450 



Proceedings of the Asiatic Society, 



[No. 4, 





outset at least, be experimental ; and it must be admitted that in all 

 experimental undertakings, however good grounds we may have to 

 hope for success, we must not be unprepared for failure. Now, if we 

 were suddenly to print books in all the languages of India in the 

 Eoman characters, and introduce them into all our villages and 

 vernacular schools, and the experiment were to fail — L e. if the 

 people generally were to refuse to adopt these characters— there can 

 be no doubt that we should have succeeded in doing a very great 

 mischief. In dealing with Hindustani alone, we tread on sure 

 ground. We make the experiment with some prospect of success, 

 while we reduce the risk of danger to a minimum. It must be recoil 

 lected however, that the present movement is wholly an outside one. 

 The natives of this country, for whose languages alphabets have been 

 perfected, do not ask for any change. They do not want it. We 

 find the number of these alphabets inconvenient, and we wish to 

 change them all for our own ; but we are aliens, and the question is, 

 should such a point be decided by foreigners ? In regard to the 

 question asked by Mr. Heeley, I am not prepared at present to enter 

 on a review of the progressive development of writing amongst the 

 Scythians. The early history of the colonies of these races who 

 entered India, is involved in much obscurity, from which it will 

 probably never be unveiled. Their earliest records are to be found 

 on the coins of Bactriana subsequent to the downfall of the Greek 

 kingdom. They are written in two characters — corrupt Greek and 

 Bactrian, merging later into the Indian and Sanscrit alphabet ; and 

 as both these alphabets were foreign, it would appear that the early 

 Scythians had no alphabet of their own. The Thibetan alphabet is 

 borrowed from the Indian, and is comparatively modern. The irrup- 

 tion of the Osmanli Turks into Europe did not take place until long 

 after they had embraced Mahomedanism, That people had changed 

 their alphabets, as well as their languages, there can, however, be no 

 question. In fact, if we trace the history of the progressive develop- 

 ment of alphabets, we find it to be one continued series of changes, 

 and it is to the variety of directions in which these changes and 

 developments have been made, that we owe the multiplicity of alpha- 

 bets we now possess, as I have explained in my paper. Nations 

 with imperfect alphabets have never objected to change them. On 

 the contrary, they have shown a tendency to elaborate, improve, and 



