REPORT OF THE TRANSLITERATION COMMITTEE. (Adopted by Council, 8th May, 1894.) At the General Meeting of this Society held on the 21st April, 1890, a resolution was passed, on the motion of Sir M. Monier-Williams, that this Society should, in co-operation with other Asiatic Societies, urge upon the next Congress the advisability of conferring on the possibility of formulating a uniform and international system of transliteration of Oriental alphabets. At the next meeting of the Council a committee (consisting of Sir M. MonierWilliams as Chairman, Professors Sayce, Bendall, and Rhys Davids, Dr. Rost, Dr. Thornton, Mr. Kay, and Mr. Lyon) was appointed to carry out this resolution. Owing, however, to the continued illness and absence from England of Sir M. Monier-Williams very little progress was made, and the work was not completed in time for the Ninth International Congress, held in London in the autumn of 1892. In January, 1894, Col. Plunkett, R.E., and Dr. Gaster were added to the Committee. Col. Plunkett was elected Chairman, and frequent meetings have since been held in order to bring the matter before the consideration of the Tenth International Congress of Orientalists, to be held in Geneva in the autumn of 1894. Dr. Thornton had been kind enough to procure official documents on the subject from India, and the following letter had been despatched to the Secretaries of various foreign societies: ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, 22, ALBEMARLE STREET, LONDON, W. 21st Nov. 1890. SIR,-In the present state of the comparative study of Philology, and of the history of religious beliefs and of institutions, it is becoming daily more and more important that the transliteration of Oriental proper names by scholars of different countries should become, as far as is possible, uniform. With a view of ascertaining how far this can be brought about this Society has it in contemplation to take some action at the next Congress of Orientalists. I have the honour, therefore, to ask you whether your Society would co-operate with our own in urging upon the Congress to take the matter into consideration. The Committee appointed by the Council of this Society to deal with this question is quite aware of the difficulties which surround it. It proposes, therefore, in the first place to ascertain what the amount of divergence between the leading scholars of the various countries interested in Oriental research really is, and to confine the enquiry at present to two alphabets, the Sanskrit and the Arabic. With this object I have been requested to ask you to be so kind as to inform me whether your Society has adopted or recommended any system of transliteration for those alphabets,-if so, what that system is,-and if not, whether your Society, as a Society, could not go so far as to place on record, either in its own Journal or in a communication to this Society, the system which it regards as preferable. I am, Sir, Your obedient Servant, T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, To the Secretary of the Society. |