Page:A grammar of the Teloogoo language.djvu/67



HE letters in the Teloogoo, as in most other Indian alphabets, are apt, on a first view, to appear unnecessarily numerous. Some syllables even seem admitted into the alphabet, as simple characters. The dipthongs are represented by separate signs, not, as in English, by the coalition of two vowels. There is one set of symbols for initial unconnected vowels; another for the same vowels when joined with consonants to form syllables; and in both of these, the long vowels are distinguished from the short. Among the consonants also, the aspirated letters are represented by distinct symbols, not by a combination, as in our own language; and the harsh are distinguished from the soft letters. But those who may at first question the utility of so many letters in the Teloogoo, will perhaps relinquish most of their objections, when they find that the variety of sound in this language is greater, and better represented, than in English. On the length of a vowel, on the harsh or soft pronunciation of a consonant, depends, in a thousand instances, the meaning of a word; and, consequently, it is of greater importance, in Teloogoo, that each different shade of sound should be accurately marked; than in our own language, in which, comparatively, few words materially resemble each other.