DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20134#0179
ACCOUNT OF SYSTEMS HITHERTO PROPOSED.
147
questions in direct connection with history as well as comparative philology, many valuable
contributions may be derived from Geographical terminology, in the elements of which
may frequently be discovered the remains of languages now lost, as also of forms1
now given up; the general interest excited in India during the last few years in be-
half of a popular, simple, and correct method of transcription must be considered a most
fortunate and important assistance to science. From such materials will arise, at no
distant period, most valuable instances of the gradual change undergone by vowels and
consonants, and grammatical development will thus be furthered in that high and
scientific sense which has been connected with it by modern philology, and to which
Bopp,2 in his " Vocalismus," has given such accurate expression. "The grammar of a
language," he says," "is to be its history and physical description; it has to find out
historically, as far as that may be possible, the road which it followed in its rise and
decay; and at the same time to physically define the laws of its development, de-
struction, or secondary regeneration."
In the following explanatory notes connected with the alphabet used by us, I
found it occasionally unavoidable to mention, details which are no novelty to philo-
logists, but which may p;3rhaps contribute to create a more general interest among
the various classes of European residents in India for the "study of words."
1 The gradual simplification in linguistic forms may bo a subject for regret, though not for reproach; for the
defect is so general among all nations, that we must undoubtedly recognise in it one of the many laws of nature
for which we know no final interpretation.
'' Vocalismus oder sprachvergleichende Kritiken von Fbanz Bopp. Berlin, 1836, p. 3.
19*
147
questions in direct connection with history as well as comparative philology, many valuable
contributions may be derived from Geographical terminology, in the elements of which
may frequently be discovered the remains of languages now lost, as also of forms1
now given up; the general interest excited in India during the last few years in be-
half of a popular, simple, and correct method of transcription must be considered a most
fortunate and important assistance to science. From such materials will arise, at no
distant period, most valuable instances of the gradual change undergone by vowels and
consonants, and grammatical development will thus be furthered in that high and
scientific sense which has been connected with it by modern philology, and to which
Bopp,2 in his " Vocalismus," has given such accurate expression. "The grammar of a
language," he says," "is to be its history and physical description; it has to find out
historically, as far as that may be possible, the road which it followed in its rise and
decay; and at the same time to physically define the laws of its development, de-
struction, or secondary regeneration."
In the following explanatory notes connected with the alphabet used by us, I
found it occasionally unavoidable to mention, details which are no novelty to philo-
logists, but which may p;3rhaps contribute to create a more general interest among
the various classes of European residents in India for the "study of words."
1 The gradual simplification in linguistic forms may bo a subject for regret, though not for reproach; for the
defect is so general among all nations, that we must undoubtedly recognise in it one of the many laws of nature
for which we know no final interpretation.
'' Vocalismus oder sprachvergleichende Kritiken von Fbanz Bopp. Berlin, 1836, p. 3.
19*