Oct. 1858. — Mar. 1859.] Li Roman Characters. 201 



and is likely to mislead the learner, r is the only Dravidian 

 consonant which is pronounced differently in different dis- 

 tricts. In the Southern districts of the Tamil country, it is 

 pronounced by the mass of the people, exactly in the same 

 manner as I, which is the letter invariably used instead of r 

 in Canarese. Between Tanjore and Pondicherry, it is softened 

 into rzh, or zh ; and in Madras and the neighbourhood, 

 this softening process has been carried to such a length, that 

 in the speech of the vulgar, v has become a silent letter." 



" The Telugu, which commences to be spoken about two 

 days journey north of Madras, has lost this letter altogether. 

 Generally it uses d instead, as the Canarese uses I, but some- 

 times it uses no substitute, after the manner of the vulgar 

 Tamil of Madras. Looking at such Telugu words as kinda, 

 'below,' answering to the Tamil kirn da and vingio ' to 

 swallow,' answering to the Tamil virungu, we cannot but sup- 

 pose, that the Telugu had this letter originally, like the Tamil, 

 and that it lost it gradually through the operation of that 

 softening process which, in the colloquial Tamil of Madras, 

 converts Mre, ' below,' to MS." Comp. Gram. p. 108. 



Mr. Pope considers the Tamil r, n and t, to possess each 

 three sounds, a dental, a palatal and a cerebral while to I 

 he allows only two, a palatal and a cerebral. In pursuance 

 of this analogy he assigns to the cerebral place of r and 

 gives the following rule for its pronounciation " apply the 

 tip of the tongue, as far back as you can, to the palate and 

 pronounce a rough r in which a sound of z will mingle. In 

 the South, unable to articulate this letter, they use a strong I 

 (err) instead. In the North in the same way they use iu (?/) 

 for lq." Tamil Hand-book p. 11. 



The only conclusion to be drawn from these various 

 statements is that the y& represents a sound altogether sui 

 generis or as Professor Wilson expresses it, " the enunciation 

 is singularly obscure and cannot be precisely represented by 

 any written characters." 



