A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India: To Wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, and Bangali

Dr. Caldwell’s Grammar of the Dravidian Languages, and it immediately occurred to me that a similar book was much wanted for the Aryan group. It was evident that no scholar in Europe could do the work, because the written productions in the modem vernaculars and the few dictionaries and grammars procurable are not only frequently quite wrong and utterly misleading, but are also very defective, so that no one could merely from books get a firm and certain grasp of all these languages. It is necessary to be able to speak all or most of them, and to live among the people and hear them talking daily. A residence of upwards of twelve years in India, during which I have held official posts in the Panjab, Bihar, Bengal, and Orissa, and have made long visits to various parts of Hindustan Proper (the North-western Provinces), has rendered me familiar with Panjabi, Hindi, Bengali, and Oriya, all of which, at different times, This volume contains only the Phonetics of the group.