48 



Hindustani in Paris. [No. 11, NEW series. 



With great deference to M. de Tassy's opinion, we suspect 

 that as an Arabic and Persian scholar he is more familiar with the 

 terms used by Oriental Christians where those languages are 

 spoken, than with those which were used in India many centuries 

 before any part of the Bible was translated into Hindustani. The 

 founders of the ancient Christian Church on the western coast of 

 India seem to have known their native land by its old Hebrew 

 name of Surya, rather than by the modern Arabic name of Sham, 

 since the native Christians on the western coast, from time imme- 

 morial, have always called themselves " Suryani." Therefore it is 

 but natural and reasonable, in a Hindustani translation of the New 

 Testament, to use words that are already familiar to Indian Chris- 

 tians, rather than to go to the Arabic language for words of more 

 recent origin and less correct etymology, such as Sham and Butros, 

 merely because they are adopted by Oriental churches of greater 

 pretensions and more imposing appearance, than the poor though 

 venerable churches of Malabar and Travancore. 



One of the forms preferred by M. de Tassy, Butros, is obviously 

 the mere result of the absence of the letter P from the Arabic 

 Alphabet. In India the name Patras is common, not only among 

 the Syrian Christians, but also among the Armenians who have 

 been settled in India for the last five centuries. Why then should 

 the correct name be banished from an Indian version of the Tes- 

 tament, and an Arabic barbarism — if M. de Tassy will pardon us 

 for hurling back that missile, — foisted into it ? 



Hardly any event of the last two years that is in the slightest 

 degree connected with the study of Urdu, or with the history of 

 our Indian Empire, seems to have escaped the Parisian Professor's 

 observation, and he treats every thing in a genial and generous 

 spirit. He congratulates Europe upon the total suppression of 

 the "great Indian insurrection" of 1857, which, he predicts, fa r 

 " from shaking, has consolidated the power of England." He 

 mentions with warm praise the address in the Hindustani language 

 delivered to the young native Christians after the confirmation 

 service at Bareilly, in last November, by the Bishop of Calcutta ; 

 and he does not forget to pay a graceful tribute to the memories 

 of Mountstuart Elphinstone, Macaulay and Horace Hayman 

 Wilson. 



