Sanscrit Writing and Language. 105 



of the writing of the two people, in a great variety of points which could not 

 have occurred to different parties independently of each other, proves the reality 

 of that intercourse beyond a doubt, whether we could account for it or not ; but 

 the being able to trace it, and to show that the supposition of its existence is 

 accordant with the evidence which history supplies, is satisfactory to the inquirer's 

 mind. Should it be asked, — if the Indians had communication with alphabetic 

 writers for such a length of time before, why did not they sooner construct their 

 alphabet, — the delay is, I think, sufficiently accounted for by the examples of 

 the Egyptians and Chinese ; upon consideration, indeed, of those examples, the 

 ground for surprise will, I conceive, be found, not that hieroglyphists were so 

 slow in setting about framing a syllabary, but that they framed one at all. A 

 reason, however, for the difference in this respect between their case and that of 

 other people long habituated to hieroglyphs, will presently be adduced. If 

 again it be asked, why, having the power of selecting from three alphabets, did 

 they make choice of the worst as their first model, I answer, they did so because 

 it was the worst ; because it was of a ruder kind than the European ones, and 

 consequently the powers with which its characters are employed, could be much 

 more easily apprehended by persons who had been previously acquainted only 

 with hieroglyphic writing. And I must add, that, if this model had been com- 

 mensurate to the expression of their language, they probably would never have 

 gone beyond It ; but when the use for some time of the syllabary they had thence 

 derived, rendered them practically more capable of employing a superior alphabet, 

 then the impossibility of expressing all their syllables by means of the part of 

 their system first acquired, forced them In some measure to attend to European 

 practice, and by the imperfect Insight they gained Into Its nature they rose to the 

 second part. Although the Syrlac writing, as well as the three kinds just speci- 

 fied, had reached them before the formation of the Sanscrit alphabet, yet I have 

 left it out of consideration among the models to which they may have resorted ; 

 because, as It contains consonants, it would, in the first instance, have been as 

 difficult for them to catch a glimpse of its use as of that of either of the European 

 kinds ; and. In the second case, as it employs vowel-letters only after consonants, 

 mere observation of the practice followed In It, would not have enabled them to 

 remedy the defect~of their syllabary. 



If now we turn from this writing to the language to the expression of which 



VOL. XVIII. 



