ORIENTAL SERIES.

xviii TRANSLITERATION AND PRONUNCIATION.
To the uninitiated Englishman the chief difficulty lies in the
short 'a/ the primary inherent vowel of the Sanskrit, pro-
nounced as in the word 'America.' The English alphabet has
no distinct letter for this sound, hut uses every one of its vowels
in turn, and some even of its double vowels to represent it ; so
it is the f
a '
and e '
in c
servant,' the c
i '
in i
bird/ the '
o '
in
c
the y '
in 'myrtle/ and the 'ea ?
in
'word/ the 'u' in 'curd/
'
heard. 3
The Sanskrit short 'a' has this sound invariably, and
unaffected by any combination of consonants; so Sanskrit '
barn '
must be pronounced not as the English 'barn' but as 'burn.'
The pronunciation of the other vowels is sufficiently obvious.
The vowel '
ri '
the consonants *r' and 'i.'
is represented in italics to distinguish it from
Of the consonants, the cerebral letters */ 'tfA/ *d/ 'd&/ and
'%/the palatal sibilant 's/and the visarga 'A/ are represented in
italics. Practically these are the only distinctions necessary.
The guttural nasal is used only in combination with a guttural
letter ('nk' or 'ng'); the palatal nasal is used only with
palatals ('nch 3
and c
nj'), and no other nasal can be combined
with these letters. The anuswara, and tiSe anuswara only, is
used before the sibilants and 'h/ so in 'ns/ *nsh/ 'ns/ and 'rh/
the nasal is the anuswara. The letter m before a semi-vowel
may be represented either by m or anuswara. In all these
instances the combinations distinctly indicate the proper nasal,
and no discriminative sign is necessary.
Of the pronunciation of the nasals it is only necessary to
notice the anuswara. This, with a sibilant, is a simple n, but
before h it is like ng or the French n in bon; so the Sanskrit
Sinha, in the modern derivative tongues, is written and pro-
nounced Singh.
The asp'iates are simple aspirations of their respective con-
sonants, and make no other change of their sounds ; so * th '
is
to be pronounced as in the words c
at home/ and '
ph '
as in k
up-
hill/ never as in 'thine 'and in 'physic.' The letter 'g* is
always hard as in 'gift.' The Dalatals are the simple English