1807.] On the Transliteration of Indian Alphabets. 139 



The Government of India stands alone in this extraordinary patronage 

 of a barbarous nomenclature which excites the ridicule of every 

 European scholar. 



In one of the recent discussions on the subject, I remember that 

 Dr. Lees gave a very good illustration of the results of this lax mode 

 of spelling, quoting several Indian words from a 17th century 

 traveller, which were so much disguised by their Roman garb, that 

 identification was impossible. But by a curious perversion of logic, 

 the speaker proceeded to argue the inexpediency of transliteration at 

 all ; whereas the illustration only showed the evil of not having a 

 definite standard : for if each Indian letter had its acknowledged Eoman 

 equivalent, every word would be as intelligible in its Roman as in 

 its Indian form. I would therefore suggest that the Asiatic Society 

 should print in a tabular form the Roman, Nagari and Persian 

 alphabets* as arranged by the eminent lexicographers abovenamed 

 and approved by Prof. Max Muller, the greatest of modern philolo- 

 gists ; and that this table should be occasionally appended to the 

 Nos. of the Society's Proceedings, and every writer expected to modify 

 his phonetic vagaries accordingly. It certainly does not appear 

 unreasonable to require that the contributors to a scientific and 

 literary journal should master the first rudiments of orthography, 

 before they proceed to discuss abstruse questions of philosophy and 

 literary history ; and a writer who appears in print under the auspices 

 of a learned Society should feel it as strange to put down chatta poker 

 for chhatra pohhar as to spell " umbrella," umbreller. I think too that, 

 if a more frequent reference to a Dictionary were rendered necessary, 

 articles would not be forwarded for publication in such a very crude 

 state as is now sometimes the case. Thus in the last No. of the 

 Philological Journal, the same distinguished officer, who writes chatta 

 poker and Machowa and Guchowa for Matsya and Kachchhapa, begins 

 his paper with a lengthy speculation about " a race called variously 

 Serap, Serab, Serak, Siawaka, who were probably the earliest Aryan 

 colonists," and another race called Bhumij, without apparently any 

 idea, at the time of writing, that Srawaka is the ordinary Sanskrit name 

 for a Jain or Buddhist, and that the literal meaning of Bhumij is the 

 earth-born, Autochthones, Aborigines. The identity of the Jain and 

 * This has already been done, — Ed, 



