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How to express Palatals?

Palatals are modifications of gutturals, and therefore the most natural course would be to express them by the guttural series, adding only a line or an accent or a dot, or any other uniform diacritical sign to indicate their modified value. So great, however, has been the disinclination to use diacritical signs, that in common usage, where the palatal tenuis had to be expressed, the most anomalous expedients have been resorted to in order to avoid hooks or dots. In English, to represent the Sanskrit palatal tenuis, ch has been used; and as the h seemed to be too much in the teeth of all analogy, the simple c even has been adopted, leaving ch for the aspirated palatal. On the same ground, the Germans write tsch for the palatal tenuis, and tschh for the aspirate. The French write tch and tchh. The Italians do not hesitate to use ci for the tenuis, though I do not see how they could express the corresponding aspirate. The Russians recommend their Ч; and the Brahmans would probably recommend a Sanskrit type. Still all, even the German tschh, are meant to represent simple consonants, which, as in Sanskrit, would not make a preceding short vowel long. That in English the ch, in Italian ci, and in German tsch, have a sound very like the palatal tenuis, is of course a mere accident. In English the ch is not always sounded alike; and its pronunciation in the different dialects of Europe varies more than that of most letters. Besides, our alphabetic representative of the palatal sound is to be pronounced and comprehended, not by a few people in Germany or Italy, but by all the nations of Africa and Australia. Now to them the ch would prove deceptive; first, because we never use the simple c (by this we make up for the primary alphabetical divorce introduced by the libertus of Spurius Carvilius Ruga), and, secondly, because the h would seem to indicate the modification of the aspirate.

The natural way of writing the palatals, so as not to obscure their close relationship to the gutturals, would be, k, kh, g, gh.

But here the same difficulty arises as before. If the dots or marks are printed separately, the lines where these dots occur become more distant than the rest. For one such dotted letter the compositor has to compose a whole line of blanks. These will shift, particularly when there are corrections, and the misprints are endless. page 31 In Tumour's edition of the Mahavansa, which is printed with dotted letters, we get thirty-five pages quarto of errata to about a hundred pages of text. But they might be cast on one body. True, they might be—perhaps they will be. At all events they have been; and Volney offered such types to anybody that would ask for them. Still, when I inquire at a press like the University press of Oxford, they are not forthcoming. We must not expect that what is impossible in the nineteenth century at Oxford, will be possible in the twentieth century at Timbuktu.

Now the difficulty, so far as I can see, was solved by a compositor to whom I sent some MS., where each palatal letter was marked by a line under it. The compositor, not knowing what these lines meant, took them for the usual marks of italics, and I was surprised to see that this answered the purpose, saved much trouble and much expense, and, on the whole, did not look badly. As every English font includes italic letters, the usefulness of these modified types for our Missionary alphabet "springs to the eyes," as we say in German. They are sufficiently startling to remind the reader of their modified pronunciation, and at the same time they indicate, as in most cases they ought, their original guttural character to the reflecting philologist. As in ordinary books italics are used to attract attention, so also in our alphabet. Even to those who have never heard the names of guttural and palatal letters, they will show that the k is not the usual k. Persons in the slightest degree acquainted with phonetics will be made aware that the k is, in shape and sound, a modification of the k. All who admit that palatals are modifications of gutturals would see at once that the modification intended by k could only be the palatal. And as to the proper pronunciation of the k, as palatal tenuis, in different dialects, people who read their own language expressed in this alphabet will never hesitate over its pronunciation. Others must learn it, as they now learn the pronunciation of Italian ci and chi, or rest satisfied to know that k, stands for the palatal tenuis, and for nothing else. Sooner or later this expedient is certain to be adopted. Thus we get, as the representatives of the palatals,

k, kh, g, gh.

Now, also, it will appear how we can avoid the ambiguity before page 32 alluded to,—whether the h of aspirated consonants expresses their aspirated nature or an independent guttural semi-vowel or flatus. Let the h, where it is not meant as a letter, but as a diacritical sign, be printed as an italic h, and the last ground for complaint will vanish. Still this is only needful for philological objects; for practical purposes the common h may remain.

In writing, the dots or lines under the palatals will have to be retained. Still they take too much time thus employed to allow us to suppose that the Africans will retain them when they come to write for themselves. They will find some more current marks; as, for instance, by drawing the last stroke of the letter below the line. In writing, however, anybody may please himself, so long as the printer knows what is intended when he has to bring it before the public. As a hint to German missionaries, I beg to say that, for writing quickly in this new alphabet, they will find it useful in manuscript notes to employ German letters instead of italics.

An accidental, though by no means undesirable, advantage is gained by using italics to express the palatals. If we read that Sanskrit vâch (or vâtch, or vâtsch) is the same as Latin vox, but that sometimes vâch in Sanskrit is vâk or vac, the eye imagines that it has three different words to deal with. By means of italics, vâk and vâk are almost identical to the sight, as kirk and kurk (church), would be if English were ever to be transcribed into the missionary alphabet. The same applies to the verb, where the phonetic distinction between vakmi, vakshi, vakti, can thus be expressed without in any way disguising the etymological identity of the root. It would be wrong if we allowed the physiological principles of our alphabet to be modified for the sake of comparative philology; but where the phonetic changes of physiological sounds and the historical changes of words happen to run parallel, an alphabet, if well arranged, should be capable of giving this fact clear expression.

If the pronunciation of the palatals is deteriorated, they sometimes take the sound of tch, ts, s, sh, or even th. Ccelum () becomes Italian cielo; where the initial sound is the same as in church (kirk). In old Friesic we have "tzaka" instead of English "check." In French, "ciel" is pronounced with an initial sharp dental s; " chose," with an initial sharp palatal s. In Spanish, the pronuncia- page 33 tion of a c before e and i is that of the English th. In these cases when we have to deal with unwritten languages, the sounds, whether simple or double, should be traced to their proper phonetic category, and be written accordingly. It will be well, however, to bear in mind that pronunciation may change with time and vary in different places, and that the most general representation of these sounds by palatals or italicized gutturals will generally prove the best in the long run.

It must be clear that, with the principles followed hitherto, it would be impossible to make an exception in favour of the English j as representative of the palatal media. It would be a schism in the whole system, and would besides deprive us of those advantages which comparative philology derives from a consistent representation of modified sounds: that Sanskrit yuga () is derived from " yug," to join, would be intelligible to everybody; while neither the German, to whom j is y, nor the Frenchman, nor the Spaniard would see the connexion between j and g.

The wish to retain the j is natural with Missionary Societies. It would enable us to spell uniformly the name of our Lord—and in all the translations of the Bible which the pious zeal of the mother country is now sowing over the virgin soil of Africa, Australia, and Asia, that one name at least would stand unaltered and uncorrupted in all tongues and all ages. But we may consider this from another point of view. As with other words, and with many of the most sacred in our own language, their full and real meaning seems to grow more clear and distinct the more the material body of the words changes and decays, and the more their etymological meaning becomes dim and forgotten, so will it he with the name of our Lord. Let the name grow and change and vary in all the tongues of the earth, and the very variety of the name will proclaim the unity of Him who has promised to all tongues the gift of His Holy Spirit. And would it avail, even if now we insisted on this point? A thousand years ago, and all the nations of Europe wrote and pronounced this name uniformly; but at the present day there are hardly two languages where the name is pronounced exactly alike; and in several the spelling has followed the pronunciation. It will ultimately be the same in Africa, whatever we do at present. But if page 34 an exception is here to be made, let it be a single exception, while we retain the regular notation for every other word in which the pure palatal media occurs.