0CT — mae. 1858-59.] for the Indian characters. 265 



creasing the number and complexity of the alphabetical symbols 

 without any necessity. 



The method of distinguishing the corresponding lingual sounds 

 of the Ostiak adopted by Castren, was to append to the ordinary 

 Russian character a little hook or tail. Sir W. Jones distinguished 

 these letters by an acute accent affixed to one side, e. g. t'a. The 

 method generally adopted of late is that of placing a dot underneath, 

 which seems to be the easiest and best method of accomplishing 

 the object in view ; and if, as I propose, no other dots or marks 

 are placed beneath the lines except those which denote lingual let- 

 ters, no practical difficulty can arise. 



I have added to this list of letters dotted underneath the hard 

 lingual r of the Dravidian languages. I distinguished this in my 

 Comparative Grammar by the laige B, but this plan would pre- 

 clude the use of the character as the capital of the ordinary r, 

 Mr. R. Anderson denoted it by a double r, but this would lead to 

 confusion, and would render it necessary to represent the doubled 

 form of this character, which is very common in Tamil, by rrrr ! 

 As the sound of this r bears nearly the same relation to the ordinary 

 semi-vowel r that the lingual t does to the dental, being originat- 

 ed by a peculiar twirl of the tongue, it appears to me that the 

 best plan will be to class it at once amongst the linguals, and to 

 distinguish it like them, by a dot underneath. 



(c) . The Tamil and Malayalam have a deep lingual r to which 

 I should here refer. This is pronounced in some districts like z h 

 or rzh, in others exactly like the lingual I, but the most classical 

 pronunciation of it closely resembles the sound of r in the Eng- 

 lish word, " tar." I regard it therefore as a species of r. It has 

 been suggested that z, having no place in the Indian alphabets, 

 might be used for this purpose. Z, however, will be required for 

 Hindustani. The ordinary Roman r being required for the equi- 

 valent Indian letter, I propose that this peculiar South Indian r 



be represented by r, with a dot above. 



(d) . We now come to the nasals, including Anuswdra, a class 

 of sounds which involve more difficulty than any others. 



The consonantal nasals n, n, and m present no difficulty ; the 



