136 Contributions towards Vernacular Lexicography. [No. 2, 



technical terms of the poorer trade, are words of other than Sanscrit 

 origin, used by the people generally, to be considered as legiti- 

 mate Bengali or such of them only as are in use in writing by the 

 learned and the pedantic ? It must be noted here that the learned 

 and the higher classes use in ordinary conversation many words which 

 they would not like to see in writing. The discussion has hither- 

 to been limited to the use of Persian and Arabic words, but if those 

 which have been long incorporated in the language, are to be con- 

 sidered as part and parcel of it, surely it cannot be right to condemn 

 the use of words which have come into fashion, simply because 

 they have been derived from foreign languages other than Persian 

 and Arabic. The Bengali language is so very modern, and the 

 works written in it are much more so, that the length of the period 

 of the use of a particular word cannot be considered an argument 

 either for or against its adoption. 



The oldest works in Bengali are the Kavikankana Ohandi, the Chai- 

 tani/acharitdmrta, and the abstracts of the Mahdbhdrata and the Rd* 

 mdyana. The first two contain a great many words so awkwardly 

 distorted that to a Bengali of the present age, they are unintelligible. 

 Many of these monstrosities have too much of the Udid and Rddha 

 form in them. The refined composition of Bhdratachandra, the 

 popular poet of Bengal, who flourished in the beginning of the 

 present century, is not free from such barbarisms. The tendency 

 of present compositions, however, is towards purity. 



Lexicography in the true sense of the word is unknown in the 

 Bengali language. Several dictionaries have been compiled within 

 the last sixty years, and only a few can be said to go back still earlier. 

 The idea of preparing a dictionary of the Bengali language, and 

 that alphabeticaly arranged, was derived from the Europeans, 

 who felt the want of it in studying the language. Before the advent 

 of Europeans in this country, there was no dictionary, in short no 

 literature except a dozen commonplace books. Short vocabularies 

 were first formed, and they were in Bengali and English. An exclu- 

 sively Bengali dictionary originated with the School Book Society, 

 and it was more of an elementary nature than of a comprehensive 

 character. Within the last twenty years we have been furnished with 

 several volumes of dictionaries of the Bengali language. In the 



