ON ETHNOLOGY. 
319 
On the Relation of the Bengali to the Arlan and Aboriginal han^ 
guages of India. Bg Dr. Max MI'ller. 
The interest which the Bengali l.inguage presents to oriental scliolars, and 
which induces them to devote their time to the study of this Indian dialect, 
may be viewed imder three different heads, iis maclical, lUcraru, and lin- 
guistical. 
On thejfrs^ point, it is hardly necessary to enter into any details. The 
English people, who have been called to rule the destinies of more than a 
hundred millions of souls in the East, unc*tciuh of whom make use of the 
Bengali as their vernacular dialect, have well understood the duties of those 
who have been appointed to govern this great oruntal empire. Great exer¬ 
tions liave been made to give sufficient training to those who arc destined to 
execute the various duties connected with the internal government of India; 
and it has not been thought enough tliat they should receive such an education 
as would entitle them to employments in their own country, but it has been 
felt that it was peculiarly incumbent upon them to study the languages of the 
people over whom they were to l>e placed, not as the son* of a foreign and 
conquering nation, to raise taxes, to punisli disohedience, and to suppress 
every trace of national feeling, but as men devoted to the higher object of 
mspinng confidence, of winning affection, and of promoting for the benefit 
r5-L population the benigo influence of European civilization. 
With this view of the mission which the EogliKli people have been desirous 
of fulfilling in India, it could not be considered enouglf for an officer to 
understand just so roach or so little of Persian and Hindustani, .as to deci¬ 
pher representations and complaints, or to convey olficud decrees to a sub¬ 
ject people. For though these two l.iuguagc* may have some claim to be 
regarded as the official languages of IiuIih, particularly among the liigher 
classes of the iiativi a, yet tliey arc, like tl.e French in Europe, unknown to 
the great mass of the population, and of little use therefore for llic ordinary 
purposes of daily life. Ahlimigh. then, a prejudice may have prevailed 
for some time against the study of the vernacul.ir dialects spoken in the 
large and densely peopled distriui* of India, tt was soon acknowledged, that 
for local eommmiiration luul for an immediate and effective intercourse with 
the pcopl^ a knowledge of provincial languages like the Bengali, Marathi, 
leiugu, Tamil, Camalika mid Cingalese, was of no loss importance and 
newssity than that of the more fashionable Persian and Hindustani. 
But, as Professor Wilson, the distinguished president of our Section, whose 
name is as much cherished by the natives of India us it is esteemed by the 
learned men of Europe, well remarks, it U not enough to understand the 
language of a people; the ]»cople themselves must be understood with all their 
popular prejudices, ihcir daily observances, their occupation*, their amuse¬ 
ments, tlieir domestic and social relations, their loc.il legends, tbeit national 
traduions, their mythological fables, their metaphysical abstractions, and their 
religious worship. The best means of acquiring such a knowledge is gene¬ 
rally to be found in the literature of the people. It is however necessary to 
confess that upon this point, n.imely, the literary iutcrest cf die language, 
the Bengali is poor, and inferior in (lus respect to most of the other ver- 
nacular languages. There existed, indeed, scarcely anything worthy to 
^ called literature in Bengali before tlic setilemcm of the missionaries iu 
ISengal, and it is due to their unwearied exertions that the Bengali has be¬ 
come m any sense a literary laitguagc, and Iras arrived at a certain degree 
of grammatical regularity. Nor need we be surprised at this, when we 
