Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.s1.4

c10.s1.4

² The cause of this I have been able to discover by means of Mr. Melville Bell's admirable book “Visible Speech”. These simple vowels are effected by the *following* consonant when it closes the syllable in certain cases. These consonants are ṭ, ḻ and ḷ, but at the end of a syllable they necessarily induce modification of the vowels. As Mr. Bell (p. 75) says: “The various positions of the tongue which produce ‘centre-aperture’ consonants, form vowels when the channel between the organs is sufficiently expanded and firm to allow the breath to pass without oral friction or sibilation. The vowel positions thus bear a definite relation to the consonant attitudes of the different parts of the tongue.”