Mr Colebrooke has'shewn that this classification is imperfect,
and that it requires to he modified before it can he
regarded as a correct list even of the principal languages of
India; and also that some of the languages mentioned as
belonging to one class ought to he referred to the other*
The dialect of Kashmir should be added to the number of
northern idioms, which are all modifications of the Hindi.
It was conjectured by Sir William Jones, that the Hin-
devi or Hindi, the popular language of Hindustan, was the
primeval idiom of Upper India ; and that'the Sanskrit'Was
introduced by a conquered nation from some foreign country^
and engrafted on the vernacular speech. But Mr. Cole-
brooke, whose knowledge of the language and literature of
India was much more extensive and profound, declares that
“ no person who is acquainted with both can hesitate in
affirming, that Hindi is a .derivative from ‘Sanskrit; .for
besides the great number of Sanskrit words recognised in
the Hindi, the rest of the vocabulary may, with very few
exceptions, be easily traced to a Sanskrit origin..”. Mink*
tenths of the Hindi vocabulary can thus be accounted for.
We may observe, by-the-way, that there is perhaps no
Indo-European language of which the vocabulary can be
.referred to the common original in a greater ; proportion
than this. German and English, Latin and Greek, Welsh
and Irish, have, all some peculiar words, and: yet this does
not prevent our considering them as respectively allied to
each other as kindred dialects.
The opinion of the late Mr. James Prinsep seems to have
coincided with that of Mr. Colebrooke so far as the language
of Hindustan is concerned.
The following are his remarks on the relation of the
Hindi to the Sanskrit
“ It is generally allowed that the Pali and the Zend (the
languages of the Buddhistical and Magian sacred books);
are derivations, of nearly the same grade, from the Sanskrit
stock, and the dialect of the Sinde, as well as the bhasha of
Upper and Western India,, present more striking analogies
to the Pali than any of the dialects of Bengal, Behar or
Ceylon.” He adds, tc we are by no means of opinion that
the Hindi, Sindl% or Pali, had an independent origin prior
to the ^Sanskrit. The more the first of these, which is the
most modern, and ^ e t furthest removed from the classical
language, is examined and. analysed^the more evidently is its
modification and corruption from the ancient stock found to
follow systematic ^r-Mos and toV -evince rather provincial
dialeötism than theJfffe^e engraftment of foreign words upon
a.pre-existent language. The aboriginal Indian speech must
be rather soughfelo^he. mountainous borders of Hindustan
and in the* Dekhan.”
It must bepbseryed that Mr. Prinsep differs from Mr.
Cqlebr6.oke in limiting the claim of a pure., Sanskrit original
to r languages of Hindustan dar India, and
^excludes"'the idioms of the Dekhän or the fives Dravirs.
These were considered' by Mr. Colebrooke as Prakrits like
the others, but by Mr. Prinsep a^^fbarbaric or Unsan-
skrit origin.
Paragraph 2.—History of the Dekhan and of the Languages
of; its Inhabitants.
. For many ages we have reason do&bèlieve that the Hindoos,
or the people of Northern India who were subject to
the Brahmans and worshipped the Hindû gods and spoke
the Sanskrit language and fk. dialects, were entirely separate
from the natives of-the Dekhan or of the Indian Peninsula.
In several regions of the Dekhan the earliest traditions
refer to the colonisation of its provinces by Hindoos or by
Brahmans. They represent the country as previously a
forest filled with wild beasts and monsters, or if with human
inhabitants, peopled only by barbarous tribes. By Menu,
as Professor Wilson observes, the Draviras are classed with
the M’lechas or impure nations, and in the Mahabharata'the
inhabitants of t he South are scarcely represented as Hindoos.
The Ramayan, which.is supposed by the same distinguished
■Scholar to'be the oldest composition, next to the Vedas, in
the Sanskrit language, is principally a fanciful representa-
Vol. iv. ’ Ü Q