Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 1 (2nd edition).pdf/47

 VOWEL SOUNDS.

Accents have been used as sparingly as possible and omitted in such words or terminals as pur, where the Sanskrit family of alphabets takes the short vowel instead of the long Persian one. The accents over i and u have often been omitted, to avoid confusing the ordinary English reader, when the collocation of letters naturally gives them a long or open sound. No attempt has been made by the use of dotted consonants to distinguish between the dental and lingual d, or to represent similar refinements of Indian pronunciation.

Where the double oo is used for u or the double ee for i, and whenever the above vowel sounds are departed from, the reason is either that the place has obtained a popular fixity of spelling, or that the Government has ordered the adoption of some special form.

I have borne in mind four things—First, that this work is intended for the ordinary English reader.Second, that the twenty-six characters of the English alphabet cannot possibly be made to represent the fifty letters or signs of the Indian alphabets, unless we resort to puzzling un-English devices of typography, such as dots under the consonants, curves above them, or italic letters in the middle of words. Third, that as such devices are unsuitable in a work of general reference, some compromise or sacrifice of scholarly accuracy to popular convenience becomes inevitable. Fourth, that a compromise to be defensible must be successful, and that the spelling of Indian places, while adhering to the Sanskrit vowel sounds, should be as little embarrassing as possible to the European eye.

W. W. H.