﻿A?-^ AN ACCOUNT OF THE BAZEEGURS, 



Though in the Encyclopedia Britannica Grellman's 

 theory is thought slightingly of, tlie similarity of* 

 lanii'u-tsi'e beino- deemed but inconclusive evidence, 

 yet m this instance, even in opposition to such au- 

 thority, I will venture to consider it as forming a 

 basis of the most substantial kind It is not the ac- 

 cidental coincidence of a few words, but the M'hole 

 vocabulary he produces differs not so much from the 

 common HindoosUiuQC, as provincial dialects of the 

 same country usually do from each other. Grell- 

 man, from a want of knowledge in the llindoostanee, 

 lost many opportunities of producing the proper word 

 in comparison with the Gipsy one. 



The story of the Malabar students being rejected, 

 upon the supposition that they, being Bra/nnuNS, and 

 only conversant in Sun.scrit *,. could not have un- 

 derstood the common Hiudooatance dialect, oifers a 

 good specimen of the kind of criticism which Grell- 

 man has to fear. 



The following List of words, Mdiich were taken 

 from the Annual Register of 17S4-5, with a few 

 I have now subjoined from Grellman, in some of the 



instances 



* It has not yet been incontestibly proved, that the Sunscrlt ever 

 was a spoken language in India, and the few Bruhmufis who now can 

 speak it at all, seldom if ever talk that langu;^ge in their own donnestic 

 concerns ; on the contrary, they commonly employ the prevalent local 

 dialect of the place, which will frequently be a species oi Hindoottanee^ 

 There are so very few towns, cities, or even large villages, which were 

 ever conquered, or even much frequented by the Moosulmans, in the 

 whole peninsula of India, wherein this colloquial language is not more 

 or less understood, that we can scarcely conceive there are many travel- 

 ling Brnhmum vvho require a previous knowledge of the 5.v/zjfn/ before 

 they can understand Hindoottanee. The objection on the score ot the 

 Gypsie and Hindoostanee numbers being so different, if they really be 

 so, might be answered by adverting to the ?rbitrary introduction of a 

 new series cf numerical words into some Indian dialects, where the sub- 

 stanc?of any particular speech in question will be found to agree, almost 

 in every thing but number, with many other tongues from the same 

 source. 



