R. B. Shaw— Stray Arums in Tibet. 
39 
1878.] 
The accented e as ey in they, but more staccato. Unaccented e when 
final is neutral in sound as in the English word the when rapidly pronounced 
before a consonant; this sound approaches that of unaccented a. When 
not final, it is pronounced as in then or yes. 
Besides the long and short o, o and u, u, there is a double-dotted o, pro¬ 
nounced as in German schon, and a double-dotted u as in German muhe or 
French tu. 
With regard to the consonants ; the dh represents the English soft tli 
of the, this, &c., and not the Hindi aspirated d'h (which will be represented 
with an apostrophe, as d'h, t'h). Similarly yh is £ (ghain) and not the 
aspirated Hindi consonant. 
Tch is the compound used by Mr. Drew, in a short list of Dah-Hanu 
words given in his “ Jummoo and Kashmir,” to represent a ch pronounced 
with the tongue curled back to the roof of the mouth. It stands, as he 
remarks, to the English ch in the same relation that the Hindi palatal t 
does to the dental t, [or that the Wakhi sch does to the English sh (see 
my paper on the Ghalchah Languages in the Journal Asiatic Society of 
Bengal, for 1876) ; or that r (see below) does to r]. 
The n (with a mark over it) is the French nasal n which is felt rather 
as affecting the previous vowel than as a distinct sound. When followed 
by a vowel however, it acquires something of the sound of ng in the word 
young, but never to the extent of allowing any distinct g to be heard as in 
English younger , hunger. Thus mon “ I” is pronounced exactly like the 
French mon “ my.” Again hahs “ I am” and byuhs “ I go” would 
be spelt in French hanse, biounsse. But liana (where n is followed by 
a vowel) is sounded (as regards the medial consonant) somewhat like the 
English word hanger (not as in anger). 
The r (with a dot over it) represents the palatal r of Hindi, pronoun¬ 
ced with the tongue turned back. It approaches the sound of a d. 
The r (with a dot under it) represents a sound intermediate between 
an r and a French j or the z in “ azure ;” that is, the r is not clearly trilled 
but slurred over ; while the tongue is almost in the position for an r a 
stream of air is passed, without vibration of the tip, between it and the 
palate. Thus in the wordy>o£ro “ grandson”, the sound is intermediate be¬ 
tween potro SLYi&potjo (as in English we may sometimes hear people pro¬ 
nounce the word “ trill” almost like “ chill”). 
The z (with a dot underneath) represents the French j or the z in 
azure. It approaches the last letter in sound. 
The y is only used as a consonant, as in English “ yes,” “ sawyer”, &c., 
(not as in “ by,” or “ every”). 
