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Some Problems of Indo-Aryan Philology Forling Lectures for 19291

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Jules Bloch
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Extract

Literary languages of Western Europe are national languages as well; there is no divorce between them and the people; there may be a distance, but no gap between them and the ordinary vernaculars, and their growth and vicissitudes reflect those of the vernaculars. So the historians of the language are able to discover when, where, how they came into existence, and call them to give evidence as to its later destinies. For instance, we know the place where French was born, how it asserted itself against Latin, how it turned out provincial speeches; we can make a fairly good evaluation of the distance between written and spoken French, in the past and now. In India conditions are vastly different; our knowledge of its languages, at least in their most ancient stages, is based only, or nearly so, on literary languages, of which we know neither the local basis, nor the degree of connection with the vernaculars. They do not give expression to the thoughts and feelings of the people; at the most, they give an ideal picture of the culture of a small community.

Type
Papers Contributed
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , February 1930 , pp. 719 - 756
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1930

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References

page725 note 1 See now Donum nalalicium Schrijnen, p. 370.

page728 note 1 I am glad to agree here with the views of Professor Turner.

page730 note 1 Ferishta, quoted by Babu Ram Saksena (Hist, of Urdu Lit., p. 33), notes that by the order of Ibrahim Adil Shah, “ the public accounts formerly kept in Persian were written in Hindui under the management of the Brahmins who soon acquired great influence in his government.”

page735 note 1 Not unknown to Munda, at least to Santali. SeeBodding, P. O., Materials for a Santali Grammar, 2, pp. 61–2.Google Scholar

page739 note 1 A third verbal root where cerebralization of a dental remains mysterious is R.V. dīyati, Ś. Br. ญītara-, MBh. uญญīyate, P. uญญeti. Here no Dravidian will help; but a crossing with the roots drā, dru-, is conceivable; cf. Kati vudra-, Lahnda uddrāṛ brought forward by Professor Morgenstierne (Report, p. 60).

page742 note 1 Professor Turner, however, suggests influence of pairnā (pratir-).

page744 note 1 For instance, Heine-Gelder, , in Festschrift P. W. Schmidt, p. 827 f.Google Scholar; from the linguistic point of view, see Professor Sehrader, 's article, “ Dravidisch und Uralisch”: ZII. 3, p. 81 ff.Google Scholar

page751 note 1 See nowProceedings of the XVIIth Intern. Congress of Orientalists, Oxford, 1928, pp. 75, 76, and 106.Google Scholar

page751 note 2 See Appendix.

page752 note 1 Instructions d'enquête linguistique; Questionnaire linguistique, published by the Institut d'ethnologie de l'Université de Paris (they have been prepared by Professor M. Cohen).

page753 note 1 Graur, , “ Les mots récents en roumain ”: Bull, de la Soc. de Linguistique, 29, p. 122 ff.Google Scholar

page755 note 1 Šrámek, E., “ Les consonnes rétroflexes du bengali”: Revue de Phonétique, 5, 1928, pp. 206–59.Google Scholar