National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

COLLECTION AND ELABORATION OF MATERIAL.   139

(who, however, at the time I engaged him knew no European language) ; for Tibetan by our brother EMIL, who had made our materials and observations on Buddhism an object of his particular study and had also occupied himself in detail with various questions of Tibetan philology.' In many cases the names had already been written down in Tibetan chiefly in the Buddhist monasteries; we should not, however, have been able completely to reproduce them here, unless Emil had worked them over again.

The place of printing being Leipzig, Dr. RUDOLPH TRÜMEL kindly took charge there of the final revision of the oriental typography.

The leading principle in all practical questions of ordinary transcription, as intended for use in the volumes of our present work in general, is to be as distinct and simple as possible, without being incorrect, details of transliteration, as well as native spelling being limited to the present Glossary only.

In such few cases in which the constant use of the words by the Europeans has introduced alterations which, though arbitrary, must be considered as universally received, we have thought it best to retain the forms now adopted, such as Calcutta, Ceylon, Lad6,k (for Ladâg), Ganges, Indus, &c.

The total number of the names for which the,explanation is given in the glossary exceeds 1,200,2 among which are some 150 Tibetan names fully explained, besides various references and analogies.

2. PRINCIPLES OF WRITING FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN A EUROPEAN

ALPHABET.

Phonetic Transcription.—Transliteration.

In writing a language in a foreign alphabet we may either represent the sound, within certain limits of modifications, by letters of which the sound is fixed by usage

fications of the organs of speech) a special object of study. The Munich University even conferred upon me the distinction of accepting an essay on the "Etymology of Italic Mythological Names," presented by me in the year 1847, when this question was proposed for public competition.

1 Emil's work will appear nearly simultaneously with this volume, though not connected with the publications edited by us. Its title is: "Objects of Buddhist worship, to illustrate the Buddhism of Tibet."

About G00 of these names are words not met with iu our Hypsometry. Including the latter 3,495 we may estimate the total number of geographical words given in the transcription we propose to considerably exceed 4,000.

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