122 Iloemle — Essays on the Gaurian Languages. [No. 2, 
Gwitliar, Alwar, Jaipiir, the Marwari dialect, &c. To the eastern class be- 
long, beside the typical Ganwari spoken in the Benares Division, the Bais- 
wari* dialect of Audh, the Maithili dialect of Tirhut, and others. The 
differences between these two classes are so great as to constitute them al- 
most two different languages ; for the Ganwari and its class of dialects 
participate in most of the characteristics of the Bang&li class of the Gaurian 
languages, while the Braj Bhasha class of dialects share those of the other 
Gaurian languages. The Ganwari, as its name which means * rustic’ or ‘ vul- 
gar’ confined to villages) indicates, has never received any literary 
cultivation, and is confined to the low and uneducated part of the population. 
Throughout the whole area of the latter, a more or less pure high Hindi is 
spoken and written by the higher and the educated classes. Hence here the 
area of the Hindi class of the Gaurian languages and that of the Bangali 
class overlap each other, the Ganwari forming a sort of transition language 
between the two. The Braj Bhasha on the other hand has begun from early 
times to receive some literary cultivation. Most Hindi poets within the last 
400 years ( e . g., Kabir, Bihari Lai, Sur Das, Tulsi Das, &c.) have employed 
it principally in their poems. Hence it has become the mother of the Urdu 
and high Hindi. The latter derive by far the greatest part of then- gram- 
mar and vocabulary from it. In fact, it is distinguished from the high Hindi 
chiefly by a greater roughness and a greater abundance of its grammatical 
forms. Grammars of the Braj Bhasha have been written hi modern times, 
e. g., by Ballantyne, and in the Hindi and Hindustani Selections ; and per- 
haps the best known prose work written hi it is the i?i janiti, a translation of 
the Sanskrit HUopadeshd. 
Two opposite opinions are held by different scholars regarding the na- 
ture of the Gaurian languages. While some Orientalists consider them to 
be, with trifling exceptions in the vocabulary, wholly Sanskritic, others 
admit large un-Sanskritic additions, both in the grammar and in the vocabu- 
lary. According to Dr. Caldwell, t e. g., “the grammatical structure of 
the spoken idioms of Northern India was from the first, and always continued 
to be, in the main Scythian ; and the change which took place when Sanskrit 
acquired the predominance as the Aryans gradually extended their conquests 
and their colonies, was rather a change of vocabulary than of grammar ; a 
* The derivation of Baiswdra is uncertain. According to some Pandits, it is con- 
nected with the word IpUTSfY which is said to be the name of a Kshattriya tribe 
living in Audh, who gave to their country the name of the Baiswara countiy, and to 
their dialect the name of the Baiswari dialect. According to others, it is a modifica- 
tion of «[ ry y rid The meaning of the name would then be : the dialect confined to 
the Yaisyas, or rustics ; and it would be almost identical with the meaning of the 
name Ganwari, which is a modification of HHrerCt, e., confined to villages. 
f Comparative Grammar, p. 38. 
