IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
656 K. B. V4'IKLUND.
by u and the Germans and Hungarians by u, while the Scandinavians write it y. In the more popular account of his journeys which preceded this present work Dr. Hedin indicated this sound in the Swedish way with a y; but as outside of Scandinavia and Finland (and in certain loan-words in German) this value of the sign is not known, I thought it better to substitute for it the more generally known and more widely used ii. In this way the sign y becomes free for use as the sign to represent the back i sound, which occurs in many Turkish and Slav languages (Polish y), and it is in this way that the sound has generally been represented.
III. THE USUAL LATIN LETTERS ONLY MUST BE EMPLOYED.
It may seem superfluous to adduce special proofs of the necessity for this proposition. In an alphabet designed for the use of philologists, all possible signs and letters might of course be used, because. it is part of the philologists' ordinary training to understand phonetics and phonetic signs; but we cannot ask people who are not specialists in philology to have a knowledge of such letters as s, c, , ô, n, ii, b, and several others. The only letters outside the common usage which I felt that I might permit myself to employ in my orthographic system are a, ö, ii, signs with which every well-educated person may be assumed to be familiar.
Concisely, the orthographical system which has been employed in this work in the transcription of the geographical names of Central Asia is as follows:
Vowels
a, c8, e, i, o, v, u, ii.
Consonants
Explosives b, d, g, k, p, t.
Spirants f, clz (as in German nach), gh (German Wagen), h, j (English you), s, sch (English sheep), [tsch (Eng. child), fisch (Eng. joy)], v.
Liquids and nasals 1, ni, n, ng, r.
I trust that in this system I have succeeded in satisfying the requirements both of theoretical correctness and practical utility, that I have successfully kept in view the limitations which external circumstances impose upon the successful carrying out of the scheme, and that I have worked out an orthographical system which rises superior to national predilections.
When Dr. Hedin consulted me with regard to the spelling of the Central Asian place-names, I submitted to him a rough sketch of the orthographical system which I have endeavoured to explain and justify in greater detail in the preceding paragraphs; but at the same time I told him that I could not venture to be answerable for the practical application of the system to the existing material, not considering myself competent for the task on the ground that I am no specialist in Turkish,
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