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    1326 THE LEADER. [3fo, 454, December 4, ...

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    INDIA AND INDIAN PROGRESS.

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    THE ENGLISH IiANGHJAGE IN INDIA—EGKAN TY...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    1326 The Leader. [3fo, 454, December 4, ...

    1326 THE LEADER . [ 3 fo , 454 , December 4 , 1858 .

    India And Indian Progress.

    INDIA AND INDIAN PROGRESS .

    The English Iianghjage In India—Egkan Ty...

    THE ENGLISH IiANGHJAGE IN INDIA—EGKAN TYPE . The letter of Sir Charles Trevelyan in our last number very ably states the ease for his party in behalf of the use of the Italian , or Sir W . Jones ' s vowels ; but , strong as it appears , it does not answer the objections to the preference of Italian vocalisation to English , nor does it succeed in showing that the Italian system is suitable to India . SirCharles ' s first position is , that the Italian

    system comes nearest to the powers of the vowels in Latin and the languages derived from it , and it involves the further postulate that it is a system adopted by literary and scientific men throughout the civilised world . Nothing is more difficult to prove than that the present Italian vowel sounds represent those of the Latin at . any period of the republic or the empire , and there are good phih > logical grounds for doubting that the Italian ft , i , and v , are identical with the Latin . It is within the historical period that a has taken the ah sound

    for aw , and the oo sound for u is certainly not adopted by the French representatives of the Latin dialects . ' The pedigree of Latin and Greek pronunciation is too ill established for us to allow Sir Charles Trevelyan to assume the legitimacy of his system on the grounds that it is Latin , and the heir of the Latin stock . The philological evidence has been for three centuries in controversy , and it is not yet admitted , and , indeed , so unsatisfactory is it , that the English pronunciation of Latin and Greek remains in force , because no sufficient case can be made out to supersede it ; and yet Sir

    Charles wishes us , under such circumstances , to admit this pseudo-Latin pronunciation as indisputable authority . As a matter of philological expediency the argument is not even satis factory , so far as it is applicable to the expression of Oriental languages . This , however , as we shall show , is but a very small part of the subject . We are quite ready to admit that the literary and scientific men of the Continent prefer the Italian system , hut , for the reason just referred to ,

    this affords no argument for its adoption b y Englishmen , nor have we , as Englishmen , any right to prefer a Latin system to a Germanic system . It is not a matter of any great moment whether Bengalee be ao treated as to be convenient to a German , an Italian , or a Spaniard , but it is a matter of very great moment so far as Englishmen are concerned , and so far as Bengalese are . concerned , that it shall be so treated as to be convenient to Englishmen and Hindoos .

    We are awarp that the Italian system has been applied to Hindostance , to Feejeean , and to Hawaian ; but so far from allowing this to be a reason for its extension , we can only regret that it should liave been so applied . Sir Charles Trevelyan states that the consonants remain the same in the Italian and the English systems , and the five vowels alone differ , though the difference is greater than this ; and he takes the ground that the vowels are applied in English in pui extremely irregular manner , and deprecates

    the adoption of any English powers . Now this is the real point on which the issue depends , for as to the general adoption of the Roman type , that is allowed by Sir W . Jones and the old school , by Gilchriat and his school , by Sir Charles Trevelyan and the new school of civilians , by the missionaries , tjy J * rofesaor Newman , b y the German philologists , and by all the various adherents of a conformity of type . The question now is one of progress material to the civilisation of India , it is no question of satisfm « iM a Pitnr niaoainoi a / kVirtlava fha fTovmon h «/\ faaaA « a Vl WOOVi

    ATAJMW ** AWT V 4 WNw * VH * nvmv « w > ^ w ** n * >* % >* # »¦«•»* pJk O of Oriental tongues , the circle of philological dilettanti who apply the Sanscrit alphabet to determine Indo-European roots , or tbe students of the Semitic languages , These are the parties whose prepossessions Sir Charles Trevelyan and his adherents seek to comply with , and whose convenience they cater for , wliilo interests of the greatest moment and all practical considerations ate utterly disregarded . They arq now seeking to fight the battle of the Indian languages on the ground most favourable to thorn , and most unfavourable to the material interests concerned ; and

    thus , while we applaud the Anglo-Hindostanee movement so far as it goes , we caution the pubhc against being deceived by the conclusions Sir Charles trevelyan seeks to draw from it . Hindostanee is a lingua franca with a Hmctcc base and a partial Arabic construction , and it has a limited old literature . The Italian system is to some extent convenient , particularly so far as Semitic forms are concerned , to apply such apparatus of technical memory as faraga , Vatasaininanu-a , & c ; but , even in Ilindostanee , this forms but an inconsiderable matter , and the language could be convenient ! v worked on a system less discordant

    with English , and Sir Charles Trevelynn has not told us this , that though Hindostanee is so largely used in the North-Western Provinces , because it is near to the Mahometan countries , which form the gate of inroad , and are the seat of a large Mahometan population , yet over a great part of India it will be difficult to ' find one man in a village who has even a limited knowledge of Hindostauce ; that , in fact , to nine-tenths of the vast population of India it is a foreign language , and about as essential as French in the Hig hlands of Scotland or in the villages of the Tyrol .

    There are vernacular languages in India , of Indo-European type , which are spoken each of them by more millions of people than Hindostanee , and it is with them really we have to deal , for Hindostanee is a foreign , artificial , and perishable language , and must die away as Persian will die in India . As the Mahometan population loses its ascendancy , as vernacular literature acquires consistency , and as the English language and English civilisation extend , Hindostauec must , die , as it rose , the creature of emergencies and the victim of them . As the Persian and

    vernacular element strengthens the Semitic elements will decline , for the study of Pevsian literature must decline , and the study of Arabic for theological purposes among the Mahometans will take the position it docs among the Turks and that Hebrew docs among the modem Jews , A new Hindostanee of Ilindee and English is arising , which will outgrow the old Hindostanee of Hindee and Arabic . When the philological party have succeeded in establishing their Urdu-Roman to the full , then Urdu and Urdu-Roman will have reached their doom , and it is for such

    transitory purposes that the civilising instruments of India are to be alloyed and warped . After all , the English public and the English in India will subject the whole system to a rigid and practical test ; it will not be enough for them that one Spanish or Portuguese professor in a university has been contented , or that two or three Mahometans in a village in Bengal or Bchar are better pleased , that Syeed Abdoollah and the moonshees have fancies and prepossessions for complicated arrangements , but the question will be how the system works with the mass of the population : and let us sec how that will be , The

    philologists have led us to believo that . the introduction of Roman type is an essential instrument of civilisation in India , and they have adapted it to an Italian model . For -this Sir Charles Trevelyan quotes the authority of Sir William Jones , a name ever to be read with reverenco , and in matters which are those of authority to bo deferred to , but in this matter Sir W . Jones himself , were he alive , would , in all likelihood , be found opposed to his disciples . In his day , in seeking a Roman alphabet to render the Indian languages for philological purposes , ho justly consulted the sympathies of the few

    scholars of Europe , of the very constituting the class of Oriental students , and without reference to English prepossessions or English convenience he adopted the Italian system . This has been received by most scholars , but wo may mention , not disrespectfully , that not having boon found suitable for English purposes—and after all Englishmen havefconstituted the authorities who deal with such matters—it has had to contend with English spell * ina and with Gilohrist spelling , the authority of scholars not having been acooptcd by the multitude . We have stated what were the ciroumstances Sir W , Jones had to provide for , and we now beg to remind Sir Charles Trevelyan and his colleagues what they have to provide for : flrst or last , the wants of a hundred thousand Englishmen or more ,

    now . in India or who will soon be there , and firs f or last , whichever they like , the wants of two'huh tired millions of people , who arc destitute -of the literature of civilisation , and to whom English civilisation must be communicated . " \ Vc \ vill ° now suppose that in a town in Bengal , Assam , Madras or some hill tribe , a school has been set up by the missionaries , and that the class books are printed after the Italian system , which the children learn They have then , many or all of them , according to the extent of English intercourse , and

    according to their own demand for intellectual progress , to learn English . They hare to contend with a difficulty which Sir Charles Trevelyan has well set before us , the cxtrcmelv irregular manner in which the English vowels are represented . The boy or girl will then find that in all the essentials of English , reading the alphabet he has been taught for his own vernacular , so far from helping him , will throw him into greater confusion , being needlessly wrought up to be as-dissimilar from English as can be , and thus the ? reat aim and end of his education is materially

    interfered-with , and it may be frustrated , instead of being ^ facilitated . / does not represent the ordinary English sound , but ai does , ana only once will he come across ai in English standing for it An , too , helps him not , for instead of representing an , it has , to please the Germans , been made to sound ok . U is uniformly the short oo , ami so ; throughout he gets no help in diphthongs or vowels , except in o . Sir Charles Trevelyan refers to the circumstance that his voxels do represent some of the sounds of the English vowels , but they are thoc least frequent or of least

    importance . If there were anything sacred and immutable in Sir W . Jones's svstcni , or in Sir Charles Trcvclyan ' s recent modification of it , or if it were really and truly of European universality , we might perhaps be less encouraged to demand that it shall receive the necessary improvements ; but the al p habet lias not been held sacred , and changes have been made even from the last canon of Sir Charles Trevelyan

    and his colleagues in the Calcutta Committee , ol which two letters have been altered by the missionaries . To appc : il to European uniformity is to take a shifting shadow for a standard , for tlic alphabet of each country has material variations , and the fashion of langiuigc changes , not only in light modifications of vowels , but in heavy consonants , and even now the */* form of the German * g being reduced to the softer form of the latter , i a student looks at , the Ang lo-llindostnnee alphabet he will find ch and sh as in English ; but shuinnknown on the Continent , and ch . has the . ing s /» 1

    sound in Spanish nlone , being ¦* m . ««« .., >» in Italian . J has the English sound , bcwgncUto the French / , the Italian , nor Ncthcrland . sli o g vowel , nor fs it the Spanish . /<*¦ . // ' has t cfcnglab sound instead of the High Dutch . 1 h « JJ > English sound instead of the * ™ cl \ ° n S K Thus the conformity is less orthodox than 1 i sup posed , and the service rendered to the p luloo of Europe less potential . The service . to tg Englishman and Hindoo is , however , cons dernM antf the practical man is tempted to ask why more cannot be done . , , , , , . p rsof The two th , »* c , ff , ch , and the nnomtoM Powr the consonants , vowels , and diphthongs , } u 1 »} Hindoo student be learned after tho 3 wW $ J but he will be sorely tinfl needlessly P «« M - powers attributed to the vowels and Uip Wl ^ There is no philological necessity for cm , .

    being represented by «« instead of the m ™"* , valeSts , and this point might be c ° » ccd ™ : J ctory Tho representation of i by ai is another ubJ * 1 ' ;" ^ expedient , founded on a P "' l ° ? £ Icft LrfS emmot caisimr confusion . If the Italian party -cm conce < fc tho rf they might compromise > JorA gl ; 8 h dot on it , wjaoh would give tho Hincloc . the w * power of i j vowel . So' tender , hoyjer . » ljs | , party of conceding tho vowels , 11 at the . uf reader might well imagine it was a luting a sitivo alphabetical characters , instead ot «» scrip oonBi » Uiiff of consonants , ^ hi ob at JP » j ye 9 p lies the place of vowels by vowel points or them out . , „ { nn r ur iu do . We may bo thought to lmvo gone too

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 4, 1858, page 22, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04121858/page/22/