Page:Proposals for a Uniform Missionary Alphabet.djvu/43

 better signs offer themselves than ae, oe, ue. They are objectionable because they represent simple, though modified, sounds by two letters. Still we must yield, unless we mean to introduce the dotted German letters, ä, ö, ü. For the Tataric languages a fourth sound is required, a broken or soft i. This, too, we must write ie.

The Sanskrit vowels commonly called lingual and dental are best expressed by ri and li, where, by writing the r and l as italics, no ambiguity can arise between the vowels ri and li, and the semi-vowels r and l, followed by i.

Thus have all the principal consonantal and vowel sounds been classified physiologically and represented graphically. All the distinctions which it can ever be important to express have been expressed by means of the Roman alphabet without introducing any foreign letters, without using dots, hooks, lines, accents, or any other diacritical signs whatsoever. I do not deny that for more minute points, particularly in philological treatises, new sounds and new signs will be required. In Sanskrit we have Visarga and the real Anusvara (the Nasikya), which will require distinct signs in transliteration. In some African languages, clicks, unless they can be abolished in speaking, will have to be represented in writing. On points like these an agreement will be difficult, nor would it be possible to provide for all emergencies. There are still five consonants, c, j, q, x, z, which have not been used, and may perhaps prove useful for other purposes. It is curious that they should not have been required for our alphabet; for they do not occur either in the primitive Greek alphabet. The principal reason why they have been avoided in the Missionary alphabet is, because their pronunciation fluctuates more than that of most letters in the different spoken languages of Europe. This, however, though it makes them objectionable, does by no means exclude them for more special purposes. Besides, there are several letters which have not been used as italics.

If uniformity can be obtained with regard to the forty consonantal and the twenty-four vocal sounds, which are the principal modulations of the human voice fixed and sanctioned in the history of language, as far as it is known at present; if these sounds are always accepted in the definition which has been given solely on physiological grounds; and if they are always written with those letters