Page:Proposals for a missionary alphabet; submitted to the Alphabetical Conferences held at the residence of Chevalier Bunsen in January 1854 (IA cu31924100210388).pdf/21

 Frequently the pronunciation of the palatals becomes so broad that they seem, and in some cases really are, double consonants. Some people pronounce church (kirk) as if it were written "tchurtch," If this pronunciation becomes sanctioned, and we liave to deal with a language which has as yet no historical orthography, it must be left to the ear of the missionary to determine whether he hears distinctly two consonants, or one only though pronounced rather fully and broadly. If he hears distinctly the two sounds t+ch, ort+sh, he should write both, particularly if in the same language there exists another series of letters with the simple palatal sound. This is the case, for instance, in Tibetan and its numerous dialects. If, therefore, the missionary has to deal with a Bhotiya dialect, which has not yet been fixed by the Tibetan alphabet, the simple palatals should be kept distinct from the compound palatals, tsh, dsh, &c. In the literary language of Tibet, where the Sanskrit alphabet has been adopted, an artificial distinction has been introduced, and the compound sounds, usually transcribed as tsb, tshh, and dlsh, are distinguished by a diacritical mark at the top from the simple palatals, the sound of which is described as like the English ch in church, and j in join. How this artificial distinction should be rendered in transliteration, will have to be considered under III. b. If we have once the palatal tenuis, the same modifications as those described above give us the palatal media, the two aspirata, the nasal, the semi-vowel, and the sibilant.

The sound of the tennis is given in the English "church;" of the media, in "to join." The semi-vowel we have in the pronunciation of "yea." The nasal again hardly exists by itself, but only if followed by palatals. We have it in "inch" and "injure." Where the Spaniards use an ñ, they write a double by a simple sound; for the sound is the nasal followed by the corresponding semi-vowel, ny. The French express the same sound in a different manner. The French "besogne," if it occurred in an African language, would have to be expressed by the missionary as "bezonye."

As to the palatal flatus or sibilant, we must distinguish again between its sharp and flat sound. The sharp sound is heard in sharp," or French "chose." The flat sound is less known in English, but of frequent occurrence in French; such as "je," and "joli," very