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STATISTICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 



Round this question there had raged a battle for over a hundred 

 years. Sir William Jones, the first scientific investigator of the 

 subject, showed that there were practically two systems of exhibiting 

 Asiatic words in English, the " scientific " and that subsequently 

 called " phonetic," the first being based on " scrupulously rendering, 

 " letter for letter, without any particular care to preserve the 

 " pronunciation," while the second proposed " to regard chiefly the 

 " pronunciation of the words intended to be expressed." 



In the early years of British rule, the Indian proper names were 

 written down simply by ear, without any attempt at correctness, and 

 Mr. Markham, in his chapter on the orthography of Indian names, 

 in the " Memoir," gives some amusing instances of this, such as 

 " Sir Roger Dowler " for Siraju'd-daulah ; Crotchy for Karachi 

 (Kurrachee), and " Isle of bats " for Allahabad. But when the 

 British officers came to study the eastern tongues a reform was soon 

 initiated. Major Davy, a Persian scholar, was a strong supporter of 

 a phonetic system, and his plan was adopted in the " Institutes of 

 " Timur," which was published in 1784. Major Davy's contempo- 

 rary, Mr. Halhed, on the other hand, advocated and adopted a 

 scientific system in his code of Hindu law, compiled under the 

 orders of Warren Hastings in 1775. 



Sir William Jones, not satisfied with Mr. Halhed's system, devised 

 the alphabet which bears his name. He provided for all the sounds 

 used in Sanscrit, Arabic, and Persian, by the adoption of the Roman 

 or Italian sounds of vowels. Sir William's modification of the 

 scientific method was called, after himself, the Jonesian system. 

 Oilier champions arose; Dr. John Gilchrist and Mr. Henry T. 

 Prinsep maintaining the superiority of the phonetic system, while 

 Sir Charles Trevelyan and numerous missionaries upheld the scientific 

 or Jonesian system. The contest was transferred, in 1858, to the 

 columns of the " Times " and other journals, and Mr. Monier Williams, 

 Professor Garratt, Mr. Eastwick, Mr. Marshman, Colonel Meadows 

 Taylor, and the Rev. J. Barton, supported one view or the other, 

 but with no decisive result. 



In 1S68 a proposal was made by Mr. Burgess through the Bombay 

 Geographical Society for the preparation of a vernacular and English 

 index of Indian geographical names.* Sir William Hunter was 

 instructed to prepare a system with a view to uniformity in the 



English indexes of all villages in the Bombay and Bengal postal circles have since 

 been carried out ai the instigation and largely under the direction of H. E. M. James. 

 Bo.C.S. 



