Page:Proposals for a Uniform Missionary Alphabet.djvu/39

 naturally be written with an italic s. This would represent the sharp sound as heard in "sharp." The soft palatal sibilant would have the same exponent as the soft dental sibilant, only changed into italics (ş). This would be the proper sign for the French sound in "je," "genou," and for the African soft palatal sibilant, which, as Dr Krapf, Mr. Tutschek, and Mr. Boyce remark, will never be properly pronounced by an adult European. Here also an  printed in italic would enable us to dispense with the spiritus lenis placed underneath the s.

The labial flatus should be written by f. This is the sharp flatus, as heard in "life" and "find." The soft labial flatus ought consistently to be written as f with a spiritus lenis (f) [sic]. But here again I fear we must sacrifice consistency to expediency, and adopt that sign with which we are familiar, the Latin v. As we express the labial semivowel by w, the v is still at our disposal, and will probably be preferred by the unanimous votes of missionaries and printers.

The lingual flatus is a sound peculiar to Sanskrit, and, owing to its hollow guttural pronunciation, it may be expressed there, as it has been hitherto, by s followed by the guttural semi-vowel h (sh). The Sanskrit knows no soft sibilants; hence we require but one representation for the lingual sh.

The different categories of consonantal sounds which we represented at the end of the first chapter by means of English words may now be filled out by the following graphic exponents:

Although these exponents of the physiological categories have not been chosen because their present pronunciation in English, or French, or German is nearest to the physiological category which they have to represent, still, as we have avoided letters of which the pronunciation fluctuates very much (such as c, j, q, x, z), it will be found, on the