2 



rSTRODUCTIOX. 



the songs of Vidyapati Thakur, I know of no literary work which it pos- 

 sesses. It is emphatically a spoken language. There is no standard to 

 which it can he referred, and hence no form can be put aside as vulgar 

 or impui'e. It is hoped, not only by myself, that the publication of a 

 treatise like the present will tend to fix a standard and to foster a literature 

 which might easily arise in so racy and fluent a language. 



For Maithili is a language and not a dialect. It is the custom to look 

 upon it as an uncouth dialect of untaught villagers, but it is in reahty the 

 native language of more than seven and a quarter* millions of people, of 

 whom, as vdll be borne out by every official having experience of North 

 Bihar, at least five millions can neither speak nor understand either Hindi, 

 or U'rdu without the greatest difficulty. It differs from both Hindi and 

 Bangali, both in Vocabulary and in Grammar, and is as much a distinct 

 language from either of them as Marathi or Uriya. It is a country with its 

 own traditions, its o^vn poets, and its own pride in everything belonging to 

 itself. 



For this reason, I hope that this grammar may be found useful 

 to the officials who are brought into every day contact with the country, 

 and that the too often, I fear, contemptuous ignorance exhibited of the 

 gdoiodri, may be superseded by a desire to learn a language, which cannot 

 fail to be useful to them, and the acquirement of wMch is now made easier. 



Maithili is spoken by all the Hindus and Muhammad ans, who in- 

 habit the great plain which is bounded on the North and South by the 

 Himalayas and the Ganges, and on the East and West by the Kosi and 

 Gandak respectively. It is thus the native language, not only of the 7i 

 millions of North Bihar, but also of the unnumbered millions of the Nepal 

 Taral, bordering on the districts of Champaran, Tirhut and Bhagalpur. It 

 has various dialects, differing slightly from each other, the two extremes 

 being that of Champaran on the west, which approaches the language of 

 Chapra, and that of Bhagalpur on the east which contains a few forms tend- 

 ing towards Bangali. The dialect which I have adopted as a standard is 

 that of the Madhubani Sub-division, which is centrally situated, and which 

 is admitted by all Brahmans to be the head-quarters of Mithila. I have 

 a practical and personal knowledge of the dialects of North Bhagalpur, 



* Population of — 

 Champdrnn 



Tirhut 



Begvi Saral Sub-Divisiou of Hunger 

 Svipaul ,, ,, Bhagalpur 



Madhuipura „ „ „ 



14,40,815 

 43,84,706 

 5,37,725 

 5,65,747 

 3,91,086 



Total 



73,20,079 



