them as different and represent them by different graphic exponents would produce nothing but confusion. The Semitic nations have sounds which are absent in the Indo-European languages- the sounds which Brücke has well described as gutturales vera, true gutturals; for the letters which we commonly call gutturals, k, g, have nothing to do with the guttur, but with the root of the tongue and the soft palate. But their character, if only accurately described, as it has been by Czermak, will easily become intelligible to the student of Hebrew and Arabic if he has but acquired a clear conception of what has been well called the Alphabet of Nature, To sum up, we must distinguish three things:(1) What letters are made of. (2) How they are made. (3) Where they are made. (1) Letters are formed (a) Of vocalized breath. These I call vowels (Phōnéenta, no contact). (b) Of breath, not vocalized. These I call breaths or spiritus (Hēmiphōna, slight contact). (c) Of articulate noise. These I call checks or stopping letters (Áphōna, complete contact). (2) Letters are formed (a) With wide opening of the chordæ vocales. These I call hard letters (psila, tenues, surd, sharp; vivâraśvâsâghoshah). (b) With a narrowing of the chordæ vocales. These I call soft letters (mesa, mediæ, sonant, blunt; samvâranâdaghoshâḥ). This distinction applies both to the breaths and to the checks, though the effect, as pointed out, is different. (3) Letters are formed in different places by active and passive organs, the normal places being those marked by the contact between the root of the tongue and the palate, the tip of the tongue and the teeth, and the upper and lower lips, with their various modifications. APPENDIX TO LECTURE III. ON TRANSLITERATION. HAVING on former occasions discussed the problem c transcribing languages by a common alphabet,' I should, for the present, have passed over that subject altogether if I had not been repeatedly urged to declare my opinion on other alphabets recommended to the public by powerful advocates. No one has worked more energetically for the propagation of a common alphabet than Professor Lepsius, of Berlin; and though, in my opinion, and in the opinion of much more competent judges, such as Brücke, the physiological basis of his alphabet is not free from error, nay, though in the more limited field of languages on which I can form an independent opinion he has slightly misapprehended the nature of certain letters and classes of letters, I should nevertheless rejoice in the success even of an imperfect alphabet, supposing it had any chance of general adoption. If his alphabet could become the general alphabet at least among African scholars, it would be a real benefit to that new branch of philological studies. But I regret to see that even in Africa those who, like Dr. Bleek, are most anxious to follow the propositions of Professor Lepsius, find it impossible to do so, "on account of its too great typographical difficulties."2 If this is the case at a steam printing 1 Proposals for a Missionary Alphabet in M. M.'s Survey of Languages (2d edition), 1855. Dr. Bleek, Comparative Grammar, p. xii. office in Cape Town, what can we expect at Neuherrnhut? Another and even more serious objection, urged likewise by a scholar most anxious to support the Church Missionary Alphabet, is that the scheme of Dr. Lepsius, as modified by the Church of England and Continental Missionary Societies, has long ceased to be a uniform system. "The Societies," says the Rev. Hugh Goldie, in his "Dictionary of the Efik Language" (Glasgow, 1862), "have not succeeded in establishing a uniform system, for which Dr. Lepsius's alphabet is taken as a base; deviations are made from it, which vary in different languages, and which destroy the claim of this system to uniformity. Marks are employed in the Church of England Society which are not employed by the continental societies, and vice versa. This, I think, is fatal to the one great recommendation of the system, namely, its claim to be received as a common system. Stripped of its adventitious recommendations, and judged on its own merits, we think it deficient in simplicity." These are serious objections; and yet I should gladly have waived them and given my support to the system of Professor Lepsius, if, during the many years that it has been before the public, I had observed any signs of its taking root, or of that slow and silent growth which alone augurs well for the future. What has been, I believe, most detrimental to its success, is the loud advocacy by which it was attempted to force that system on the acceptance of scholars and missionaries, many of them far more competent, in their own special spheres,1 to form an 1 Professor Lepsius has some interesting remarks on the African clicks. The Rev. J. L. Döhne, author of a Zulu Kafir Dictionary, expressed him. |