Some Books of the Week
THE appearance of the introductory volume of the Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. I., Part I., by Sir George A. Grierson
(Calcutta, 1927, 19s.), marks the completion of a truly great enterprise, and of a fine monument of British scholarship. In- dologists at once recognized the importance of this ample and carefully co-ordinated collection of material for their studies, as soon as the first volume was printed about thirty years ago, and each of the twenty-one volumes that gO to make up the series has enhanced the reputation of the Editor. Though the Provinces of Madras and Burma and the States of Hydeiabad
and Mysore have been expressly excluded fzem. the sphere of the Survey, yet as many as 179 languages and 544 dialects are brought under consideration, distributed throughout a popu- lation of 290 millions. in this enormous field there are some languages whose phonepc.rules prohibit the existence of more than a few hundred words, and which thus cannot express what are to us the commonest and most simple ideas ; while others, with rich and growing vocabularies, serve as media for literatures embracing every variety of human thought and interest. There are languages every word of which must be a monosyllable, and others with words so elaborated as almost to form whole sentences in themselves. Some of these lan-
guages are dying, while others are growing with 'the expansion of religious or cultural influences. In the multifarious material collected by Sir George Grierson there is matter of interest not only for the student of language, but alSe for the etlmole- gist, the folklorist, the historian, and the student of religion, and generations of scholars will have to acknowledge their indebtedness to Sir George's patient researches.
Previous page
