qct. — MAR. 1858-59. j Sub. of the Rom. for hid. characters. 243 



II. On the substitution of the Roman for the Indian characters. 



By Dk. Caldwell. 



{Communicated by Sir C. E. Trevelyan.) 



[This paper has been contributed by the Revd. Dr. Caldwell, the author 

 of the " Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or Southern Indian 

 Family of Languages" which is decidedly the best book on ethnology 

 and philology which has been published for many a long year. The 

 paper also derives a peculiar interest from the fact, that the import- 

 ant subject of it — the application of the Roman letters to the languages 

 of Southern India, has been thought out by the able and learned Doc- 

 tor, without his having had access to the publications on the applica- 

 tion of the same letters to the languages of Northern India. The "hook 

 just published by Professor Monier Williams, and a pamphlet which 

 may shortly be expected from the Revd. G. U. Pope, will supply am- 

 ple information to everybody who is interested in the subject.] — 

 C. E. T, 



Bm, 



The time appears to have arrived for the discussion in Southern 

 India of a question which has made much progress in the North- 

 West, the expediency of substituting the Roman character for the 

 various characters now in use in India. 



On this side of India, so far as I am aware, the plan has rarely, 

 if ever, been seriously discussed. It has generally been regarded 

 as a quixotical crotchet which may most fitly be met with a smile. 

 What is chiefly required, therefore, as it appears to me, in this 

 Presidency, is that the subject should be duly ventilated, and that 

 educationists, missionaries, and public functionaries should be in- 

 duced to bestow upon it a little serious attention. 



Professor Max Miiller has advocated the plan in his " Propo- 

 sals for a Missionary Alphabet." Professor Monier Williams has 

 also thrown his weight into the same scale, and has recently, I per- 

 ceive, brought out a reprint of the principal documents that have 

 been published for and against the scheme, since it was first moot- 

 ed in Calcutta in 1834, I believe, by yourself. I am sorry that I 

 Vol. xx. o. s. Vol. y. n. s. 



