Page:Proposals for a Uniform Missionary Alphabet.djvu/15

 give, is lost in Persian, because there the two initial sounds d and dh have become one, and the root "da" has taken to itself the meaning both of creating and giving. Whatever objections, therefore, might be raised against the anticipated representation of the tenuis and media aspirata by means of an additional italic h (the original representative of the guttural semi-vowel, or, according to others, of the guttural flatus), they would practically apply only to a very limited sphere of languages; for even in the Tamulian languages the fine distinctions introduced into their orthography have hardly found their way into the spoken dialects of the large masses.

From what has been said before on the formation of the guttural and dental sounds, it must be clear that the exact place of contact by which they are produced can never be fixed with geometrical precision, and that by shifting this point forward or backward certain modifications will arise in the pronunciation of individuals, tribes, or nations. The point of contact between the lips is not liable to the same changes, and the labials are, therefore, the most constant sounds in all dialects.

Where this variety of pronunciation is only in degree, without affecting the nature and real character of a guttural or dental consonant, we need not take any cognisance of it. Gutturals from a Semitic throat have a deeper sound than our own, and some grammarians have made a new class for them by calling them pectoral letters. The guttural semi-vowel as heard in the German "loch" and "ach" is deeper, and as it were more pectoral, than in "ich:" but this is simply owing to the influence of the preceding vowel. Again, the Swiss ch is deeper than the usual German ch, whatever vowel may precede or follow, but this is owing to a peculiarity of the organs of speech; and whatever letter might be chosen to represent this Swiss ch in a phonetic alphabet, it is sure that no one but a Swiss could ever pronounce it. Sanskrit grammarians ascribe to the h the chest as the place of formation (urasya), while they distinguish the other gutturals by the