The Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I.: Commonly Called the Arabian Nights' Entertainments

I have adverted to the system adopted in transcribing foreign words, and I now conclude these preliminary remarks (intended only to render the learned Review easier of perusal to the general reader, and to smooth his first steps in a strange land), by quoting, with some slight improvements by Mr. Lane, the explanation of that system given in the preface to the first edition. "In writing Arabic and other Oriental words in the present work, I have employed a system congenial with our language, and of the most simple kind; and to this system I adhere in every case, for the sake of uniformity as well as _truth_.[5] Some persons have objected to my writing in this manner a few familiar words which are found in our dictionaries; but they will excuse me for remarking that general usage is not altogether accordant with their opinion. Almost every author, I believe, now writes 'Koran,' or 'Kurán,' and 'Pasha,' or 'Pacha,' for our dictionary-words 'Alcoran' and 'Bashaw;' and most of our best authors on Arabian History, of late, have written 'Khalif' for 'Caliph.' In a work relating to a people who pronounce the Arabic w as v, I should write 'Vezeer' for the Arabic word 'Wezeer;' but to do so when the subject is Arabian, I consider inexpedient: and in this opinion I am upheld by a great majority of literary and other friends whom I have consulted on the subject, in the proportion of five to one. I may add that Dr. Johnson has written in his Dictionary, 'Vizier [properly _Wazir_];' and if we express the Arabic vowels by their _Italian_ equivalents, it _is_ properly 'Wazír' or 'Wezír.'--The system which I here employ requires but little explanation; the general reader may be directed to pronounce