Page:Assamese-Its formation and development.djvu/36



The mode of transliteration of Skt. and Pkt. words is the same as in Pischel's Grammatik der Prakrit Sprachen. The Skt. dipthongs āi, āu have been written as ai, au, and the long vowels ē, ō, written as e, o. In Pkt. words the short quantity has been used only to illustrate phonetic variations. In other places it has been dropped. Skt. words with both b, v : s, ś, have been indifferently spelt as the phonetic values of (b, v), (s, ś) are the same in As.

The phonetic symbols wherever used are an approximation to those employed by the International Phonetic Association. As the phonetic symbols had to be locally prepared to fit into Linotype machine, they could not often be properly shaped: thus (ŋ) stands for the guttural nasal; (:') stands for the nasalised (f) ; ^ stands for the neutrrl vowel : glottal h has been shewn as %_. In Assamese words, final -a has been dropped in trans- literation as it remains quiescent in pronunciation. Whenever its presence to the eye has to be noted, it has been shewn as -A. It has been transliterated as -a, wherever its distinct sound has been preserved ; e.g. bhok ; manti ; para. The letter a' shews the elision of a following mutating vowel i and has the sound of 5; e.g., ca't {cot). In nasalised ~v, ~y, u the nasalising sign has to be placed at the side instead of at the top. to accommodate the press ; nasalised a has been written as a in the table of vowels. Initial Skt. y-, in ts. and str. Assamese words has been transliterated as j- as that is its sound value in Assamese words. In other places it has been retained. Glide sounds have been denoted by -?)-, -ib-. The guttural spirant value in Assamese of Skt. sibilants s, s, s has been shewn by -x-.