Page:Prob of Siamese alphabet - Schrader - 1928.pdf/3

 fact, to stato that Conrady was iu the position of the man who was going to construe the comparative Indo-European graminar out of “ Latin, an Armenian dialect, and a bit of Toklarian" (J. B. on p. 176)! As for mysclf, not being a Sinologue nor an expert in Indo- Chinese linguisties, the only serviice I could render the latter was to a pproach the problens of Siamese phonology by means of the Tibet- an, and I venture to predict ( in spite of Mr. J. B.) that my conclu- sions; some of them at least, will be appreciated and corroborated by future inquirors in the field. One such corrohoration has, indeed, been furnished by J. B. himself, viz., for the antiquity of the letter i which I supposed to be an wnciont (not introduced or newly cvolv- ed) sound, becauso it exists in Tibetan too, whilo J. B. points out its existence in most languages of the Tai family-which latter fact by itself is not sufficient to prove its antiquity.

The most difficult problem of tho Siamese alphabet is the existenco of tlhe voiceless mediae a and by the side of the surds A and u now pronounced as sonants (sce my article, p. 49 fll.). That none of the Tai languages gives a clue to their explanntion, is suficiently cleah from the lists in M: Maspero's paper nentioned above. Here, then, is a case where we inust either say Ignorabimus or step beyond the borders of Tai philology. I havo pointed out the existence of these sounds in the neighbouring Mon, and I have also suggested, through Tibetan parallels, that they may owe their origin partly to a following r (e. g., in at = Tib. - Tib. phra thin, fine"), partly to a lost prefix (as in = Tib. x-tan "snall bench", aJ = dam (h-dim) "inud", ain Tib. "byed-pu (h-byed-pa) "to open".

Concerning the unvoicing of Indian (Sauskrit aud Pali) initial g.3, d, b- now pronounced kh, ch, th, ph. t and p, Prof. Bradley is as right in observing tháb it is "possilble that the present tonal distinction is the vestige and token of an car- lier distinction in 'voice' which time has effaced" (loc cit. p. 27) as he is wrong in stating that “unfortuoately no meaus for dotermining this historical question as yet appears, nor does one discern in what dran "atraight", -- nd the voicing of quarter to look for it" (p. 26). The quarter where to look for it is pre- XXI—3.