Linguistic Survey of India : Index of Language Names. By
Sir George A. Grierson. (Calcutta : Superintendent of Govern- ment Printing. 2s. 7d.)—We commend this book to the thought- less politicians who talk of " the Indian people." It is an alpha- betical list of the languages and dialects spoken in India. It runs to 218 pages, and ten or twelve languages or dialects are named on each page. Not all are distinct tongues, for their varying names are recorded. But with all deductions there are hundreds of separate languages and dialectt It is possible, as Switzerland shows, for a nation to have three or perhaps four languages. But a nation with hundreds of languages is a manifest impossibility. Nor are the linguistic barriers the most formidable causes of division in India.—We have received also Part I. of Volume IX. of the Linguistic Survey, containing Specimens of Western Hindi and Panjabi, edited by Sir George A. Grierson (same publisher, 9s. 9d.). How this great folio of over eight hundred pages, bound in cloth, can be produced for the money we do not know. It contains compact treatises on Western Hindi and Panjabi, and their chief dialects ; the speci- mens in the native characters are transliterated and also trans- lated. Hindustani, the lingua franca of India, is a dialect of Western Hindi and receives full treatment. Sir George Grierson, the Superintendent of the Linguistic Survey, is doing a great work in this record of India's myriad tongues.
Previous page
