The Mythology of All Races/Volume 6/Indian/Transcription and Pronunciation
TRANSCRIPTION AND PRONUNCIATION
THE system of transcription followed is that used by the Royal Asiatic Society and accords closely with the one adopted in the Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde. The pronunciation is much as in English, but c is pronounced as ch, and g is always hard; the characters represented by kh, gh, ch, jh, ṭh, ḍh, th, dh, ph, bh have the h sounded half-separately, somewhat as in pot-hook, madhouse, haphazard, etc. Of the letters distinguished by diacritical marks ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh, and ṇ are pronounced very much like the ordinary dentals; ṣ is sounded as sh, and ś as sh or s; the s is always hard, never soft like z. The letter ṛ denotes the vowel sound of r and is pronounced approximately like ri; and similarly ḷ is almost like li. The letters ṅ and ñ denote a nasal assimilated to the following sound, guttural and palatal respectively, and ṁ indicates a nasal sound which corresponds very roughly to ng. The "visarga," ḥ, was probably pronounced like the Scottish or German ch. The vowels e (pronounced like a in fate) and o, which represent an original ai and au, are always long. The vowel a is pronounced somewhat in the manner of the u in English but; other vowels have the same value as in Italian.