Art. IX.—A Grammar of the hindI LANGUAGE.

A Grammar of the Hindi Language, in which are treated the Standard Hindi, Braj, and the Eastern Hindi of the Rámáyan of Tulsi Das, also the Colloquial Dialects of Marwar, Kumaon, Avadh, Baghelkhand, Bhojpur, etc., with Copious Philological Notes. By the Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, M. A., American Presbyterian Mission, North India; Corresponding Member of the American Oriental Society. Printed at the American Presbyterian Mission Press, Allahabad, and sold by Thacker, Spink & Co., Calcutta, Trübner & Co., 57 and 59 Ludgate Hill, London, 1876.

The volume whose title is thus given in full is a royal octavo, of 433 pages, about 50 of which are strictly philological. It adds another to the already abundant illustrations of what our missionaries are doing for the advancement of the scholarship of the world, especially along the line of linguistic science. It is an undoubted truth, as Müller admits, that modern philology in its application to the languages of the heathen nations, would have had but the slenderest possible basis without the contributions of Christian missionaries. The work before us is one of the most valuable of these contributions.

The Hindi language is by far the most important and extensively used of the Sanskrit-derived languages of India, which, beginning in the East, are usually reckoned thus: Oriya, Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, and (to the south, toward Bombay and Goa) Marathi. These languages all stand in precisely the same relation to Sanskrit that the Romance or Italic languages of Europe (the Italian, French, etc.) sustain to the Latin. Like them, while closely related to the classic language of the country, they are more immediately related to the various currupt dialects of the Sanskrit speech, known as the Prakrit, which, from the earliest ages, co-existed with the Sanskrit of the educated Brahmans, as the language of the uneducated masses of the people. Until recently these languages, together with the Sanskrit, which constitute the Indic class of the southern division of the Aryan or Indo-European family, were regarded as the only representatives of that family in Hindostan. It is still certain that the numerous aboriginal dialects spoken in the Deccan have no such connection with the Sanskrit, but belong to a different family, the Turanian. But the latest researches seem to indicate that the Dravidian languages of South India (the Tamil, Telugu, Malayalim, etc.), placed by Max Müller, in his lectures of fifteen years ago, under the Tamulic class of the southern division of the Turanian family, may possibly belong also to the Aryan tongues, although they have no such close connection with the Sanskrit as have the languages of North India, but must be classified as a different sub-family of the Aryan speech.

The importance of the Hindi language, in itself considered, appears from the opening paragraph of the author's preface: "Of the two hundred and fifty million inhabitants of India, speaking a score or more of different lan

guages, fully one-fourth, or between sixty and seventy millions, own the Hindi as their vernacular. In all the great centres of Hindú faith in North India, alike in populous Benares, Allahabad, and Mathurá, and in the mountains about the sacred shrines of Gangotri, Kedárnáth, and Badrínáth, among the Himalayas; in many of the most powerful independent native states of India, as in the dominions of the Mahárájá Sindhia, and the extensive territories under the Mahárájá of Jaipur and other Rájpút chiefs; in short, throughout an area of more than 248,000 square miles, Hindi is the language of the great mass of the population. Only where Mohammedan influence has long prevailed, as in the large cities, and on account of the almost exclusive currency of Mohammedian speech in government offices, have many Hindús learned to contemn their native tongue and affect the Persianized Hindi, known as 'Urdú.'”

The Hindi exists in a large number of (perhaps fifteen or twenty) dialects, which differ very much one from another in grammatical forms, and to a limited extent in vocabulary, so much so, that a native villager, for example, of Ajmere in the West would understand with difficulty a Hindoo of Tirhoot in the East.

The chief difficulty which the author had to encounter, however, was found in the fact, that the entire region of his investigation was comparatively unexplored. There have been for many years grammars and dictionaries of the Hindustani or Urdú, which, by one of the great anti-Christian blunders (of which there have been not a few) of the English in India, is the court language of the Northwestern Provinces of the Punjab. But when the author began his work a few years ago, there was no grammar of Hindi in English, except a brief syllabus of the Braj dialect only, by the late Dr. Ballantyne, of Benares. Professor De Tassy, of Paris, had also written, in French, a very meagre syllabus of the same dialect. A meagre grammar of the Braj, and that dialect of Hindi which is grammatically identical with Urdú, had once been published by government in Calcutta ; but this never was worth much, and had long been out of print. After the work was begun, Mr. Etherington, of the Baptist Mission, Benares, put out a small Hindi grammar; again, however, ignoring, like his predecessors, the most important classic dialect of Hindi, called the Púrbí, or Eastern, as well as all the colloquial dialects, and confining himself to that form of Hindi which agrees with Urdú. Dr. Fitz Edward Hall, a native of the United States, who was successively Superintenden of Education in the Northwestern Provinces in India, Professor of Sanskrit in the Queen's College, Benares, and Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Jurisprudence in King's College, London, and who is at present a member of the Board of Examiners for the Indian Service, a man acknowledged by all competent judges to hold a front rank among living Hindi scholars, has long been promising a Hindi grammar, but of the Braj dialect only; but it has never appeared. All writers on this subject hitherto have alike dealt only with one or two western forms of the speech, ignoring entirely all eastern types, and many important western dialects. No one has ever before attempted to deal with the Hindi as a whole,

nor have any even attempted to show philologically the unity of these dialects, and their précise relation to each other and to the ancient Sanskrit and Prakrit dialects.

Mr Kellogg has attempted to supply this deficiency. He has set forth fully every dialect of the Hindi which has a literature, besides giving many colloquial dialects with less fulness, so as to cover all the Hindi speaking territory. For practical reasons, the Standard Hindi, or high Hindi (to name it after the analogy of the German), which agrees in grammatical form with the Urdu, and which has been adopted by the educational authorities as the medium of vernacular instruction in all Hindi schools, has been taken as the basis of the grammar. At the same time the author has endeavored to treat with equal thoroughness the two great dialects of classic Hindi literature, the Braj representing the Western, and the old Purbí representing the Eastern type of Hindi. In treating of the nine or ten colloquial dialects, the declension and conjugation are fully set forth, so as to give a fairly complete view of the actual living speech of the Hindi-speaking population of North India. Attention is called in the preface to the special features of the work. The principles of literary Hindi are amply illustrated, not by newly-coined examples, nor examples drawn from European writers of Hindi, which always bear the marks of their foreign origin, but by examples drawn chiefly from the two great works, the Prem Ságar, and the Rámáyan of Tulsí Dás, which are most widely and popularly known among the Hindú masses, and which have been chosen by the government for the examination of candidates in connection with the civil and military services of India. Another peculiar feature is found in the philological notes, occupying in all about fifty pages, in which the author has "attempted to indicate the probable origin and derivation of the forms of the Hindi language, and the relation of various dialectic forms to one another, and to the Sanskrit and old Prákrit dialects of India."

But besides the above, the author modestly suggests that "much else will be found in the grammar which is strictly new, both in matter and arrangement." He has not been content to limit himself to the dead forms-some of them a thousand years and a thousand times dead-which are the bane of the mere grammar mongers. The higher principles established and developed by the German grammarians, and the more definite laws of language revealed by modern philology, are constantly and freely applied. This appears especially in the nomenclature of the tenses, in the treatment of the derivation and composition of words, in the discussion of compound sentences, and in the complete and accurate unfolding of the prosody which is so essential to the interpretation and comprehension of the literature. There is, indeed, much that is new, and, chief of all, the everywhere manifest mastery of a philosophic mind over the hitherto chaotic mass of material. This mastery may be illustrated once for all by a single example. The application of the common idea, that tense in the verb is primarily a distinction of time, has resulted in the Hindi, as in so many western languages, in "confusion worse confounded." Laying hold of the principle, that the "participles, with their dependent tenses, represent action in different stages of progress, not neces

sarily at different points of time," the author at once brings perfect order out of the chaotic mass of fifteen Hindi tenses and three participles. “Every action or state, whether actual or contingent, may be conceived of under three different aspects, relatively to its own progress, i. e., as not yet begun; as begun, but not completed; or as completed. It is believed that these are the essential ideas which pervade these three groups of tenses." This principle at once removes all difficulties.

Of the points thus far noticed-the scope and general features of the work— one unacquainted with the language may fairly judge; of the special Hindi features, only competent Hindi scholars can give an opinion which will be of any value. We, therefore, make brief extracts from the criticism of four or five men, who take rank among the best living Hindi scholars.

Mr. Beams, author of a 'Comparative Grammar of the Aryan Languages of India" (not yet finished), Collector of Cuttack in Orissa, writes, that he thinks the author has "selected his dialects so that no more are really needed," as every important type is noted and tabulated. Dr. Fitz Edward Hall, a scholar equally distinguished in Sanskrit and Hindi, in acknowledging a copy, writes: "In a single day I have been able to examine the work only cursorily. However, I have seen enough of it to satisfy myself that it is an immense advance on any kindred work that has as yet been published.” Mr. Pincott, editor of a critical, annotated edition of Sakuntala (a Hindi translation of the Sanskrit drama), and one of the Board of Examiners for the India Service, gives an equally favorable judgment in Trübner's Oriental Record, of the etymological portion of the work, which was all that had then reached him: "It is a grammar of the Hindi language, dealing with the subject in a thorough and masterly manner. The portion of the work which has reached our hands is eminently satisfactory, as it discusses the language in the only sound way, that is, in connection with its many dialects. The Hindi, though hitherto shamefully neglected by scholars and despised by officials, is by far the most important language in the whole peninsula of India. The absence of a literary standard has allowed it to exist in the form of a mass of closely related dialects, some one or two of which have recently been brought to notice by the industry and patriotism of native scholars. The prominence which these dialects have acquired is thus due to accidental causes; it is, therefore, apparent, that no scholarly knowledge of the language can be gained until the principal dialects have been examined, and the light which each is able to shed upon the literary forms of speech is made commonly available. Considerations such as these, which can be only in this way alluded to, give to the work upon which Mr. Kellogg is engaged a high interest. If this work, in treating of the syntax, maintains the high character of the etymological portion, a Hindi grammar will be provided for students of the greatest value and importance."

In a review of the work, by an eminent Hindi Scholar in her Majesty's Civil Service, published in the Pioneer, a daily paper in Allahabad, we read: "We look upon this work as the most important contribution to oriental philology that has been made by any scholar writing in India for many New Series, No. 22. 23

years past. It, in fact, opens out a line of country of immense interest and extent that has hitherto been almost absolutely untrodden by the general European student. Yet, though Mr. Kellogg has had no predecessor on whose foundations to build, and has had himself to collect all the materials for the work, his design is so admirably carried out, so well-based on sound research, and so finished in all its details, that it is not likely to require any additions or corrections of the slightest importance, but will remain a permanent monument of its compiler's scholarship, and the one standing authority on the subject of which it treats."

To the commendatory notices of these distinguished Hindi scholars may be added that of Dr. Monier Williams, the distinguished Sanskrit Professor at Oxford, author of a Sanskrit Grammar (in many respects the best produced), of a Sanskrit-English and an English-Sanskrit Dictionary, and editor of the Sanskrit story of Nala, or Nalopákhyánam, and of the Sanskrit Drama of Sakuntala. He says of Mr. Kellogg's grammar: "It is a most valuable work, and one for which all engaged in Indian studies will be grateful. I consider that it rises to a higher level than any grammar of the same kind yet produced."

Such is the tenor of all the criticisms thus far offered upon the work. Coming, as they do, from both sides of the globe, and from the men best of all qualified to judge the work, they establish beyond dispute its great merit, and bespeak for its author an international reputation.

It is now twelve years since Mr. Kellogg, having completed his collegiate and theological course at Princeton, went out to India to engage in the mission work. Had he in these years done nothing but master the language and complete his grammar, it would justly have been esteemed a great task; but it must be borne in mind, before the real extent of his labors can be appreciated, that he has been, in every way, one of our most earnest and active missionaries, preaching the gospel to the heathen until the Hindi has become as natural to him, in preaching, as his native speech, and that for several years he has been engaged in the Seminary at Allahabad for training a native Hindú ministry. What he has accomplished proves him capable of accomplishing much in any field of labor, but, more than all, it proves him pre-eminently fitted for prosecuting still further the work in which he has been engaged. In short, we cannot resist the conviction, that he is just the kind of man to do a grand work in that most difficult of fields, among a people that has shown itself possessed of enough of genuine intellectual power to mould the religion of half the inhabitants of the globe, in India and China, and which will, perhaps, some day be looked upon as having given to the Germany of our age, along with its Sanskrit learning, the systems of Pantheism which have long held so many of her strong men bound in spiritual fetters.