IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
TRANSCRIPTION OF GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES IN CENTRAL ASIA. 655
to represent an aspirated t or d or a spirant or b. If the name is an Icelandic or an English name, then it is a spirant that is meant; but if it belongs to one of the tongues of India, then it is an aspirated explosive which is intended. We could of course easily decide to get over this difficulty by indicating an aspirate after an explosive by the sign ` (k`, ~`, f etc.), this sign being already used in various books about China. The signs kh, dh, gh, etc. have however in Indian names acquired such authority, and have become so well established in this particular meaning, that it would be quite impossible to introduce a change in this respect. Hence it is, it seems to me, necessary to let these signs with h represent both the aspirated explosives and the spirants according to the linguistic province with which we are dealing. Thus the signs ph and bh will generally represent explosives, and it might be advantageous to let kh stand for the explosive and ch for the spirant.
In addition to the usual k there occurs also in Turkish, and in Semitic and other languages, a deeper or velar k, which is often written q in both philological and geographical works. This sound occurs also in the Turkish dialects of Central Asia, and for philological reasons it would be interesting to have a special sign to indicate it, and write, for example, yizil = red, an orthography which cannot very well be either ambiguous or misleading, though perhaps the distinction may appear to many to be too refined. But as Dr. Hedin in making his observations did not discriminate between q and k, I was of course unable to carry out the differentiation.
In the traditional Latin alphabet j represents the same sound as the English letter y in young, a sound represented in most languages by j. It is obvious, that the sign j must be retained with its original signification, all the more as the sign y is required to indicate a certain vowel (see below).
In the Latin alphabet as in most modern languages y is used to represent the sound which we hear in the initial letter of the English visit. This traditional usage of the sign y could not therefore, obviously, be departed from, or yield place, for instance, to w, as Dr. B. Hassenstein desired in Peterranns Mitteilungen, Ergänzhft. 28, p. 383. It is indeed true that in original German words the v sound is indicated by w, whereas v is pronounced f; but every educated German knows also that his mother-tongue contains a number of loan-words in which the y sound is represented by the sign y (e. g. Vokal, Novelle etc). Consequently this letter v, when it occurs in place-names, cannot be ambiguous even to a German. If the sign w is to be employed, it ought rather to be reserved to express the generally known value of the English w in water.
For the ng sound, I have employed the German, English, Scandinavian, etc. sign ng (= English sing, German singen).
With regard to the vowels there is little to be said. The signs a, e, 1, o, u ought without any discussion to be allowed to retain their traditional values = French a, e, i, o, ou, German a, e, i o, u. In many districts there occurs an opener e sound which requires to be separately indicated, and for this purpose the generally known sign ä is the most convenient. Similarly the sound value of the sign ö is everywhere recognised, even though there are several languages in which it does not occur. The sign ü is required to express the sound which the French indicate
Hedin, Journey in Çentral Asia. II. 53
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