"ملف 1/50 الروتين المكتبي" [و‎‎٧‎٧] (٢٠٦/١٥٣)

Extract from the Imperial Gazetteer of India, Volume I,
pages ix-x
KUTi^ 01. TK^LIT^IIQN
Vowel
Sounds
a
has
the
sound
of a in
'woman'
•s
has
the
sound
of a in
•father'
e
has
the
vowel-sound in
'grey•
i
has
the
sound
of i in
'pin'
t
has
the
sound
of i in'police'
0
has
the
sound
of o in
'bone'
u
has
the
so una
of u in
'bull'
u
has
the
so una
of u in
'flute •
ai
has
the
vowel-sound in
'mine'
au
has
the
vowel-sound in
'house'
It should be stated that no attempt has been made
to distinguish between the long and short sounds of
e and o in the Dravidian languages, which possess the
vowel-sounds in •bet 1 and ^ot 1 in addition to those
given above. i^or has it been thought necessary to
mark vowels as long in cases where mistakes in ■
nunciation were not likely to be made.
Consonants
Most Indian languages have different forms for
a number of consonants, such as d, t, r, dc., marked
in scientific works by the use of dots or italics,
as the European ear distinguishes these with difficulty
in ordinary pronunciation it has been considered
undesirable to embarrass the reader with them; and only
two notes are required. In the first place, the
Arabic K, a strong guttural, has been represented by
k instead of q, which is often used, Secondly it
should be remarked that aspirated consonants are common;
and, in particular, dh and th (except in Burma) never have
the sound of th in ^his 1 or 'thin, but should be
pronounced as in 'woodhouse 1 and f boathook l ,
Burmese Words.
Burmese and some of the languages on the frontier
of China have the following special sounds
aw has the vowel-sound in 'law 1
and ti are pronounced as in German,
gy is pronounced almost like j in 'jewel 1
ky is pronounced almost like ch in 'church'
th is pronounced in some cases as in 'this,'
in some cases as in 'thin 1
w after a consonant has the force of uw.
Thus, ywa and pwe are disyllables,
pronounced as if written yuwa and puwe.
It should also be noted that, whereas in Indian
words the accent or stress is distributed almost equally
on each syllable, in Burmese there is a tendency to throw
special stress on the last syllable,
General
The names of some places - e,g, Calcutta, Bombay,
Lucknow, Cawnpore - have obtained a popular fixity of
spelling, while special forms have been officially
prescribed