514 On the Origin of the Hindvi Language. [No. 5 



able in the Urdu. My estimate of 40 to 50 out of every hundred was 

 founded upon the ordinary run of Urdu books, and is not applicable 

 to the style of some of the works patronised by the late effete courts 

 of Delhi and Lucknow. The percentage of foreign words in those 

 books, is, I readily admit, much higher. But at the same time it will 

 be seen from the subjoined extract from the Sarur e Suit mi, the 

 book to which Capt. Lees particularly drew my attention, that it 

 is not so excessively great as to affect much my general conclusion. 

 I add an extract from the Fishdneh Ajdeb which also belongs to 

 the highly Persianised class of writings of the Sarur e Sultdni, 

 and the relative proportion of Hinclvi and foreign elements in it 

 appears to be as 62 to 38 ; in the first named book it is 57 to 38, 

 i. e. 60 and 64 per cent, respectively. My quotations are, I must ac- 

 knowledge, taken at random, and there are passages in both the 

 works which are much more Persianised, while there are others which 

 are less so ; but on the whole they may be, I believe, taken as 

 fair average specimens, as the facts they yield correspond very closely 

 with the results of my enumeration and classification of the words 

 of several pages of each of the two works. To be exact, it would be 

 necessary to count and classify all the words that occur in them, 

 and even then no satisfactory conclusion could be drawn, owing as 

 much to my own limited knowledge of the Semitic languages as 

 to the doubtful origin of many of the words. It is even likely 

 that my division of the Hindvi and foreign words in the short 

 extracts given below will be questioned, but that will not, I believe, 

 alter my position, for I do not depend so much upon the relative 

 proportion of the two elements of the Urdu, as upon its structure and 

 grammar, which I contend is purely Hindvi. The verbs hai, thci, 

 hud, gey a, dehhe, stmhe, Sfc, in the extracts are all without exception 

 Hindvi ; the case affixes he, hd, hi, son, men, Sfe., are likewise Hindvi, 

 and so are the pronouns and prepositions, apne, uoh, se, tah, hid, Sfe. 

 Take away those case- affixes, verbs and prepositions, and the sentences 

 will crumble down and cease to be sentences. It would not-be ele- 

 gant to say in English " the bouleversing of the escritoire created 

 quite a sensation in the boudoir of the Mademoiselle ;" but similar 

 sentences are not rare in first class periodicals and novels, and 

 they afford a fair example of what the Urdu is. Their construction 

 and grammar are English, and though we may call them Galli- 



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