1864.] 



On the Origin of the Hindvi Language. 



507 





find but a few that have escaped its metamorphosing influence, and no 

 less than 165 # letters heavily loaded with excrescences. Several of 

 those letters are Greek and others oblique and horizontal lines with 

 diacritical marks which had never before been made to do duty for 

 letters, except in some systems of stenography. These are surely not 

 recommendations by way either of simplicit}^ or precision, the two most 

 important requirements of a good alphabet, and hence it is, that the 

 use of the standard alphabet has proved so troublesome in the Cape 

 Colony.f The Soman has only two diacritical marks, the dot on the i 

 and the score on the t, and both these are unmanageable in rapid writ- 

 ing ; to multiply them a hundred-fold, and still to expect that the 

 alphabet would remain simple and easy of writing, is to expect what 

 experience has already proved to be, an impossibility. Mr. J. Gr. 

 Thompson of Madras once suggested " An unpointed Phonetic alpha- 

 bet based upon Lepsius' Standard alphabet, but easier to read and 

 write ; less likely to be mistaken ; cheaper to cast, compose, correct 

 and distribute, and less liable to accident •" but unfortunately for his 

 scheme, his letters were distorted and disproportioned, and so meta- 

 morphosed by hooks and loops and spurs that they could not at all be 

 recognised as Roman. Other systems there are, but none free from 

 diacritical marks, nor of so uniform a character as to be generally 

 understood all over Europe. It has been said that when the Roman 

 alphabet becomes familiar to the Indians, it will not be necessary to 

 retain the use of the points, and by their omission, writing will be 

 free and easy. But the proposition amounts to writing a language 

 without vowels, and the mischief of such a course in writing gener- 

 ally, and in mofussil legal proceedings particularly, must be frightful 

 to contemplate. J The experiment has been tried already and found to 

 break down completely. The Kutidl Hindvi is written in characters 



# It is necessary to note that these are all distinct simple letters and not 

 compound consonants and vowel marks of the Sanskritic alphabets, with which 

 some Romanisers wish to confound them. The Sanskrita is a syllabic alphabet 

 and therefore every letter or combination of letters represents a complete syl- 

 lable with its necessary vowel, whereas the Soman, being a literal alphabet, has 

 to put in a separate letter for every sound both consonantal and vocalic that 

 occurs in a^ syllable, and most of them when used for oriental languages have to 

 receive their special diacritical marks above and below. 



f Professor Max Miiller declines to give in his adhesion to Lepsius' system. 



% It has been said that since the Persian, a diacritical alphabet, has been 'so 

 long in use, the Roman is not likely to prove more troublesome. But the object 

 of the proposed change should be to give us a good alphabet instead of a bad 

 one, and not to substitute a defective one by another equally bad. 



3 T 2 



