270 Substitution of the Roman [No. 8, new series. 



considered, especially with reference to the necessities of rapid 

 manuscript writing, but I do not think that any difficulty even in 

 details will be met with, which might not easily be settled by 

 persons acquainted with the subject. 



I may here add that the plan of modifying foreign characters to 

 enable them to express the sounds of the Indian languages is not 

 a novelty, as appears sometimes to be supposed The experiment 

 has already been tried with a character considerably inferior to 

 the Roman, and the result of the experiment is the character in 

 which Hindustani is generally written. What is that character 

 but Persian (originally Arabic), with the addition of certain sym- 

 bols found to be necessary for denoting peculiar Indian sounds ? 

 It is not alleged that the Persian character cannot be applied to 

 the Indian languages, or that its substitution, with certain modifi- 

 cations, is impracticable. The possibility of doing it has been 

 proved by the fact of its having been done. Solvitur ambulando. 

 It is only the substitution of the Roman characters for the Indian 

 that is now regarded as impossible ; and yet every one must admit, 

 on the least consideration, both that the Roman character is prefer- 

 able in itself to the Persian, and that the modifications of the Per- 

 sian which constitute Hindustani are far less easy, simple, and sys- 

 tematic than the modifications of the Roman character which have 

 now been proposed. 



^ — 



The following are the steps which I beg to recommend should 

 be taken, for the purpose of introducing the plan now advocated, 

 and which appear to me to be likely to be attended with success. 

 I state them in the order in which I think they should be carried 

 out. 



1. The encouragement of discussion respecting the merits of 

 the plan in general and questions of detail, by persons conversant 

 with the Native languages. 



2. The adoption by Government of such measures as are con- 

 sidered to be best adapted for the settlement of the details of the 

 plan on a comprehensive principle. 



