Page:Proposals for a Uniform Missionary Alphabet.djvu/53

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Which to labial u? וּ, sureq ــُـzammah
Which to {{{1}}} u? ــֻـ qibuz ـٗـوْ
Which to lingual ri?
Which to {{{1}}} ri?
Which to dental li?
Which to {{{1}}} li?
Which to gutturo-palatal e? ــֶـ şegol
Which to gutturo palatal e? ــֵـ zere
Which to gutturo palatal ai? ـَـيْ
Which to gutturo-labial o? ــֳـ qamez khatuf
Which to gutturo labial o? ــֹـ kholem
Which to gutturo labial au? ـَـوْ

If the alphabet is applicable to Arabic and Sanskrit, languages perhaps the most complete in their phonetic systems, it will, probably with slight additions and modifications, be found practical for other languages also. Let it only be distinctly understood to what category a letter in any language originally belonged, and its transliteration will be determined at once. Where the value of a letter is doubtful and fluctuating in a written language, difficulties will naturally arise, particularly where the same alphabet is used for different languages, where, therefore, the process of transcription, or, as in Hindustani, even of transliteration, has taken place before. In Persian, for instance, which is written with Arabic letters, there is hardly any difference in the pronunciation of ʽ and kh (ه and ح): one feels reluctant, therefore, to transliterate ح by kh, particularly as k͏̇h, with the diacritical dot خ, differs much more from ح kh, than ه ʽ differs from ح kh. Still these are inconveniences which will always