243a Substitution oj the Roman [No. 8, new series. 



have not met with, any of these publications ; my ignorance of 

 them, however, enables me to treat the subject independently, from 

 a purely Indian point of view, and with special reference to the 

 objections of persons who are practically conversant with the In- 

 dian languages. 



The first thing to be done, on entering upon the consideration of 

 this subject, is to satisfy ourselves whether the substitution of the 

 Roman characters for the Indian, supposing it to be possible, would 

 not be in the highest degree desirable and expedient. 



I. In endeavouring to make this point quite clear at the outset, 

 the consideration which first claims our attention is the intrinsic 

 superiority of the Roman character to all others. 



a. It is the simplest character in existence. Its 26 symbols are 

 found to be sufficient for expressing all the consonantal and vowel 

 sounds in the English language, and the addition of a very small 

 number of accents has enabled it to meet the wants of the French, 

 the German, and the Hungarian, the most widely differing systems 

 of sounds in Europe. 



b. It is the distinctest, most legible character in existence. No 

 amount of practice will ever enable any one to read a florid charao- 

 racter like the Persian, or complicated characters like the Deva- 

 Nagari, the Telugu, and the Singhalese, with the precision and ra- 

 pidity with which the unadorned Roman character is read by the 

 most ordinary readers. 



So legible is it, that the practised eye can take in an entire page 

 of a well printed European book at a glance, so as to have a general 

 idea of the contents ; whereas every Arab or Hindu, how well 

 soever he may be acquanted with his own language and with its 

 character, must confess that he cannot take in at a glance more 

 than a few words of any book or MS. at a time, nor be sure of 

 the meaning of a sentence unless he has read every word in it right 

 through. 



The Oriental regards as an impossibility the Englishman's ordi- 

 nary daily achievement of ascertaining the news by merely look- 

 ing over his newspaper, and gaining a correct general idea of the 

 contents of a book by merely turning over the pages. 



The wonderful legibleness of the Roman character, in compari- 



