Page:Proposals for a Uniform Missionary Alphabet.djvu/23

 i, and w into u, become ri, li, or r and l. At least these sounds ri and li, approach as near to the original value of the Indian vowels as with our alphabet we can express it. According to their origin, they may be described as r and l opened and vocalised.

The pure guttural sound of a, which we hear in "bar," is subject to two modifications, in which the sound of a is obscured or broken by a slight palatal or labial pressure. These sounds are heard in English in "birch" and "work;" sounds so indistinct that they seem almost to evade physiological definition and graphic representation. Some languages acknowledge but one indistinct vowel sound, and ascribe its palatal or labial colouring to the influence of preceding or following consonants. In German this sound is, indeed, but one, and may be expressed by the shortest e. In French it is the e muet at the end of entendre, Havre, Londres. It extends most widely in English, and even syllables originally written with two vowels, like harbour, neighbour, have here been reduced to this low level of vocal indistinctness.

All vowels may be short or long, with the exception of the indistinct shewas and, which are always short.

The sound of the long a we have in bath; of the short, in bat.

pin.

u boot;  put.

The sound of we have in bird.

work.

From the organic succession of the three simple vowels a, i, u, it follows that real compound vowels can only be formed with a, as the first and most independent vowel, for their basis. The a, on its onward passage from the throat to the aperture of the mouth, may be followed or modified by i or u. It may embrace the palatal and labial vowels, and carry them along with it without having to retrace its steps, and without occasioning any stoppage, which of course would at once change the vowel into the semi-vowel. In Sanskrit,