OF THE INDO-CHINESE NATIONS. 279 



Tlie Bali alphabet seems, in its origin, to be a de- 

 rivative from the Deva-nagari, though it has not 

 only acquired considerable difference of form, but 

 has also been modified to a certain degree, in the 

 power of the letters, by the monosyllabic pronun- 

 ciation of the Indo-Chinese nations. It has dropped, in 



been, by European writers, in competition with such authorities in 

 Hindu literature, as Sir W. Jones, or Mr. Colebeooke. In his 

 Museum Borgianuvi he has mistaken a specimen of Malayu for Ben- 

 gali ; but this is nothing to what occurs in his Sanscrit Grammar. The 

 same bkinderhad been niade before him, by the Editors of the polyglott 

 *' Oralis Dominica ;" but the following are his own. A numerous class 

 of Sanscrit nouns form the fifth case in at ; in Tamul and MalayaUim, 

 bowevcr, a case of similar import terminates in ai, ; and. this case, which 

 belongs to these vernacular languages, but never to Sanscrit, has P. Pau- 

 riNUS uniformly substituted, in his Sanscrit Grammar, in the place of 

 the regular Sa7i^rit flection in at. This substitution of the letter / for t 

 is not confined to those instances only, in which the analogous flections 

 of a vernacular language may be supposed to have led to the error; it 

 occurs in numerous instances, in which the Sanscrit and popular dia- 

 lects coincide in using the letter t, and which must therefore be consi- 

 dered as the blunders of absolute ignorance. Thus, in the names of the 

 tenses of the Sanscrit verb, he gives lal for lat, hi for lot, HI for lid, and 

 lul for lud. A blunder similar to that which occurs in the f.fth case of 

 nouns, runs tTirough a variety of the flections of the Sansci~it verb. 

 Thus, he gives abhuxal for ab'funat, bhavadal for hliaratat, bhavel for 

 b'havut, bhuyal for b'huyat, abhul for ah'hut, ahhaviszyal for ab'havi- 

 shyat : but the whole work swarms with similar errors. What should we 

 think of a Latin grammarian who should falsify the ablative case in nouns, 

 and misrepresent the third person singular in verbs ? Yet this is nothing 

 more than what has been done by the redoubted P. PAUtiNus, whom 

 the learned Sylvestre de Sacy terms " un des ecrivains les plus 

 tranchans et les plus dedaigneux ;" and he has not only erred in the par- 

 ticular instances wiiich he has adduced in his Grammar, but he has also 

 laid down rules to justify his errors, as, in his rules for the permutation 

 of the letter / into t, d, dh, &c. All his other works, that have fallea 

 into my hands, equally abound ih error, arrogance and ignorance. 

 Equally superficial, inaccurate, and virulent in his invective, a critic 

 of his own stamp would be tempted to retort on him his own quotatioB 

 from Ennius. 



Simia'quam sirail's turpissima bestia vobis. 



T4 



