Page:Proposals for a missionary alphabet; submitted to the Alphabetical Conferences held at the residence of Chevalier Bunsen in January 1854 (IA cu31924100210388).pdf/52

 like Latin, seem to express this indistinct sound by e, i, o, or u. Besides the long e in res and the short e in celer, we have the indistinct ĕ in words like adversum and advorsum, septimus and septumus, where the Hindus write uniformly saptama, but pronounced it probably with vowels varying as in Greek and Latin. Besides the long o in odi, and the short o as in moneo, we have the indistinct o or u in orbs or urbs, in bonom or bonum. In Wallachian, every vowel that has been reduced to this obscure, indefinite sound, is marked by an accent, à, è, 1, b, ů; but if Wallachian is written with Cyrillic letters, the Yerr (b) is used as the uniform representative of all these vowels. In living languages one sign, the figure 0, will be found sufficient, and in some cases it may be dispensed with altogether, as a slight Shewa sound is necessarily pronounced, whether written or not, in words such as mil-k, mar-sh, el-m, &c. The marks of quantity, and ", are superfluous in our alphabet; not that it is not always desirable to mark the quantity of vowels, but because here again, as with the dotted consonant, a long syllable can be marked by the vowel in italics, while every other vowel is to be taken as short. Thus we should write in English bath, bar, but ass, bank; ravine, and pin; but (i.e. boot), and butcher. We should know at once that a in bath is long, while in ass it is short.

All compound vowel sounds should be written according to the process of their formation. Two only, which are of most frequent occurrence, the guttural short a, absorbed by either i or u, might perhaps be allowed to retain their usual signs, and be written e and o, instead of ai and au. The only reason, however, which can be given for writing e and o, instead of ai and au, is that we save a letter in writing; and this, considering how many millions of people may in the course of time have to use this alphabet, may be a saving of millions and millions of precious seconds. The more consistent way would be to express the gutturo-palatal sound of the Italian e by ai, the a being short. The French do the same in "aimer," while in English this sound is expressed by ey in prey, by ay in pray, by a in gate, and by ai in sailor. The gutturo-labial sound of the Italian o should be written au, which the French pronounce a. For etymological purposes also this plan would be preferable, as it frequently happens that an o (au), if followed by a vowel, has to be pronounced