44 
G. A. Grierson— Study of Indian Vernaculars in Europe. [No. 1, 
is wrong, and is not understood in India. Tlie correct word is Braman. 
So also tlie language of tlie Bramans is never called Hanscrit, the only 
name used by Bramans themselves being Kirendum. Here the writer 
shows that his knowledge is confined to Southern India, Kirendum being an 
attempt to depict the Tamil pronunciation of the word Grantham. 1 
He adds that the Bramans claim that this tongue is the root of all 
Indian languages such as the Malabaric, the Wartic, (i. e., Telngu), and 
the Ziglesic, which are spoken on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, 
but ho cannot believe that others such as the Malaic, the Mogulic, &c., 
have any connexion in it. As for Chamberlayne’s Sylloge it is full of 
errors in the versions into the languages of Malabar, and when he 
returns to India he will send La Croze some more correct specimens, 
correctly translated by the boys of his Malabar school. 
In September 1716 commenced La Croze’s voluminous correspon- 
dence with Theopliilus Siegfried Bayer, then residing at Leipzig, 
and subsequently at St. Petersburg, whose name will occur several 
times in these pages. The early letters afford few points of interest 
to Indian students. They deal principally with Tangut, Mongolian 
and Chinese. Incidentally La Croze 2 complains of the vast extent of 
his correspondence. People write to him from nearly every part of 
Europe, to the great damage of his time and of his purse. 
In March 1717 Bayer 3 ventures to doubt La Croze’s theory that 
the Sanskrit alphabet was derived from Persian, and the latter but 
faintly defends his opinion, though strongly maintaining that the 
modern languages of India are derived from that of the Bradmans. 4 
Here there is an interval of some ten years, during which Bayer 
moved his residence to St. Petersburg, and the year 1717 may be taken 
as closing the first stage of attempts at a scientific inquiry into Indian 
languages. Men like La Croze and Bayer had to depend upon the 
untrained observations of travellers like Bernier, or to chance communi- 
cations from Missionaries on leave in Europe. In their correspondence, 
the only vernacular of Northern India which they mention is Bangali, 
and I can find no earlier mention o'f that language in any other work, 
though Yule 6 quotes the word as meaning a native of Bengal, from 
Barros, who wrote in 1552. They make no reference to Hindi or 
Hindustani, though the word “ Hindustan ” had been used as meaning 
the vulgar language of India for more than a century. 6 Probably the 
^ Cf. Valcntijn (1727) (Oud en Eiew Oost Indien), ‘ Girandarn by others called 
Eerendum, and also Sanskrita, is the language of the Brahmins and the learned.’ 
Quoted in Hobson- Jobson, s. v. Grunthum. 
2 L. 0. Ill, 59. 3 l. 0. I, 16. 4 L. C. Ill, 22, 23. 
6 Ildbson-Jobson s. v. 
3 Hotson-Jobson s. v. 
