Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 6 (Indian and Iranian).djvu/29



HE system of transcription followed is that used by the Royal Asiatic Society and accords closely with the one adopted in the Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde. The pronunciation is much as in English, but c is pronounced as ch, and g is always hard; the characters represented by kh, gh, ch, jh, ṭh, ḍh, th, dh, ph, bh have the h sounded half-separately, somewhat as in pot-hook, madhouse, haphazard, etc. Of the letters distinguished by diacritical marks ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh, and ṇ are pronounced very much like the ordinary dentals; ṣ is sounded as sh, and ś as sh or s; the s is always hard, never soft like z. The letter ṛ denotes the vowel sound of r and is pronounced approximately like ri; and similarly ḷ is almost like li. The letters ṅ and ñ denote a nasal assimilated to the following sound, guttural and palatal respectively, and ṁ indicates a nasal sound which corresponds very roughly to ng. The "visarga," ḥ, was probably pronounced like the Scottish or German ch. The vowels e (pronounced like a in fate) and o, which represent an original ai and au, are always long. The vowel a is pronounced somewhat in the manner of the u in English but; other vowels have the same value as in Italian.