Page:Proposals for a Uniform Missionary Alphabet.djvu/16

 name of tongue-root letters (gihvamuliya). These refinements, however, are of no practical use; because, in dialects where the guttural sound is affected and diverted from its purer intonation, we generally find that the pure sound is lost altogether; so that the two hardly ever co-exist in the same language.

But the place of contact of the gutturals may be pushed forward so far as to lie no longer between tongue and throat, but between tongue and palate. This change has taken place in almost all languages. Latin "cantus" is still "canto" in Italian, but in English "chant." In the same manner, the guttural tenuis in the Latin "vocs" (vox) has been softened in Sanskrit into the sound of the English ch, at least where it is followed by certain letters. Thus we have:

"vachmi," I speak, but "vakshi," thou speakest, "vakti," he speaks.

The same applies to the media. Latin "largus" is Italian "largo," but English "large." The Latin guttural media g in "jungo" is softened in Sanskrit into the sound of the English j. We have Sanskrit "yuga," Latin "jugum;" but in the verb we have:

+ I join. + thou joinest. + he joins.

The identity of many words in Latin and Sanskrit becomes palpable at once, if, instead of writing this modified guttural, or, as we may now call it, palatal sound, by a new type, we write it by a modified k. Sansk. "chatvar," or as some write "tschatwar," does not look like "quatuor;" but Lithuanian "keturi" and Sanskrit "katvar" speak for themselves. Sanskrit "cha" or or "tscha" does not look like Latin "que; " but Greek "" and Sanskrit "ka" assert their relationship without any disguise. Although, therefore, we are forced to admit the palatals, as a separate class, side by side with the gutturals, because most languages retain both sets and use them for