248 Substitution of the Roman [No. 8, new sebtes. 



the name of the Madura river, is written " Eiveig !" So also, it is 

 a rule of the Tamil, as of the Singhalese, that the vowel o, in com- 

 bination with a consonant, is denoted by the symbols proper to e 

 and to long a, and that the e precedes the consonant and the a 

 follows it, though the o which they unite to denote is pronounced 

 after it. Thus Kottei, " a fort," is written " Ekateit !" Surely 

 nothing in Singhalese can be more perplexing than this. I have 

 got accustomed to write " Kottei" in this extraordinary fashion in 

 Tamil, and feel no difficulty in it now, but I made several mis- 

 takes before I succeeded in transliterating the Tamil spelling cor- 

 rectly into English as above. I feel sure that every foreigner 

 learning Tamil, and every Tamil child, would be thankful to be 

 freed from the necessity of writing Ekateit for Kottei. 



Even the Deva-nagari is chargeable with this strange anomaly, 

 for though it denotes o in a more rational manner, it requires us 

 to write short i before the consonants which it ought to follow. 

 Thus " tri," three, is written " itr !" 



It is evident, therefore, that if the Singhalese system seems to 

 persons who are conversant only with the Indian systems more 

 perplexing than the Indian ones, it is only because they are less 

 accustomed to it, and in a better condition for forming an impar- 

 tial estimate of its defects. 



It may be concluded, then, that the substitution of the Roman 

 characters for the Indian, supposing it to be possible, would great- 

 ly facilitate Native education. It would render it easier for Native 

 children to learn to read, and would thus increase the number of 

 readers and facilitate the diffusion of knowledge, whilst it would 

 also bring the accomplishment of good fluent reading within 

 general reach. 



c. The use of the Roman character throughotit India ivould ena- 

 ble each people to participate in the intellectual advantages enjoyed 

 by its neighbours. What a calamity would it have been for Europe 

 and the world, if each European nation on emerging from barba- 

 rism had adopted a written character of its own ! Each separate 

 character would have formed a wall of separation, by means of 

 which the various nations would have been kept in ignorance of 

 one another and precluded from competing with, and stimulating, 



