[To T118 EDITOR OF TILE " spoor...No."1

full public endorsement of over half a million of ourpe ople it is , r as possible with those used for others which he is likely to imes that the transliteration used for one foreign alphabet should agree

make use of the form for the signatures of themselves and their across. 0) Short; the grasping of unfamiliar words should not be made more difficult by the use of many letters, whether distinctions with unattainable accuracy : the constant reader is disinclined to make such effort and is incapable of fine distinc- tions. (4) Printable ; it should not require special " sorts " not to be found in English founts of type.

By (1) (2) (3) we rule out any " English " values for the vowels; a, e, i, o, u must be pronounced as in German and Italian, or as in all modern systems used for Oriental languages Mr. Hulse's Douma or DOOMa contravenes all these principles; it is the very Continentalism of which he complains ; what would he do with Belmisov (four syllables) P Most consonants are quite easy as he sees; b, v, g, d, zh, z, k, 1, nn, n, p, r, s, t, ts, ch, sh, shch, are quite straightforward.

cb and e, which only occur in foreign words, are really a matter of taste ; we can either follow sound and write/ in all cases, or put ph, f, or ih according to the original word. For x perhaps Tab is better than h, but the fate of khaki and Khartum makes one incline to h : ch even in Greek names is ruled out by its other use.

The real difficulty is that we want y for two purposes—one, as in Polish, for the special vowel La, in sound between i and u, not unlike our p in rhythm (about this Mr. Hulse says nothing) : the other for the sound of consonantal y, German j. This or something very near it is almost the commonest sound in the language, but its expression in the alphabet is manifold. We have it as A after a vowel, b after a consonant, and as the first element in the soft or " pre-iotized " vowels e and is (ye), sa (ya), to (yu). In view of this, it seems as if. We must give up (1) and use y in both senses, so belya would be equally " white " (fern. plur. adj.) and "whitening" (gerund of bait'). But since y is inherent in practically all e vowels, we are tempted by (3) to leave it out after consonants and i (pyeryevyerymiye would be intolerable) : e may be written e and h (identical in sound but less inclined to turn into yo) .6. For A (i.e., after vowels) p will do, as It does not occur in this position, and there is even no ambiguity in rendering -tzti and -Rift by -y and ley according to prevalent custom. But a and to must be pa and pa and 6, yo.

For the soft sign b we can use ', as final y would certainly be misunderstood : so for the hard sign n in the middle of words ' would do; at the end it can be neglected. I cannot refrain from a suggestion that, inasmuch as 14 is made up of b and i, we might use 'i for it instead of y.

Why Mr. Hulse is so anxious about the genitive plural in -ov I do not know; occasions for transliterating genitive plurals are surely few : the familiar termination -ov or -ev in surnames is that of the possessive adjective.

If Bug does not look nice, Bugh might be an improvement ; final r is often so pronounced, especially in the South ; eighteenth-century English "St. Petersburgh" was right in that matter. Surely " copeck " is an English word now : if not, let us write kopeylta : our form is really the genitive plural as used after most numerals ; cf. " verst" from veva/a.

Finally, it is essential that Russian words should have the tonic accent indicated, when it can be ascertained : otherwise there is no chance of tolerable pronunciation. The accent will often resolve ambiguities in the use of p.

As to Polish names, the difficulty falls under (3) : to print Polish requires eight extra letters : without defending the present confusion, I find it so far supplements my ignorance of Polish place-names as to enable me to divine the right forms—e.g., from Zorn.= and Lomja one may guess /mart.

For scientific use the Bohemian alphabet suits any Slavonic language, but it sins too much against (4).—I am, Sir, &e., P.3.—I append a table which agrees in most respects with enlightened usage :- A a 1I1 B b 1\.4

B v H n ✓ g 0 o

d 11 p

E ye { afterar:a.esta P r

yo C s zh T t 3 z Y u

14, I i 1:13 f or ph y X kh or h

• k ts, LI oh 111 eh

Ilj shch

'

bI y or b' 15 3'd caofne.:,ro 3e

10 yu Si ya

e th or f

✓ (extinct) y.