founded with that of z, which takes the sound of s, in similar cases, in French words.

رخ

40. The sound of is exactly rendered by the French CH, (sj Dutch, sch German, sh English). Many French writers render it by the three letters SCH, in order that foreigners may not confound its pronunciation with that of which is the custom I generally follow. From the manner in which the Arabs of Spain transcribed Spanish in Arabic characters, there is reason to believe that they pronounced the as an s strongly articulated, and the 41. The answers to our s, but it ought to be pronounced a little more strongly than the, or with a sort of emphasis. It appears that the pronunciation of the two letters has often been confounded, as may be seen in the marginal notes of some copies of the Kurán, in the books of the Druses, and in modern Egyptian manuscripts.

as the س

for z.

42. The answers to D pronounced more strongly than the French d, or with a sort of emphasis. The Persians and Turks pronounce it as the French z, other nations, as Ds. In rendering Arabic names into French, in order to express the, the two letters DH ought to be used.

43. The answers to the T articulated strongly and emphatically. If a person should wish, in writing in French, to distinguish it from ..., it may be rendered by TH.

44. The differs in no respect, in pronunciation, from, and they may be rendered in the same manner. These two letters are very often confounded in manuscripts. It ought to be observed, however, that in Egypt the is often pronounced as a z, emphatically.

45. The peculiar pronunciation of cannot be expressed by any of the letters used among the nations of Europe.

The manner in which the Piedmontese pronounce the ñ appears to me to approach something to the sound of . Examples: cañ chien, bon bon, bona bonne.

ع

46. The represents a sound which partakes of both r and g. Some writers have rendered this letter by rh, others by rg, and others by gh; but as the sound of the r ought to be almost imperceptible, I have thought it better to employ, in rendering the &, the G alone or the

two letters GH.

47. The answers exactly to F.

48. The indicates a sound very nearly like that of the French K, but it ought to be formed in the throat, and it is very difficult to imitate it well. Many Arabs, those of Muscat, for example, confound the pronunciation of this letter with that of έ, and this pronunciation is common in the states of Marocco. In a great part of Egypt, the is only a strong and quick aspiration, and it appears that this sound, very difficult to imitate, was the distinctive characteristic of the Arabs descended from Modhar.

ق

49. The also answers to K, but it is not pronounced from the throat as the preceding letter. The Turks and many of the Arabs give

it a softened pronunciation, analogous to that of q in the French words queue, qui; and it may be rendered by putting an i after k. Some Arabs pronounce the and the as an Italian e before i, as in the word cio, a sound expressed in French by the letters tch.

50. The is perfectly rendered by L, and the by M.

م

51. The is susceptible, according to the Arab grammarians, of many pronunciations. When it is followed by a vowel, it is pronounced always as N in the French word navire, but when it is followed immediately by another consonant the pronunciation varies.

It

52. The, is pronounced as ou in French, in the words oui, ouate. can also be rendered by w pronounced in the manner of the English. The Turks and Persians pronounce it as the French v.

୪

53. The represents only a very light and often insensible aspiration, as the h in the French words la Hollande, la Hongrie, or it indicates only a simple hiatus.

ought to be pronounced as a y consonant, as in the English

The Germans render it by j, as in the words bejahen,

55. The finds a place in the alphabet only because the two letters J and of which it is composed, take, in their junction, a form which sometimes renders them unrecognizable.

The Vowels.

64. The Arabs have only three signs to indicate all the sounds. The first, named fatha, is formed like an acute accent, and is placed above the consonant with which it forms an articulate sound, as,

cataba.

The sound expressed by the fatha answers sometimes to the French a more or less open, sometimes to è or ai, as in the words succès, faire.

The second is called kesra. It is formed similar to the preceding, but is placed beneath the consonant with which it forms an articulate sound, as in the word nimri. The sound of the kesra answers some

times to the French i, sometimes to é.

The third, called dhamma, has very nearly the form of our figure 9, sometimes it resembles our (,), and is always placed above the consonant with which it forms an articulate sound, as, coullou. The sound of dhamma answers sometimes to the French o, sometimes to ou or eu. often serve only to prolong the sound of the vowel which precedes them.

68. The letters, and

ی

Our

74. Besides the three vowel signs before spoken of, the Arabs have three other signs to which they give the name of tenwin, which indicates that the vowel ought to be followed with the articulation of a grammarians call them nunnations; I shall call them nasal vowels. These nasal vowels are only placed at the end of words, and they serve to form some grammatical inflexions. Their signs are nothing but the figure of the analogous vowel redoubled; as, for example, bábon,

➡↳ bâbin, —ó̟ bában. These examples show at the same time the form of the three nasal vowels and their pronunciation. The nasal vowel an ought always to be followed by an I, as Lyauman, except

ވ

when it is found over a , as in hicmètan, or followed by a s

ي

, or placed over a hamza, as

4

شی

in the last case the sc

ن

mute, as elif is often preserved after the tenwin, and it is written . The contained in these nasal vowels, in pronunciation, is subject to the same variations as the consonant, and these variations are indicated in the

same manner.

77. In a great number of Coufic manuscripts the three vowels are indicated by a very large point, painted ordinarily in red. Placed above the letter it indicates the fatha; placed below, it indicates the kesra, and placed in the body of the letter or at the end, or in a line with the writing, it indicates the dhamma. In order to indicate the nasal vowels, this point is doubled.

78. In African manuscripts the fatha and the kesra, instead of being inclined as our acute accent, are placed horizontally above or below the consonant to which they belong.

Of Orthographical Signs.

89. The djesma is so called, because it separates the artificial syllable at the end of which it is found, from the syllable succeeding. Its name signifies separation. It is placed above the letter, and is formed thus

The djesma may be considered as the sign of a very short vowel; it answers to the quiescent sheva of Hebrew grammarians, and also to their other short vowels, such as hatèf-patah, hatèf-ségol, &c., and to the sixth vowel of the Ethiopic alphabet.

107. When a consonant ought to be doubled in pronunciation, without the interposition of a written vowel, the Arabs do not double the figure of the letter, but they employ a sign named teschdid, formed thus (~). This mark is placed above the letter which ought to be doubled. Among the Arabs of Africa it is generally formed thus (v), or thus (^), and is placed above or below the letter, as the vowel which accompanies it. The figure of the teschdid is a little, abbreviated from the word

strong, or of the word strength, which is the name that the Africans give it.

124. Every which is moved by a vowel, or which is moveable by nature, although it may become djesmaed by certain grammatical rules, is marked by a sign named hamza. This sign is formed thus (). The hamza or elif hamzaed is a real articulation, of which the value has been indicated already, and differs essentially from the elif not hamzaed, which is never moved by any vowel, and only enters into words as a letter of prolongation or as a mute letter. If the elif is moved by a

kesra, the hamza is placed below the letter, and the kesra below the

130. A word which commences by a hamzaed ought often to be joined to the word which precedes it; and this union is indicated by a sign named wesla, that is, junction; it is formed thus (~), and is placed above the elif. When this union takes place, the elif is always followed by a letter djesmaed, and then it is pronounced as a compound syllable, with the last one of the preceding word.

144. When the elif of prolongation is followed immediately by an } mute, instead of the last of these two ', the hamza only is written with its corresponding vowel, and over the of prolongation is placed a sign which is formed thus (~), and which is called medda or matta, that is, prolongation.

146. The same sign is placed also over the letters, when they are employed as figures, or as abbreviations instead of entire words.

Of Punctuation and Abbreviations.

168. The Arabs generally do not employ any mark to indicate the pauses, whether at the end of a period, or in the course of the sentence. They only indicate the end of a subject, either by a red point, or by one of these marks,,, or by writing in red the word which commences a new article, or by prolonging one of the letters of the first word, as

These different methods of indicating the commencement of

a new article answer to our fresh paragraphs (alinéa).

169. If, in common manuscripts, no mark of punctuation is made use of, these signs, on the contrary, are multiplied in manuscripts of the Kurán. The end of each verse is there indicated by the figure; after each tenth verse, another sign is employed, which resembles the isolated, but entirely closed. These two signs mark rather the division of verses, founded in general upon the rhyme, than serve to distinguish the places where the reader ought to pause, in order to render more intelligible the sense of his discourse. The true signs of punctuation are the little letters written in red ink in the superior interlineation. The indicates a pause, necessary to avoid ambiguity: it is abridged from the word The b, contracted from the word, that is,

5

.necessary لازم

universal, shows a pause universally received by the readers of the Kurán.

The contracted from the word permitted, shows a pause left で

to the will of the reader. The contracted from the word

فر

دیں

allowed, indicates a pause permitted, but not becoming. The con

tracted from the word admissible, marks a slight pause granted only from necessity, in order that the reader may draw breath. When the sense requires that there should be no pause at the end of a verse, it is indicated by the word not, written above the last word of the verse,

C

and of which the meaning is there is no pause here. The

tracted from the word they say, marks a contested pause. Lastly

Among the great number of marks of punctuation peculiar to the Kurán, the most necessary and the most used are the, the and the T word.

171. Abbreviations are sometimes indicated by a figure similar to a medda, and often they are marked by no particular sign.

Of Figures or Signs of Numeration.

The eighth column of the alphabet shows the value which the Arabs attach to their letters when they are employed as signs of numeration. Of these letters, which are twenty-eight in number, nine indicate the units, nine the tens, nine the hundreds, and one the number 1000. The order according to which these letters are placed, when considered as numerical signs, is that of the aboudjed. The last six letters being, as there is every reason to believe, of a much later invention than the rest of the alphabet, it is probable that the Arabs, before they made use of these letters, indicated the hundreds from 400 to 900 inclusive, in the same manner as the Hebrews, whose alphabet consists only of twenty-two letters. If they wished to express, for example, the number 600, they would join together the, which is equivalent to 400, and the which is equivalent to 200. In order to express 900, they would join two equal together to 800, to 100.

ق

=

The letters employed as figures follow the same direction as the writing, from right to left, as, 132, ¿i 1053.

شنج

174. It is unnecessary to observe that in this system of numeration there is no figure which answers to our cipher (0); it is absolutely useless, as the value of each figure does not depend on its position in relation to those which precede or follow it.

175. The aboudjed of the Africans differing in some degree from that of the Asiatics, there is also some difference in the value which they attach to certain letters as signs of numeration. This difference consists in that

among them the is equal to 60, the 90, the

900, and the

ش

1000.

300, the 800, the

176. The Arabs have also another mode of numeration, from which is derived those figures which we call Arabic; they call it the Indian cipher It is composed of the ten figures following:

رقم هند

هندي

T
2

3

4

1 The 5 is often formed thus B, and the O like our own. make use of this cipher, they follow a direction quite contrary to that of