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XX The use of the Roman Character for Oriental Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

The Roman character may be used for Oriental languages in two ways: first, to represent in writing the sounds of a spoken language; and secondly, to represent the characters of a written language by another set of characters. The first process is usually called phonetic writing, the second transliteration. The second process includes the first. As this may not be clear at first sight I will endeavour to explain what transliteration is.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1912

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References

page 649 note 1 I hope to show elsewhere that the supposed obstacles to the use of phonetic spelling, as against transliteration, for educational and popular purposes have little or no existence in fact, or are easily surmounted; but the matter does not come within the scope of this article, nor is it of any particular interest to the ethnographists and others who are now being addressed.

page 650 note 1 The c represents a single palatal sound, approaching that in the English church, and perhaps identical with the Magyar sound for which the International Phonetic Association also use the symbol c.

page 650 note 2 Something like the English chuck.

page 656 note 1 As in Italian.

page 657 note 1 See The Means of Training in Phonetics available for Modern Language Teachers, by Althaus, L. H., 1911Google Scholar.

page 659 note 1 Before the script of the International Phonetic is used for this purpose it should be simplified and harmonized for the particular language (or group of languages) to which it is to be applied. The Association provides one universal set of symbols for scientific purposes, the chief of which is an accurate record of the sounds of each language, whether that language has or has not already been reduced to writing, and of each dialect. These symbols, however, will present a motley appearance, and will often contain diacritical marks which can be dispensed with under other conditions. For popular or educational purposes they should be modified, so as to be easier to read and write and to give the printed page a more pleasing appearance. This has already been done for some European languages, though in the case of English at least a further move might be made in these directions.