this way all possible sounds may be represented, each by one symbol. In the manuscript of this book, despairing of the inconsistencies of other systems, I first adopted this one throughout. To Semitic languages it can be applied easily and regularly. Coptic has Greek letters, except seven, which may be represented by similar differentiation. In Armenian, too, I found how the names which occur are spelled in their own letters, and so transliterated them on the same plan, differentiating by the accepted points and dashes. Then, on reading the manuscript again, I saw more clearly the difficulties of the plan. It involves very considerable labour to printers. Also, in a merely popular book, perhaps such exactness is superfluous. It demands much of the reader of such a book as this. He would have to learn that t with a bar beneath it is our th, that p with a bar is our f, and so on. So I have changed most of the spellings back to an easier form. ph is always superfluous, since we have f. But I have restored sh and th, dropping the principle of one letter for one letter. Even the ugly kh appears sometimes for the third (strongest) Arabic ḫ sound. But I have kept the point beneath for the emphatic letters. One must make some difference between "ḳalb," which means a heart, and "kalb," a dog. I have left ai and au for diphthongs.[1] Syriac doubled letters are generally not marked. Since their theoretic tashdīd is neither written nor (at least in Western Syriac) pronounced, it seems superfluous to note it.[2] So with this rather unsatisfactory compromise I leave the proper names, with the hope that they will not too much irritate anyone who knows how they are spelled in their own characters, and that he will excuse the compromise, considering how difficult it is to carry out a consistent plan in this matter.
- ↑ Ay and aw are right, but look odd.
- ↑ Of the softened "begadkefath" letters, p becomes f and t becomes th. The softening of b, g, d, and k is not noted. v looks too odd, kh suggests rather another letter (Hebrew Heth). bh, gh, dh do not suggest any particular sound to an English reader. After all, Greek β, γ, δ are softened too, yet we do not mark the softening.
symbols. The latest plan (in Germany) is to use a figure like a 3 turned the wrong way for ʿAin (suggested by the shape of the Arabic letter). This has advantages. It looks more like a real, whole letter (which of course ʿAin is); and its strong form can be made, according to the general rule, by a point under it. But its use means casting a special type.
