Page:Proposals for a missionary alphabet; submitted to the Alphabetical Conferences held at the residence of Chevalier Bunsen in January 1854 (IA cu31924100210388).pdf/20

 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:

yunaj mi, I join. yunak + shi, thou joinest. yunakti, 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 h. Sansk. "chatvar," or as some write " tschatwar," does not look like "quatuor;" but Lithuanian "keturi" and Sanskrit "katvar speak for themselves. Sanskrit 25 cha" or tscha" does not look like Latin que;" but Greek "KE and Sanskrit "ka" assert their relationship without 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 distinct etymological and grammatical purposes, still it will be well to remember that the palatals are more nearly related to the gutturals than to any other class, and that in most languages the two are still interchangeable.

That the pronunciation of the palatals may vary again, like that of the gutturals, requires no explanation. Some people imagine they perceive a difference between the English palatal in "church," and the Italian palatal in "ciclo," and they maintain that no Englishman can properly pronounce the Italian palatal. If so, it only proves what was said before, that slight modifications like these do never co-exist in the same language; that English has but one, and Italian but one palatal, though the two may slightly differ. But even if we invented a special letter to represent the Italian palatal, no one except an Italian would be able to pronounce it, not even for his life, as the French failed in "ceci" and "ciceri" at the time of the Sicilian Vespers. All consonants, therefore, which are no longer gutturals, and not yet dentals, should be called palatals. That palatals have again a tendency to become dentals, may be seen from words like "réoσapes" τέσσερες instead of "katvaras" or "keturi,"