Chief of the Prophets

Chief of the Prophets — Page xiii

xii غ gh , a sound approached very nearly in the r ‘ grasseye ’ in French, and in the German r. It requires the muscles of the throat to be in the ‘gargling’ position whilst pronouncing it. ق q , a deep guttural k sound. ئ ’, a sort of catch in the voice. Short vowels are represented by a for (like u in ‘bud’); i for (like i in ‘bid’); u for (like oo in ‘wood’); the long vowels by ā for or (like a in ‘father’); ī for
or (like ee in ‘deep’); ai for
(like i in ‘site’); ῡ for و (like oo in ‘root’); 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’; however 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 pronounced as 'ei' in 'feign' without the element of diphthong thus ' ے ' is transliterated as 'Kei'. For the nasal sound of 'n' we have used the symbol 'ń'. Thus Urdu word ' ں ' would be transliterated as 'meiń. * The consonants not included in the above list have the same phonetic value as in the principal languages of Europe. * These transliterations are not included in the system of transliteration by the Royal Asiatic Society.