448 



Proceedings of the Asiatic Society, 



[No. 4, 



been adopted ; but he thought that the cases, which on a cursory 

 view of the subject occurred to him, would support his belief. The 

 Lord Bishop had referred to the change in the Hebrew alphabet 

 made during the Babylonish captivity, but this was a mere change 

 in the form of letters, like our English change from German text bo 

 the present Soman hand; no letters were added or omitted- and 

 the change was not proved to be derived from any foreign, or non- 

 Semitic, influence. Instances like the adoption of the Arabic alphabet 

 by the Turks were cases where a totally illiterate people without an 

 alphabet (for the Turanians of Central Asia do not seem to have 

 developed one,) adopted that of the race most allied to them by- 

 politics and religion ; and the case of the Magyars was a similar one. 

 That, however, the natives of India took most kindly to the indige- 

 nous, or Nagri, alphabet, of which the various alphabets in use are 

 modifications, might be proved in many ways, and among others by 

 the non-success of the Mussulman rulers in introducing their own, or 

 the Arabic, alphabet. Hindustani, though spoken almost all over 

 India, was not the written language of any portion of India ; only 

 scholars and Court Amlah could write the Arabic character, and, for 

 the purposes of common life, the native alphabet was preferred even 

 when, as among many of the Bengali Mussulmans, the literature was 

 composed in a patois which had more Arabic and Persian words than 

 Sanscrit words. The attempt, therefore, to apply to Hindustan the 

 English alphabet was not likely to succeed. Persons who would not 

 learn the Arabic alphabet would naturally write in JSTagri, or one of 

 its derivations. He could not agree in the conclusion to which both 

 Captain Lees and the Lord Bishop had arrived, that, in case of non- 

 Arian languages of limited extent which had not a vocabulary of their 

 own, the English alphabet might be uped with advantage, and he 

 instanced the Khonds, hill-tribes of Orissa, who were surrounded by, 

 and mixed up with, an Ooriah population speaking an Arian language 

 with an alphabet derived from the Sanscrit. A Mission had recently 

 been established there, and the missionaries had very properly, in his 

 opinion, printed their Blond books in the Ooriah alphabet. What 

 was the object of introducing the English alphabet ? Not that it 

 was more perfect;— the Ooriah alphabet was a far more perfect and 

 useful and better arranged one, and quite as easy to read, The object 

 was to put them en rapport with civilization; to facilitate their 



