Page:Proposals for a missionary alphabet; submitted to the Alphabetical Conferences held at the residence of Chevalier Bunsen in January 1854 (IA cu31924100210388).pdf/18

 complete table of the chief consonantal sounds possible in any dialect, as follows:

It should be remarked that in the course of time the fine distinctions between kh, gh, and h, between ph, bh, and f, become generally merged into one common sound. In Sanskrit only, and in some of the southern languages of India, through the influence of Sanskrit, the distinction has been maintained. Instead of Sanskrit th we find in Latin the simple t; instead of dh, the simple d, or, as a nearer approach, the f (dhuma = fumus, &c.). The etymological distinction maintained in Sanskrit between "dha," to put, to create, and "da," to 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 h or h, they would practically apply only to a very limited sphere of languages. In Sanskrit no scholar could ever take kh for k+h, because the latter combination of sounds is grammatically impossible. In the Tamulian languages the fine distinctions introduced into their orthography have hardly found their way into the spoken dialects of the people at large.

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