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tions, however important or necessary. It may be correctly affirmed, that in whatever language the English officers of the Company deliver their orders, these are invariably communicated to the inferior agents in the vernacular dialect of the provinces. In the administration of justice, the collection of the revenue, and in the provision of the investment, these dialects alone are used, no other being known to the parties concerned in these transactions. In the upper provinces of India, the pure Indian dialect, indeed, has nearly disappeared; or, rather, a copious intermixture of Persic and Arabic substantives has converted it into the language called Hindustani, which is very universally spoken in large cities, and is more or less understood by the Mohamedans, estimated at a twelfth of the population, throughout Hindustan. This language, therefore, well merits the appellation of a vernacular dialect, and is, in fact, the most extensively useful of any. Almost the whole of its verbs, and a great proportion of its nouns, are derived from the Sanscrit; but, from the obvious circumstances of its formation, it is of course less strictly allied to it than the other. It may be correctly affirmed of each of the latter, that it cannot be perfectly understood without a knowledge of this source; and that he who possesses this, is master of three fourths of the dictionaries of each.

Admitting the analogy between the Sanscrit and the vernacular. dialects to the extent we have stated, some very intelligent orientalists are still doubtful, whether the latter should be considered as derivatives. After proving,' says Mr Colebrooke, that nine tenths of the Hindi dialects may be traced back to the Sanscrit idiom, there yet remains the difficulty of accounting for the remaining tenth, which is perhaps the basis of the Hindi language. Sir William Jones thought it so; and he thence inferred, that the pure Hindi was primeval in Upper India, into which the Sanscrit was introduced by conquerors from other kingdoms, in some very remote age. In the same dissertation, Mr Colebrooke has given incontrovertible proofs, that where similar words are found in both languages, (that is, in nine tenths of the whole), the Hindi has borrowed from the Sanscrit. It follows, that it must be considered a derivative language; and the same argument is equally applicable to all the other dialects. If it could be proved that many Italian words have been transmitted from the Celtic tribes who peopled that peninsula before the arrival of colonies from Greece, we should not, nevertheless, hesitate in pronouncing the Italian to be a derivative from Latin.

That the Brahmans entered India as conquerors, bringing with them their language, religion, and civil institutions, is no improbable hypothesis. The Purana seem even to point out the con

queror

queror in the person of Parasurama, who, at the head of an army of Brahmans, extirpated the military tribes, and overthrew all the existing monarchies. But the period of this event is before the era of historical record. That the words existing in the Hindi language, which can neither be traced to Sanscrit, Persic, or Arabic, must necessarily be the remains of the aboriginal tongue, appears to us a very gratuitous supposition. Long after the introduction of Sanscrit, the Puranas record various successful invasions of Hindustan, by neighbouring nations, whose sovereigns are even stated to have founded dynasties in that country. Of these, the Yavana are the Persians, whose historians concur with the Puranas in this particular. They consider Ardeshir Derandest (the Artaxerxes Longimanus of the Greeks) as the conqueror of a part of India, which continued (say they) tributary to his successors, until the conquest of Alexander. The Saca (the warlike Sace of Herodotus) are also represented as having carried their arms from the Jaxartes to the Ganges, and to have given sovereigns to a part of India. The first of these nations spoke Pehlevi, a language only known to Europeans by the short specimen published by M. Anquetil du Perron; with that of the Sacæ we are still utterly unacquainted. It appears to us much more probable, that these languages have furnished the anomalous part of the - Hindi, than that it was the original language of the country, and has survived the shock of conquests, and changes of religion, to the present day. A supposition more probable than either is, that these words formed part of the dialect of the first Mohamedan conquerors. At the courts of Bokhara, the capital of the Samanides, indeed, the Persian language was spoken in great purity; but the armies of those princes, and of the sovereigns of Ghadna, were principally composed of Turkimans, who carried their arms to the eastern extremity of India, and settled there in great numbers during the reigns of the emperors of Dehli. The Persic and Arabic words which they have introduced into the vernacular dialects are easily detected; but our ignorance of the Tartar idioms may prevent our recognizing the source of the other. But it is time to return from this digression, to consider what other claims the Sanscrit language may possess on the attention of the public, independent of its necessity for the perfect knowledge of such of the vernacular dialects, and its utility in facilitating the acquisition of them all.

We fhall merely allude to the intereft it is calculated to excite in a literary point of view. The differtations of Sir William Jones on the literature and philosophy of the Hindus, have illuf. trated this topic with an ability which leaves us nothing to add.

But its utility is not confined to the ftudy of the antiquities, philofophy and religion of Hindustan. The Pali language, in

which the priests of Buddha preferved the records of their doctrines, their history and poetry, is fo nearly allied to the Sanferit, that all of it which has hitherto been communicated from Siam, Ava, Tibet and Ceylon, is perfectly intelligible to the Sanferit fcholar. This religion pervades the whole continent from India eastward it is established in Japan and Ceylon; and extends further north than has hitherto been ascertained amongst the Tartar tribes. The Sanferit language, then, appears to open to the contemplation of the hiftorian, the philofopher, the antiquarian or the poet, whatever is interesting in the literature of all the nations to the eaft of the Indus.

We will now proceed to confider the analogy of the Sanfcrit with other languages. The propofition which the writer of this article would have wifhed to illuftrate, is thus ftated by that great philologer, whofe critical knowledge of moft of the languages mentioned, entitled his opinion to a degree of authority, which the prefent difquifition is far from claiming. That the first race of Perfians and Indians,' fays Sir William Jones, to whom we may add the Romans and Greeks, the Goths and the old Egyptians or Ethiops, originally fpoke the fame language, and profeffed the fame popular faith, is capable, in my humble opinion, of inconteftable proof: that the Jews and Arabs, the Affyrians or fecond Perfian race, the people who spoke Syriac, and a numerous tribe of Abyffinians, used one primitive dialect, wholly diftinct from the idiom just mentioned, is, I believe, undifputed, and, I am fure, indifputable. To demonftrate this propofition in its whole extent, would have required all the erudition of that celebrated writer; and he who now ventures partially to fupply the demonftration, is acquainted, and that very imperfectly, with only a few of the languages which the propofition embraces. To the fcience of philology he has never devoted a moment; of Greek, his knowledge is flender; and of Hebrew and Ethiopic he is equally and totally ignorant. His fole qualifications for the tafk he has undertaken, are a tolerable knowledge of Sanferit, Arabic, Latin, German, and the modern language of Perfia. It would have been eafy, by the help of lexicons, to have palliated, and perhaps to have concealed this deficiency; but, unambitious of the reputation of a linguift, though defirous of demonftrating a propofition no lefs true than wonderful, he prefers candidly ftating the extent of his qualifications. Yet if Varro and the antient etymologists be correct in confidering the Latin as a derivative of the Greek; or if (as there seems more reafon to imagine) the Pelafgi planted colonies both in the Peloponnefus and on the coaft of Italy, many of our analogies will be found to include the Greek terms allo. On the latter fuppofition, indeed, the Italian peninfula will probably

be

be thought more favourable to the pure tranfmiffion of the original language, being more remote from a mixture of furrounding nations and varying idioms. The analogy we propose to demonstrate is, in the first place, that of the words compofing the languages treated of; and, fecondly, that of their structure.

In the execution of the firft part, we fhall merely open the Perfic dictionary Farhang Jehanghiri; and, when we meet with a word that has the fame fignification in Sanfcrit, Latin or German, write them in a line. Others will certainly occur in the course of the operation. The number of words to be exhibited will amply demonftrate the analogy; but it is not their number, merely, to which we would direct the attention of our readers. That is unavoidably limited by the nature of our Review; and, with a very inconfiderable portion of time and labour, might easily be extended to ten times its prefent amount. It is the fort, and not the number of fimilar words that atteft the affiliation or confanguinity of nations and languages. In the diffusion of arts and sciencesin the progress of conquefts-in the intercourfe of commerce, words are imported into every country, which prove no original affinity between the nation which adopts, and that which invented them. Thus, the Greeks have bequeathed to the reft of Europe their fciences and the names of them. Our word geography only proves that fcience to have been cultivated previously in Greece; algebra,' that the Arabs invented the fcience, and the word to express it; alcove,' that this formed a part of Moorish architecture; guitare, cithara, or xitarra,' that the inftrument was of Perfian invention, and originally confifted of three strings. To the American Indians, we are indebted for the most useless and the most useful of plants, together with their names, tobacco and potatoes. In the history of arts, fciences, or commerce, attention to these names may have its utility in the history of nations they authorize no deduction whatever.

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On the other hand, there are things which must have been named in the very infancy of society, and before the first dawn of civilization. Where these names correspond, therefore, in different countries, we may confidently infer, that the one has been peopled from the same stock with the other. Thus, the names of the parts of the human body, of the relations of consanguinity, and of the animals most familiar to man, constitute a class of words, without which we cannot suppose mankind to exist even in the rudest state of society. To adopt the hypothesis of the learned Bayer, we must suppose the inhabitants of Hindustan to have waited till Alexander the Great conquered Bactria, in order to obtain appellations for the most endearing ties of nature, and to enable them to express the venerable rela

tions of father and mother. The words. we propose to exhibit, consist solely of the class we have described; and it would be superfluous to insert the Arabic words, since one general remark applies to the whole,-that the signification of each word cited, is expressed, in Arabic, by sounds totally dissimilar. Two prefatory remarks will be enough to render our proofs intelligible.

1st, In a numerous class of Sanscrit and Latin substantives, the nominative case is formed by ellipsis, to the exclusion of a radical letter. Thus, rex' seems to be a contraction of 'regus,' since the g is preserved in the other cases, and in its verb regere. In the ablative rege,' (the Sanscrit raja), all the radicals appear. Juno, in like manner, omits a radical letter. The Latin ablative, which forms the Italian nominative, presents the whole. 'Janoni,' a mother, in Sanscrit, is the manifest origin of the Latin appellation for the mother of the gods; but the analogy, preserved in the ablative Junone,' is lost in the nominative. In all cases, therefore, where the latter has been abbreviated, we shall insert the ablative in its stead.

2d, The Devanagari alphabet consists of 50 characters; the Persian of 32; the Roman of 25. It follows, that many sounds, expressed in the first by a single character, require two in the latter. But some of the Devanagari letters are regularly transmuted into simple Roman characters, of which the sound (at least as we pronounce them) is materially different. The constant transposition, however, into the same letter, proves the identity of the word. Thus, the sound of ch, in much,' is expressed in Devanagari by a simple character. That letter, in the. Roman alphabet, is uniformly changed to qu, which is wanting in the former. Thus, the word chatur,' four, becomes, in Latin, quatuor ; the conjunction t cha, ' and, becomes the Latin que, and, like it, is never used but at the end of a word. In like manner, the character used for b aspirated, or bh, is usually changed to f, also wanting in the Devanagari alphabet. Thus, 'bhratara, a brother, becomes frater in Latin. Other regular mutations, and a few anomalies, will be indicated as they occur. must be superfluous to warn the reader, that the signs of the Latin nominatives, us, a, or um, form no part of the word. We now proceed to lay before our readers a specimen of the sort of words which occur with the same signification in the Sanscrit, Latin, Persian, and German languages.

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