220 Baron Humboldt's Essay on the Oriental Latiguages, 



nature of their idioms. Where deficiencies are discovered, efforts siiould 

 be used for their supply, by encouraging those persons who are already 

 employed on those languages, or may intend studying tliem, to form gram- 

 mars and dictionaries, and to publish the principal works existing in 

 these languages, for which every facility should be afforded them. If 

 materials to a certain extent were thus collected, we should unquestionably 

 not want men who would be able to deduce from them conclusions from 

 which to prepare a critical view of the affinity of the Indian languages, and 

 to determine, as far as tlie data which we might possess would admit, the 

 manner in which the Sanscrit and other languages of India and its islands 

 have reciprocally acted upon each other. I assume that the learned of the 

 Continent would take their share in this work, M, E. Burnouf, of Paris, 

 having already commenced a series of papers on the subject in the Nonvcau 

 Journal Asiatique. 



There exists in England a vast quantity of manuscript materials relating 

 to these languages. Dr. B. Babington, for instance, possesses alphabets 

 altogether unknown in Europe up to the present time. In England, also, the 

 great advantage is possessed of being able to direct works upon these lan- 

 guages to be undertaken in India itself, and to guide such labours by plans 

 sent from tliis country. In India these are living languages, and literary men 

 of the very nations in whicli they are spoken may be employed in the 

 researches we wish to forward. No other nation possesses so valuable an 

 advantage. It is important to profit by it. The deficiencies in our knowledge 

 are numerous and evident. We possess scarcely any thing upon theMalayalim ; 

 and are in want of a printed dictionary of the Tamul. But while we keep 

 this object strictly in view, and work upon a fixed plan, we shall insensibly 

 fill up these vacancies. It is certainly difficult to find men who both can 

 and will engage in a work like this, but they are undoubtedly to be 

 found. Thus Dr. Babington has mentioned Mr. Whish to me, as being 

 profoundly acquainted with the Malayalim, and as being already employed 

 in making it better known in Europe. Solid labours upon languages are, 

 in their nature, slow. In an enterprize so vast as that of examining to the 

 utmost possible extent each of the numerous languages of India, progress 

 can only be made insensibly and step by step. But learned societies afford 

 this advantage, that the same labour can be continued through a long series 

 of years ; and complete and perfect works upon two or three idioms are 

 certainly preferable to notions, more or less superficial, upon all the dialects 



( 



