1864] 



On the Origin of the Kindvi Language. 



511 



therefore to say a few words on the subject, though I claim no especial 

 knowledge of that art. It has been repeatedly said that the Eoman 

 letters occupy less space, and are more easily composed, more lasting, 

 less liable to breakage, and consequently more economical than any 

 other known class of letters, and if these could be proved to be facts, 

 a strong argument no doubt would be made in its favour. But I am 

 afraid the advocates of the Eoman alphabet have come to their con- 

 clusion, without making sufficient enquiry. I have been assured by 

 several respectable printers, and I know from personal knowledge, that 

 the cost of composing in Sanskrita and Bengali types is much lower than 

 that of setting up Eoman letters ; and that the lasting quality of the 

 former compared to that of the latter, is as 2 to 1. The Eev. C. B. Lewis 

 of the Baptist Mission Press, assures me that " the English type soonest 

 shows signs of wearing out. This arises from the more delicate outline 

 of a nicely cut Eoman and Italic type — and especially from the 

 seriffe of the letters i. e. the fine line at the end of each stroke of b p u s. 

 When this line is worn off, the Eoman letter, even if otherwise good, has 

 a very ancient decayed look." As regards breakage, the Eoman type has 

 great advantage over the Nagari, but this advantage is entirely negatived 

 by its wearing out much faster than the latter. On the whole therefore 

 the balance of advantage is in favour of the oriental type and against the 

 Eoman. Nor is this compensated by any saving of space through the 

 slimness of the Eoman letters. I have a volume by me, containing a 

 prayer by the Armenian patriarch Saint Nersetis Clajensis, translated 

 into thirty-three different languages, and also separate pamphlets con- 

 taining translations of the same into Sanskrita, Bengali and Burmese. 

 The translations in German, Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Syriac, 

 Chaldee, Ethiopia, Malayan, Burmese and Chinese are given in large 

 type : the rest in type very nearly alike. These books therefore 

 offer valuable data # for ascertaining the extent of space which a given 

 quantity of matter takes up in different type, and on examining 

 them, I find that the Eoman is inferior to the Greek, Sanskrita, 



The following list shews the number of pages which the prayer takes up 

 in the different languages. Armenian 13 pages, Greek 12, Latin 13, Italian 

 lo, French 13, Spanish 14, Lusitanian 16, German 15, Dutch 14, Swedish 14, 

 Danish 13, Icelandic 13, Greenlandic 14, English 14, Hibernian 14, Celtic 16, 

 Wallachian 14, Russian 14, Polish 15, Illyrian 13, Servian 13, Hungarian 14, 

 lberiac 22, Turkish 13, Persian 16, Arabic 15, Hebrew 14, Syriac 17, Chaldee, 

 12 B T ^ ^ tMo P ic 23 > Ma %an 20, Malayalim 21, Burmese 12, Sanskrita 



