Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 1.djvu/36

xxx have longs and shorts, but no accent as in English. I have therefore followed the simple system adopted in my "Pilgrimage," and have accented Arabic words only when first used, thinking it unnecessary to preserve throughout what is an eyesore to the reader and a distress to the printer. In the main I follow "Johnson on Richardson," a work known to every Anglo-Orientalist as the old and trusty companion of his studies early and late; but even here I have made sundry deviations for reasons which will be explained in the Terminal Essay. As words are the embodiment of ideas and writing is of words, so the word is the spoken word; and we should write it as pronounced. Strictly speaking, the e-sound and the o-sound (viz. the Italian o-sound, not the English which is peculiar to us and unknown to any other tongue), are not found in Arabic, except when the figure Imálah or umlaut obliges: hence they are called "Yá al-Majhúl" and "Waw al-Majhúl," the unknown y (í) and u. But in all tongues vowel-sounds, the flesh which clothes the bones (consonants) of language, are affected by the consonants which precede and more especially by those which follow them, hardening and softening the articulation; and deeper sounds accompany certain letters as the sád compared with the sín. None save a defective ear would hold, as Lane does, "Maulid" (= birth-festival), "more properly pronounced Molid.'" Yet I prefer Khokh (peach) and Jokh (broad-cloth) to Khukh and Jukh; Ohod (mount) to Uhud; Obayd (a little slave) to Ubayd; and Hosayn (a fortlet, not the P. N. Al-Husayn) to Husayn. As for the short e in such words as "Memlúk" for "Mamlúk" (a white slave), "Eshe" for "Asha" (supper), and "Yemen" for "Al-Yaman," I consider it a flat Egyptianism, insufferable to an ear which admires the Badawi pronunciation. Yet I prefer "Shelebi" (a dandy) from the Turkish Chelebi, to "Shalabi"; "Zebdani" (the Syrian village) to "Zabdani" and "Fes and Miknes" (by the figure Imálah) to "Fás and Miknás," our "Fez and Mequinez." With respect to proper names and untranslated Arabic words I have rejected all system in favour of common sense. When a term is incorporated in our tongue, I refuse to