Suggested Principles for the Use and Spelling of Geographical Names. Part I

ASYSTEM of orthography consists of an appropriate script, and rules for its use. The recording of proper names from unwritten languages, and their transcriptions from foreign script, would be relatively simple if our use of the English alphabet were consistent. But the spelling of modern English is inconsistent, especially as regards the vowels. We use as many as fourteen ways of representing the sound of e in be. To achieve regularity in the spelling of foreign names we are therefore constrained to use our alphabet conventionally. In the long debate over the most appropriate convention it was the question of vowel-transliteration which gave rise to the first controversies, and we soon find transliterators inclined to separate themselves into two camps?the one asserting that there was some general way of pronouncing certain vowel-symbols, or combinatiohs of symbols, in English, which, if adopted as the basis of transliteration, might ensure a correct pronunciation of Oriental words by non-Orientalists; the other despairing of extracting any order out of our chaotic vowel-combinations, and founding their system of transliteration on the more regular Italian or French method of vowelpronunciation,, (sic, Monier-Williams, 1891. He meant vowel-representation). The need for systematic rendering of foreign names in the English alphabet was first felt in India, and in 1776 Halhed applied a supposedly English scheme of vowel-representation to the names transliterated in his 'Code of Gentoo Laws,' compiled by order of Warren Hastings. The principle was developed by Sir Charles Wilkins, and extensively applied by Dr. Gilchrist, who published the first volume of his English and Hindustani dictionary in 1787. In 1788 Sir William Jones, first president of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, applied a system to the transliteration of the Nagari alphabet, in which he renounced the English ways of representing vowels in favour of the so-called continental system, but retained the English values of letters repre? senting consonants. He succeeded in adapting a conventional Roman alphabet to the transliteration of an alphabet richer, more logical, and more refined than the Roman: the Nagari alphabet as used in Sanskrit. During the earlier part of the nineteenth century the Halhed-Gilchrist scheme of representing foreign sounds was widely used. Towards the middle of the century however fundamental research on the nature, recording, and transmission of sound, including that of human speech, was in progress. The work then being done by such men as Sir Charles Wheatstone and A. J. Ellis made possible our use of telegraphy, shorthand, and phonetic symbols. Ways more sensitive than those of Halhed and Gilchrist for the recording of language and for the transcription of foreign names became necessary. In 1836 the Royal Geographical Society announced its effective adherence

Geography · Linguistics · Spelling · China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations · History · Lexicography and Language Studies · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research · Philosophy

• The Place-names of Svalbard

  Open Access•Brian Roberts•Polar Record•1948

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