Page:Prob of Siamese alphabet - Schrader - 1928.pdf/4

 císsly the one overlooked in his paper, viz., comparntive Indo-Chinese phonology which proves, at least so far as Tibetan is concerned, be- yond a slinde of doubt that those Siamese iuitials now prouounced kh, ch, th, ph but written g, j, d, b must have been origiually tlhe lat- ter sonnd(1). It inay be objected that "originally" in the sense hora used does not really refer to the Siamese language as such but rather to the hypothetical comnon source of all Inds-Chinese (Tibuto- Chinese) languages. But is it not sound to maintain that a Siamese letter now pronounced but not written kh which on the one lhaud, viz., in Indian words, does duty for Indian, and on the other hand, viz., in purely Siamese words, corresponds with g in Tibetan (where it is clearly not the result of a shift)-that such a letter canuot have been anything clse, in early Siamese, but ? Exactly analogous is the cuse of the three other letters of the sot. Aud just the same holds good with those letters now pronounced d, b, but written t, p: the written pronunciation is in Inlian words the Indian one, and in genuinoly Sianese words the original Indo-Chinese sound(2).

There is anotlher point in Mr. Bradley's thoughtful paper which I may be allowed to settle here, in compliang with Me. B.'s appeal to stu:lents of Indian dialects. Mr. B., though inclined to speak.of two consonant-shifts- the mediae becoming tenues aspir- atae, and t, p becoming d, b-is not sure whether not one of them at least " is a consonant-shift indeed, but one imported renudy-made from India, in a provincial pronunciation of Pali on the part of the

(1) Exnmples : AU = Tib. gan-dag "person, man ", au Tib, goms-pa inccustoned", Ai "kitelhen": Tib. grva "corner, cell, school "; 11 torpor, letlunrgy": Tib. ja-ba "lame", i = Tib. jal-ba "to weigh", in = Tib. brjid "hrightness, splendom", = Tib. dan "with, and", NIu = Tib. milua 'spear", yu "to Inst long": Tin, dun-ie "anstnnt, continual"; W : Tib. buns "mass, henp, bulk", Nn "pocket": Tib. bag in uarrow space', wii "much, crowed": Tib. bra-ba "to have in grent plenty".

(2) For exumples (9a Tib. tol-ba " to reach, arrive", otc.) see Schrader, loe. cit., p. 50. Those words where the Indian pronunciation is preserved or little changed, as. tri-, ri and pra-, pra (Bradley, p. 21), are easily explained phonetically (ibid. p. 28). '8-IXX

XXI—3.