, t~, u and p } which may be 

 read respectively as k and g — s and ch — t and d — t and d — p 

 and b — r and t. But as several of these depend on the position 

 of the particular letter in relation to others, which every Tamil 

 scholar soon learns by practice, I would confine the substitu- 

 tion of other Roman characters for the normal one, to the 

 double tees and to such words as have been adopted from 

 Sanscrit. 



The Tamil gst it has already been proposed to designate 



by n\ 



The last letter represents a sound peculiar to the Dra vi- 

 dian dialects and now retained only in Tamil and Malayalam. 

 It is a mixture of j, I and r, and is only pronounced in its 

 purity by the pure Tamil races the Vellazhars and Mudali- 

 yars. The Todas also enunciate it with peculiar fullness. 



The difficulty of finding a suitable Roman equivalent is 

 best exemplified by enumerating the attempts hitherto made 

 to represent it in a Roman dress. 



Ziegenbalg 1714 employs % rl and rhl 



Beschi, 1728 1— j 



— ,pref. of Sen Tamil grammar (Babington's 



translation) 

 Ellis, 1816 



zh 



* According to Rhenius the true sound of the double p is tr " though the r ia 

 sounded rather softly and o^vickly ; but the common people pronounce it like tt" 

 Oram, p, 17. 



