to express the palatal media, have prefixed a g to their i, and pronounce gi=ज; for च their c does duty before e and i, but before a, o, u, they are obliged to intercalate an i, and चंद्र would be ciandra. The Spaniards have the true ch=च, but their j is=ح; so for ज they must write either y, which is a fainter sound than the true j, or some other combination of letters.
Similar in degree, though different in the turn which it has taken, is the confusion as to j ज in some of the Indian languages. The Hindi, truest and most central type of all, holds fast the correct pronunciation; but Panjabi rather finds it a stumbling-block. When a Panjabi says मझ majh, "a buffalo-cow," the sound he produces is something very odd. It might be represented by meyh, a very palatal y aspirated; perhaps in German by möch, or rather, if it may be so expressed, with a medial sound corresponding to the tenuis ch.[1] The Bengalis, again, are fond of inverting j and z, especially in words borrowed from the Arabic: thus, they say Ezâra for اِجاره, but hâjir for حاضر.[2] This is the more strange as there is no z in the Sanskrit alphabet; and, consequently, our modern high-pressure improvers (English this time, not Pandits), who are for ever fidgetting and teasing at the unhappy Indian vernaculars, and trying in an irritating, though happily ineffectual, way to twist and bend them according to their own pre-conceived ideas, have adopted the bright device of using a ज with a dot to it for z. All the dots in the world will never made a Hindi peasant say z; our friends may write हाज़िर, ज़ालिम, as much as they like. From the days of Chand, when these words first came into India, till now, the Indians have said hâjir, jâlim, and will probably continue to say so long after our
- ↑ This remark is more exactly applicable to the western Panjabis. I find it in my note-book made at Gujrat and Jhelam in 1859.
- ↑ They do so also in words of Sanskrit origin in many instances. I believe, however, this is more of a personal and individual characteristic than a law of the language, as I have heard some persons pronounce it more as z than others.
