Page:Proposals for a missionary alphabet; submitted to the Alphabetical Conferences held at the residence of Chevalier Bunsen in January 1854 (IA cu31924100210388).pdf/63

 halfpenny, or "sous," "sous," under, or "soul," tipsy. In historical languages the system of orthography is too important a point to be lost in transcribing, though it is a mistake to imagine that in living languages all etymological understanding would be lost if phonetic reforms were introduced. The change in the pronunciation of words, though it may seem capricious, is more uniform and regular than we imagine; and if all words were written alike according to a certain system of phonetics, we should lose very little more of etymology than we have already lost. Nay, in some cases, the etymology would be re-established by a more consistent phonetic spelling. If we wrote foreign" "forèn," and "sovereign" "soveren," we should not be led to imagine that either was derived from "reign," regnum, and the analogy of such words as "Africen" would point out foranus" or "foraneus" as the proper etymon of "foren." But although every nation has the right to reform the orthography of its language, with all things else, where usage has too far receded from original intention, still, so long as a literary language maintains its historical spelling, the principle of transliteration must be to represent letter by letter, not sound by sound.

Which letter in our physiological alphabet should be fixed upon as the fittest representative of another letter in Arabic or Sanskrit, in Hindustani or Canarese, must in each case depend on special agreement. If we found that in Sanskrit had in most words the nature of the guttural spiritus, we should have to write it or h, even though in some respects it may represent the guttural semi-vowel. If y in Hebrew can be proved to have been originally the simple guttural semi-vowel, it will have to be written 'h, even though it was pronounced as semi-vocalis fricata ("h), as guttural flatus asper (h), as guttural media aspirata (gh), or not pronounced at all. Likewise, if English were to be transliterated with our alphabet, we should not adopt any of the principles of the "Fonetic Nus;" but here also, if the letter li had been fixed upon as on the whole the fittest representative of the English letter h, we should have to write it even where it was not pronounced, as in honest.

It will be the duty of Academies and scientific socictics to settle, for the principal languages, which letters in the Missionary alphabet will best express their corresponding alphabetical signs.