A Misconception Removed — Page viii
viii Publishers’ Note i for ى or (like ee in 'deep'); u for و (like oo in 'root'); Other: ai for ى (like i in 'site') ♦ ; au for و (resembling ou in 'sound'). Please note that in transliterated words the letter 'e' is to be pronounced as in 'prey' which rhymes with 'day'; how- ever the pronunciation is flat without the element of English diphthong. If in Urdu and Persian words 'e' is lengthened a bit more it is transliterated as 'ei' to be pro- nounced as 'ei' in 'feign' without the element of diphthong thus ' ' is transliterated as 'Kei'. For the nasal sound of 'n' we have used the symbol ' ń '. Thus Urdu word ' ' is transliterated as 'mei ń '. * The consonants not included in the above list have the same phonetic value as in the principal languages of Europe. We have not transliterated Arabic words which have become part of English language, e. g. , Islam, Mahdi, Quran ** , Hijra, Ramadan, Hadith, ulema, umma, sunna, kafir, pukka etc. ♦ In Arabic words like (Shaikh) there is an element of diphthong which is missing when the word is pronounced in Urdu. * These transliterations are not included in the system of transliteration by Royal Asiatic Society. [Publisher] ** Concise Oxford Dictionary records Quran in three forms—Quran, Qur’an and Koran. [Publisher]