OCR Text |
Show ON THE ALPHABET. 13 sounds in the two languages would illustrate beautifully that change of consonants which has been described as being in conformity with Grimm's laws. When the phonology of our Indian tongues is thoroughly understood, much light will be thrown upon the whole science of phonology, and some of the most important facts to be collected in relation to this matter are connected with these synthetic sounds and their differentiation in aberrant languages. The student should carefully determine the group of elementary letters in any synthetic sound, and constantly employ some one of the corresponding characters to represent it, and in his description of his alphabet the whole matter should be fully explained. COMPLEX COMBINATIONS. The student is apt to find combinations of sound with which he is unfamiliar, and which will cause no little difficulty. The consonant sounds will be found to come in an order with which he is unacquainted, and which it will be difficult for him to pronounce. Some of these combinations may be very long- three, four, or five consonants being used in one syllable, i. &, without an intervening vowel. All such complex sounds should be carefully analyzed and their constituents represented by appropriate letters. SOUNDS FOB WHICH NO LETTERS HAVE BEEN PROVIDED. The student will in all probability discover sounds and peculiarities of sound for which no provision is made in the above alphabet, and yet the Roman characters will serve him for their representation by adopting the simple device of inverting them. In so doing he should be guided by the analogies of the system here laid down. All of the letters cannot with safety be inverted. The following only can be used in this manner: a, 0, fi, a, d, c, e, e, 8, g} h} « , *, k, I, m, fl, d, 5, r, t, v} wf y. Still the student has another resource. Letters may be doubled, but this should be a last resort. The preceding characters are tabulated below, and examples given to indicate their use as recommended. . |