A Sketch of the Modern Languages of the East Indies

the scattered contributions of distinguished authors, such as Hodgson, Robinson, and others, should be collected, carefully edited, and published in a collective form. Each Society should have corresponding Members in different parts of the Field, that it may know where to turn to in times of need for any particular information. And when particular portions of the Field require light being let into them, search must be made for the right man. I may illustrate this by what I have myself been able to do. Great uncertainty prevailed as to the Malagásy Language. I happened last year to hear a Missionary in Exeter Hall describing Mission-work and Bible-work in Madagascar. I made his acquaintance, found that he was actually employed in conducting the translation of the Bible in Malagásy, and he was good enough to read a paper before the Philological Society, which set all doubts at rest. So again about the Kawi Language, and the Language Field of the Malayan Family generally; in no other way but by application to the learned scholars at Leiden could I have arrived at any results. During the last three years I, and my fellow-labourer, Mr. E. L. Brandreth, have been constantly stopped in our researches, until some reply from India or the Continent has removed an obstacle. This is pre-eminently a work, in which a number of co-operators, and central points of reference, are required.

It cannot be expected that the Officers, charged with the Government of the Provinces of India, should have leisure to initiate linguistic researches; but I have ventured to trouble several, and have ever been received with the promptest courtesy. This may have arisen from the condescending kindness of those distinguished Statesmen to an old friend of many years, as well as from an intuitive feeling, that a knowledge of the Vernacular of a people is one of the important factors of good government. At the same time, I have received letters from accomplished and earnest young officers, who have their linguistic life before them, and to encourage, and assist, and guide whose

labours it must be the pleasing duty of the Asiatic Societies. Among all the Governors of Provinces, I must specially thank my dear friends Sir George Campbell and Sir Richard Temple, who have deemed no corner of the great Indian Problem unworthy of their touch, and have touched no portion, which they did not adorn, whose genius and industry have found time amidst the cares of State to make solid and lasting contributions to linguistic knowledge.

The silent and unobtrusive labours of the Missionaries, and behind them of the great British and Foreign Bible Society, must be fostered, encouraged by grants in aid, and duly noticed year by year. A scholar, who has brought a previously unknown and unwritten Language under the eyes of Europe, or who has compiled a Dictionary, where none previously existed, or who has passed a Family of Languages under scientific review, has done a great work, which is worthy of honour and recognition from the State. The Missionary, able to speak the Languages of the people and teach the arts of peace, may, armed with translations of the Bible in the Language of the people, prove to be the best pioneer of civilisation among the wild Tribes of the Frontiers of Bengal, Assam, and Burma. The soldier, with his periodical expeditions, burning villages, and slaughtering ignorant savages, has failed. The Civil Officer, with his inelastic Law and his uncompromising Revenue-demand, has not succeeded. Let us try what the Missionary, with the translation of the Bible in one hand, and implements of agriculture and domestic manufacture in the other, can do towards the pacification, civilisation, and christianising of wild nomads living on a Jhum system of cultivation,1 and raids upon their neighbours. A power of using the Language of the people, and of communicating to them in that Language new ideas of right and wrong, may do what

1 Jhum or Forest-clearing. "Arva in annos mutant et superest ager.'

TACITUS.

the sword and the policeman's staff have (by the aid of interpreters) been unable to perform.

I have been asked by inquirers in the Field to draw up a list of leading questions, and a Skeleton Grammar for the guidance and assistance of those, who have the opportunity of collecting information. I do not think that this would be advantageous. The old Eton Latin Grammar, being the solitary conception of a Grammar to many, has done much mischief, and called into existence rows of cases and tenses, which have no existence. If assistance is required in recording Vocabularies, copies should be supplied of Max Müller's "Outline Dictionary for the Use of Missionaries and Explorers" (Trübner, 1867). If it is desired to know how the characteristics of an unwritten Non-Aryan Language may best be introduced to European students, copies should be supplied of Bryan Hodgson's famous Essay on the Kooch, Bodo, and Dhimul Tribes of Assam, reprinted in Calcutta (Baptist Mission Press, 1847) from the pages of the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society. My task for the present is finished.

Εἴ καλῶς, ὡς ἐβουλόμην· εἰ δὲ ἐνδεεστέρως, ὡς ἐδυνάμην.

ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, 22 ALBEMARLE STREET,

LONDON, July 16, 1878.

R. N. C.

APPENDIX A.

TWO LANGUAGE-MAPS.

APPENDIX B.

TABLE OF LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS OF THE EAST INDIES.

ARRANGED ACCORDING TO FAMILIES, BRANCHES, AND GROups.

MEMORANDUM.—Where there is an accepted Standard, it is entered; where none exists, the word uncertain is entered. Where there is no chief political or literary representative of a Language, independent of the recorded Dialects, but two or more Dialectal varieties of equal rank, with or without special designations, the number of Dialects is entered, as one less than the number of varieties, so that in all cases the figure entered below each Language-Name represents one less than the actual varieties of that Language.

Example.-Hindi has 49 varieties-1 Standard; 48 Dialects.

Kiranti

has 17 varieties-no Standard; 17 Dialects. Malagasy has 10 Dialects, but one of these is accepted as the Standard, so 9 Dialects only are counted.

Without this precaution in many cases a Name would have been counted twice, as a Language, and as a Dialect of that Language, thus unduly swelling the total of varieties of human speech.