Chapter C: A. Cutter

C. B. TILLINGHAST. W: C. LANE. MICHAEL HEILPRIN.

Professor Toy, of Harvard University, furnished to the committee a transliteration table for Semitic languages, Professor Lanman, of the same University, one for Sanskrit, and Mr. Heilprin, of the committee, one for Russian.

Professor LANMAN remarked on his table:

1. It will be observed that each of the five rows numbered 1 to 5 consists of five letters; the second and fourth in each, _i. e._, the aspirates, are often written, especially in older works, thus, _k῾_, _g῾_, _c῾_, _j῾_, _ṭ῾_, _ḍ῾_, _t῾_, _d῾_, _p῾_, _b῾_; that is, the rough breathing takes the place of the _h_.

2. Write long vowels with a macron, thus, _ā_, _ī_, _ū_, _r̄_, and not with a circumflex.

3. Wherever you find the combination _ṛi_, with a dot under the _ṛ_, reduce it to simple _ṛ_, since it is a simple unitary sound.

4. The palatals (row 2) are often written by means of the gutturals and an accent:

thus, we find _k´_ _k´h_ _g´_ _g´h_; for _c_ _ch_ _j_ _jh_

and in some German books _c_ (which has the sound of _ch_ in _church_) is written _tsch_, and _j_ (= _j_ in _judge_) in like manner _dsch_. Further, _c_ and _ch_ are written in some English works as _ch_ and _cch_, a useless waste of labor.

5. When the third palatal is written by _ǵ_, it is common among the Germans to write the first semi-vowel by _j_. The last semi-vowel is often written _w_ (instead of _v_).

6. The transliteration of the _first two sibilants_ is very fluctuating. My _ç_, is written _ś_ by Monier Williams in his dictionary.

The second sibilant is often written _sh_, sometimes _š_, by me as _ṣ_, like the other linguals.

7. Finally an _s_ at the end of a Sanskrit word is converted into an aspiration called _risarga_, and written thus «:», and in transliteration is written in this manner, _ḥ_. The nasality of a vowel is marked by _ṅ_ or _ṁ_ which appears in the Sanskrit as a dot above the body of the consonant.

For a brief and lucid discussion of these matters and a defense of the system of Professor Whitney, of Yale, which is followed in his grammar and in Lanman’s Reader, see The Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, October, 1880, p. xvii.

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