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



not ventured to adopt, but which we consider to be worthy 

 of farther consideration. 



Besides these, there are seven other letters peculiar to the • 

 Dravidian dialects, which were probably once common to all, 

 but the whole of which are found in Tamil alone at the pre- 

 sent day. They are er en p £p <ssr and <Sfo 0 r °°° * Of these 

 the three first only, have been retained in Telugu and Can- 

 arese, and the five first in Malayalam.J The two last are 

 confined to Tamil. 



The two vowels are simply the short sounds of e and o, 

 arid as the corresponding Sanscrit vowels are always long, 

 and are so designated in the scheme at page 9, no farther 

 provision is required for them. 



The Tamil <srr, Malay alum di? — , and Telugu and Canarese 

 is not unknown to the Nagari alphabet, and is still found 

 in the older Sanscrit of the Yedas, but it has fallen into dis- 

 use. It comes under the head of cerebral sounds, and is 

 therefore properly represented by I with the mark assigned 

 to that class. 



The Tamil p, or Malayalam O, has the force of a prolonged 

 palatal r, of which the Hindi j seems to be the Urdu equi- 

 valent. In its re-duplicated form it becomes tt and will be 

 rightly typified by these corresponding letters with the palatal 

 sign — or r and tt 



The next letter tp, which is confined to Tamil and Malay- 

 alam, may be termed the vexcda litem of the Dravidian, as 

 ^ is of the Semitic tongues. 



For the difficulties which impede the appropriate render- 

 ing of this sound, we refer to Appendix A. p. 21. The various 



* Note:— In Nannul, it is said that the letters gS, p, and <oST 

 only, are peculiar to Tamil, together with some peculiar sounds of vowels Ccalled 

 " dependant letters) with the exception of vowel-consonants and prolonged 

 vowejs". Book iii. Sutr. 23. 



7 Peet's Grammar, p. 7. 



