Page:Proposals for a missionary alphabet; submitted to the Alphabetical Conferences held at the residence of Chevalier Bunsen in January 1854 (IA cu31924100210388).pdf/45

 tion of a c before e and i is that of the English th. In these cases when we have to deal with unwritten languages, the sounds, whether simple or double, should be traced to their proper phonetic category, and be written accordingly. It will be well, however, to bear in mind that pronunciation may change with time and vary in different places, and that the most general representation of these sounds by palatals or italicized gutturals will generally prove the best in the long run.

It must be clear that, with the principles followed hitherto, it would be impossible to make an exception in favour of the English j as representative of the palatal media. It would be a schism in the whole system, and would besides deprive us of those advantages which comparative philology derives from a consistent representation of modified sounds: that Sanskrit yuga (yor) is derived from yug," to join, would be intelligible to everybody; while neither the German, to whom j is y, nor the Frenchman, nor the Spaniard would see the connexion between j and g.

The wish to retain the j is natural with Missionary Societies. It would enable us to spell uniformly the name of our Lord-and in all the translations of the Bible which the pious zeal of the mother country is now sowing over the virgin soil of Africa, Australia, and Asia, that one name at least would stand unaltered and uncorrupted in all tongues and all ages. But we may consider this from another point of view. As with other words, and with many of the most sacred in our own language, their full and real meaning seems to grow more clear and distinct the more the material body of the words changes and decays, and the more their etymological meaning becomes dim and forgotten, so will it be with the name of our Lord. Let the name grow and change and vary in all the tongues of the earth, and the very variety of the name will proclaim the unity of Him who has promised to all tongues the gift of His Holy Spirit. And would it avail, even if now we insisted on this point A thousand years ago, and all the nations of Europe wrote and pronounced this name uniformly; but at the present day there are hardly two languages where the name is pronounced exactly alike; and in several the spelling has followed the pronunciation. It will ultimately be the same in Africa, whatever we do at present. But if