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of a text of Greek uncials or of our own square capitals,—somewhat stiff, but singularly clear. The only drawback in this regard is the running together now and then of the contiguous strokes of different letters[1]. To the eye acquainted only with modern Siamese, this inscription seems at first quite as foreign as the Khămen inscription which stands beside it in the court of Wăt Phră Kæo. Closer scrutiny detects here and there a letter barely recognizable in its grotesque aldermanic breadth. And after the characters are all learned, their sequence is still a source of perplexity, being often quite different from that of modern Siamese[2].
The particular writing from which these letters were Its source. adopted and adapted has not yet been identified. Their general character confirms the impression based on quite other grounds that it must have been South-Indian or Singhalese; that its immediate exemplars were doubtless the Pali religious texts; and that the efficient agents in the accomplishment of the Prince's scheme were Buddhist scholars like him who is mentioned in the inscription as one of the chief glories of the realm,—the Măhathen who "had studied the Pĭdŏktrăi unto its end."
The mere acquisition of the letters was, of course, the least The vowels part of the Prince's task. Much more difficult must have been the expansion of the meagre Indian vowel-list to meet the unusually large demands of Siamese speech[3].
- ↑ This occurs regularly in certain vowel combinations (where the result is really to make a new unit, as in the case of our diphthongs æ and œ); it occurs somewhat frequently in the case of an อ or a ย directly following a vertical stroke; but rather rarely in other consonantal combinations. This practice has entirely disappeared in standard modern Siamese; but it continued in the north throughout the whole of the period of the so-called Fak Kham letters, until those gave way at last to the modern round Lao writing.
- ↑ This is due chiefly to the fact that the vowels which now are written above or below the consonants that lead them in pronounciation, in this writing all stand in the line, and precede their consonants.
- ↑ The inscription distinguishes thirteen simple vowels and eleven diphthongs as follows:–a) อา, อะ with อำ and อนน (for อัน), all symbols for short a in different combinations; ◌ิอ, ◌ีอ, อื, ◌ุอ, ◌ูอ, เอ, แอ, โอ, อก (short o), ออ, ◌ืเอก (for เอิก); and b) เอา, อาว, อยว (for เอียว), แอว; ไอ and ใอ, อาย, อวย, โอย, ออย; อยย (for เอีย), ◌ืเออ and ◌ีเออ (for เอือ), in variant spellings of the same word. Modern Siamese writing distinguishes further the simple short vowels: อึ, เอะ, แอะ, เอาะ, เออะ; and the diphthongs: อิว, เอว, เอือย, อุย เอย.
