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Volume 1: 6 October 2001

BRINGING ORDER TO LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY:LANGUAGE PLANNING IN THE BRITISH RAJ

RANJIT SINGH RANGILAM.S.THIRUMALAI, AND

B.MALLIKARJUN

COPYRIGHT © 2001 Ranjit Singh Rangila, M.S.Thirumalai, and [email protected]@[email protected]

CONTENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2: STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION - PUNJABI IN THE PUNJABIN 1890s

CHAPTER 3: OFFICAL LANGUAGE AND THE INDIAN SUBJECTS OF THEBRITISH RAJ

CHAPTER 4: A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE FOR THE BRITISH INDIAN ARMY:PRINCIPLES AND PROBLEMS

CHAPTER 5: PRINCIPLES OF MATERIALS PRODUCTION AND LANGUAGETEACHING

CHAPTER 6: WHAT LANGUAGES TO BE LEARNED AND WHY?

CHAPTER 7: HOW TO REDUCE THE ANTAGONISM BETWEEN HINDI ANDURDU

REFERENCES

COPYRIGHT © 2001 Ranjit Singh Rangila, M.S.Thirumalai and B. Mallikarjun.

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PREFACE

The Constitution of India has laid down certain guidelines for the preparation of technicalterms, language use in administration, and the spread of education through the Indianlanguages. The Constitution suggests the source from which the new terms are to bederived. Thus, it enjoins upon the Central Government certain responsibilities for thedevelopment and spread of the Hindi language 'to develop it so that it may serve as amedium of expression for all the composite cultures of India and to secure its enrichmentby assimilating without interfering with its genius, the forms, style and expressions usedin Hindustani and in the other languages of India specified in the Eighth Schedule (of theConstitution), and by drawing wherever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary,primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages.'

We all know that there are both social and political trends that militate against the dreamof the founding fathers of the Constitution. The founding fathers themselves haddeveloped their vision for India based on the practices and decisions that had been triedout by the officials of the British Raj. The British Raj took several steps to bring order tothe linguistic diversity in India to ensure better administration and participation of theirsubjects in the developmental activities undertaken by the government. In this process,sometimes they took steps that denied the legitimate demands of some of the Indianlanguages.

In this monograph, we present some of the correspondences that relate to the recognitionof Indian languages for the purposes of administration and education. The British Rajinitiated several programs for the development of the Indian languages as fit vehicles ofadministration and courts. However, the trend was generally in favor of English. Whilethe government wanted that the native languages should be developed to become fitvehicles of administration and education, the convenience of the rulers from a far off landmattered most and the Indian communities that took advantage of the British rule readilysupported such decisions of the government. The correspondences presented here showan excellent insight into the the developing language policy of the British Raj and theIndian educated classes.

We acknowledge with admiration the excellent work done by the Directorate of theArchives of the Government of the Punjab in Pakistan. The correspondences presentedhere were taken from Development of Urdu as Official Language in the Punjab (1849-1974), published by the Director of Archives (Nazir Ahmad Chaudhry), Government ofthe Punjab, Pakistan, 1977. This is an excellent collection of the governmentcorrespondences on the language of administration, education and courts of law. Webelieve that such correspondences from the states in India, if compiled and published,will help us understand better the evolution of the language policy in India.

Ranjit Singh RangilaM.S.ThirumalaiB. Mallikarjun



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CONTENTS PAGE

CHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION

The Mughal Rule and Urdu

The Mughal empire that preceded the rule of the East India Company in India was amultilingual empire. People of different ethnic backgrounds with diverse dialects andlanguages comprised the Mughal empire. The Mughals and the sultans who ruled variousparts of India employed Persian and Arabic as the language of courts and administration,but the last few centuries of the Mughal rule saw the progressive emergence of Urdu, anidiom and speech that was an admixture of Persian, Arabic, and Hindi, with Hindi syntaxand lexicon providing the base. Urdu was being established as a language ofcommunication during the rule of Akbar. However, it was during the rule of Shah Jehanthat Urdu attained the status and recognition of a court language.

The East India Company's Cautious Approach

There were at least fourteen to sixteen major languages spoken in the various kingdomsand princely states when East India Company became the paramount ruler of India.Nearly twenty-five percent of the population followed Islam. There were other significantreligious minorities, such as the Sikhs, who followed a language and script that wasdecidedly different from the language of the court and administration. However, apartfrom the Muslim population, there were other communities, Hindus and non-Hindus, whoalso were well acquainted with the use of Urdu. Religious loyalties and linguisticloyalties sometimes went together, especially in the case of the Hindus and the Muslimsin north India.

Internal dissensions and lack of any central authority that embraced the entire countrymarked the beginning of the rule of the East India Company in India. Internal dissensionsand lack of any central political power helped the Company acquire Indian territoriesvery easily. The British Raj became bigger and bigger and more powerful with theaddition of territories from all over India. These territories were added to the existingprovinces. The provinces were only administrative units, never thought of as having anyhomogeneous culture and language. As pointed out by Hay and Qureshi (1958:3), "Indiain eighteenth century was a land of rife with internal dissensions and devoid of anycentral political power. Muslim governors and Hindu chieftains vied with each other forthe remnants of the Mughal empire, while most of the population pursued their traditionaloccupations in relative indifference to the religious or regional origins of their rulers."



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Unsure of their own position vis-à-vis the native cultures and languages of India, thedirectors of the East India Company took a very cautious approach to matters of religionand culture. As far as language is concerned, they followed the tradition of using thePersian and Arabic languages for communication with the natives wherever suchlanguages had been used in the Mughal empire.

Admiration for the Persian and Arabic Languages

Sir William Jones wrote in 1771: "The Persian language is rich, melodious, and elegant;it has been spoken for many ages by the greatest princes in the politest courts of Asia;and a number of admirable works have been written in it by historians, philosophers, andpoets, who found it capable of expressing with equal advantage the most beautiful andthe most elevated sentiments … interest was the charm which gave the languages of theEast a real and solid importance. By one of those revolutions, which no human prudencecould have foreseen, the Persian language found its way into India; that rich andcelebrated empire, which, by the flourishing state of our commerce, has been the sourceof incredible wealth to the merchants of Europe. A variety of causes, which need not bementioned here, gave the English nation a most extensive power in that kingdom; ourIndia Company began to take under their protection the princes of the country, by whoseprotection they gained their first settlement; a number of important affairs were to betransacted in peace and war between nations equally jealous of one another, who had notthe common instruments of conveying their sentiments; the servants of the companyreceived letters which they could not read, and were ambitious of gaining titles of whichthey could not comprehend the meaning; it was found highly dangerous to employ thenatives as interpreters, upon whose fidelity they could not depend; and it was at lastdiscovered, that they must apply themselves to the study of the Persian language, inwhich all the letters from the Indian princes were written. A few men of parts and taste,who resided in Bengal, have since amused themselves with the literature of the East, andhave spent their leisure in reading the poems and histories of Persia; but they found areason in every page to regret their ignorance of the Arabick language, without whichtheir knowledge must be very circumscribed and imperfect. The languages of Asia willnow, perhaps, be studied with uncommon ardor; they are known to be useful and willsoon be found instructive and entertaining; the valuable manuscripts that enrich ourpublick libraries will be in a few years elegantly printed; the manners and sentiments ofthe Eastern nations will be perfectly known; and the limits of our knowledge will be noless extended than the bounds of our empire" (Sir William Jones, 1771, taken from Hayand Qureshi 1958:38-40).

Pro-English Demands from the Natives

"The East India Company, in its initial caution to leave undamaged the traditional basesof Indian society and culture, had decided to sponsor Persian, Arabic, and Sanskritstudies as early as the 1770s. Later on when the Company became the paramount powerin India, many Indians realized that to get jobs with the new government they would haveto learn English, even though Persian continued to be used for official purposes well intothe nineteenth century. The more enlightened among them, men like Rammohun Roy,



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saw that tremendous advantages could be gained by direct contact with the whole corpusof Western learning which English education would make possible, and they thereforeraised their voices against the antiquarian policy" (Hay and Quereshi 1958:36).

The British have been using English within the East India Company for all purposes.However, for communication with the Indian people, they tried to use the local languagesor a language that had been in use in the past for such purposes within India. However,soon a body of people learned English and, when job opportunities were open with thegovernment, these people who had learned and demonstrated their skill in English gotjobs in the government. This created a demand among the Indians that they be givenopportunities to learn English in the schools. Slowly demands were made in favor of theteaching and learning of English rather than Persian, Arabic, or Sanskrit. Soon thegovernment began to curtail spending funds on the learning of Persian, Arabic, orSanskrit.

The Tilt in Favor of English

A momentous decision was taken in the year 1835 by a young officer of the government(he was only thirty-four years), Thomas Babington Macaulay (later Lord Macaulay), thattilted the balance in favor of teaching English and European sciences and technology inthe public schools supported by the government funds.

After declaring that "I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of theOrientalists themselves, I have never found one among them who could deny that a singleshelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India andArabia," Thomas Babington Macaulay, in his famous Minute supporting the cause ofeducation in English for all in India, argued: "We have to educate a people who cannot atpresent be educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some foreignlanguage." And he advanced numerous arguments in favor of instructing the natives inthe English language. "In India, English is the language spoken by the ruling class. It isspoken by the higher class of natives at the seats of government. It is likely to become thelanguage of commerce throughout the seas of the East." "The question now before us issimply whether, when it is in our power to teach this language, we shall teach languagesin which, by universal confession, there are no books on any subject which deserve to becompared to our own. … All the declamations in the world about the love and reverenceof the natives for their sacred dialects will never, in the mind of any impartial person,outweigh the undisputed fact that we cannot fine, in all our vast expire, a single studentwho will let us teach him those dialects unless we will pay him….Why then is itnecessary to pay people to learn Sanscrit and Arabic? Evidently because it is universallyfelt that the Sanscrit and Arabic are languages, the knowledge of which does notcompensate for the trouble of acquiring them. On all such subjects the state of the marketis the decisive test." (from Hay and Quereshi 1958:46-48).

"To sum up what I have said, I think it is clear that we are not fettered by the Act ofParliament of 1813' that we are not fettered by any pledge expressed or implied; that weare free to employ our funds as we choose; that we ought to employ them in teaching



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what is best worth knowing; that English is better worth knowing than Sanscrit or Arabic;that the natives are desirous to the taught English, and are not desirous to be taughtSanscrit or Arabic; that neither as the languages of law, nor as the languages or religion,have the Sanscrit and Arabic any peculiar claim to our engagement; that it is possible tomake natives of this country thoroughly good English scholars; and that to this end ourefforts ought to be directed. In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whosegeneral views I am opposed. I feel with them, that it is impossible for us, with our limitedmeans, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best toform a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; aclass of persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals,and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of thecountry, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Westernnomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to thegreat mass of the population" (from Hay and Quereshi 1958:49).

The Correspondences

The correspondences we present and discuss here in this short monograph reveal thestruggles that Indian languages had to undergo for recognition from the government fortheir use in public domains of administration. These correspondences were all writtenafter Macaulay's decision in favor of teaching English in government-supported schools.The people themselves opposed the introduction and/or recognition of certain Indianlanguages. The administrators, however, took a perceptive view of the demands ofadministration and argued their cases in favor of various Indian languages ably. Theirideas in most cases were very much ahead of their time, and they laid down theparameters of language planning in India.

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CHAPTER 2STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION - PUNJABI IN THE

PUNJAB IN 1890s

Punjabi, a Modern Vibrant Language

Punjabi is a modern Indo-Aryan language spoken in the states of Punjab in Pakistan andIndia. Generally speaking, the Punjabi speakers in the state of Punjab in Pakistan areMuslims, but the speakers of Punjabi in the Indian state of Punjab may be Sikhs orHindus or Muslims. The dominant majority professes the Sikh religion. At present, mostpeople in the state of Punjab in India write the language using the Gurumukhi script. Inthe past, the Perso-Arabic script was used to write this language. It has been claimed that



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even the Sikh rulers in the early part of Sikh history used the Perso-Arabic script to writethis language.

Punjabi is a vibrant modern language. It is included in the list of the major Indianlanguages in the Schedule VIII of the Constitution of India. However, in the past, becauseof religion and such other factors, the status of Punjabi as an independent language andits fitness to function as the language of administration and education has beenquestioned. Also in the Punjab of the British Raj, seeking recognition for Punjabi meantdowngrading the recognition and status already enjoyed by the languages such as Persian,Arabic, Hindi, and Urdu. It was argued that Punjabi was just a dialect, one among themany dialects spoken in the Punjab and adjacent territories, and that the 'dialect' lackedany literature of its own. Scholars, however, lists three stages of development of thelanguage: Old Punjabi (10th-16th century), Medieval Punjabi (16th-19th century), andModern Punjabi (19th century to the present) (Bhatia 1992).

The recognition of Punjabi as an independent language was hampered also by the lack ofscientific and detailed linguistic information on the language. Grierson, writing for the1901 Census of India, declared that "Panjabi is not a pure Central language. As we gowestwards it becomes more and more infected with features characteristic of the OuterCircle, and merges so gradually into Lahnda that it is impossible to say where one beginsand the other ends. … The line between Western Hindi and Panjabi is more distinct, andmay be taken as the meridian passing through Sirhind (Sahrind)" (Census of India, 1961,Appendix III Census of India 1901).

There had been always some ambivalent positions taken in the writings of severalscholars. While recognizing the Punjabi language as a language functioning by itself,they also never failed to mention that it is a mixed language. For example, Grierson in thecensus report cited above stated that "Punjabi, as spoken in the plains of the Punjab, maybe divided into two well-marked dialects-the Standard, spoken around Amritsar, andknown as the Punjabi of the Manjh or Central part of the Bari Doab, and Malwai, of theancient Cis-Sutlej Malawa country." And yet all through the report the focus was more on"the mixed character of the languages of Central and Western Punjab (Panjabi andLahnda)."

The problem was accentuated by the fact that Punjab was the last of the provinces to beannexed to the British Raj, and the conventions that identified the languages and culturesof various parts of India have already been well set, and these conventions always lookedat Punjabi as a mixed language.

Grierson on Persian, Urdu, and Hindi

During this period, the government officials and others interested in the study of Indianlanguages focused on the stylistic differences between Hindi and Urdu. Persian hadalready lost its place of importance, and Urdu and Hindi were vying with each other tofill the vacuum created by the exit of Persian. Most people in the government thought thatHindustani is the right medium that should be encouraged. They distinguished Hindustani



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from Urdu and Hindi. Grierson's report on the languages of India for the Census of India1901 gives us the thinking current widely at that time. In order to understand thecorrespondences we present in this monograph, it is important for us to first read thecomments of Grierson on issues relating to language use in the various parts of India.

Grierson Against Sanskritising Hindi

Grierson wrote in his report:

"During the last century, the introduction of printing and the spread of education has, inthe case of some languages, introduced a fashion of using Tatsamas to which the wildestJohnsonese may almost be compared as a specimen of pure English. It has been provedby actual counting that in a modern Bengali work 88 per cent of the words used werepure Sanskrit, every one of which was unnecessary and could have been represented by avocable of true home growth. In such cases the result has been most lamentable. Thevernacular has been split into two sections - the tongue which is understandably of thepeople, and the literary dialect, known only through the press and not intelligible to thosewho do not know Sanskrit. Literature has thus been divorced from the great mass of thepopulation, and to the literary classes this is a matter of small moment, for "this people,who knoweth not the law, are cursed." As Mr. Baines says in the last census report, thisSanskritised form of Bengali is the product of what may be called the revival of learningin Eastern India consequent on the settlement of the British on the Hooghly. Thevernacular was then found rude and meagre, or rather was wrongly considered to be such,owing to the absence of scholarship and the general neglect of the country during Mughalrule. Instead of strengthening the existing web from the same material every effort wasmade in Calcutta, then the only seat of instruction, to embroider upon the feeble frame agrotesque and elaborate pattern in Sanskrit, and to pilfer from that tongue whatever in theway of vocabulary and construction the learned considered necessary to satisfy theincreasing demands of modern intercourse. He who trusts to the charity of others, saysSwift, will always be poor; so Bengali, as a vernacular, has been stunted in its growth bythis process of cramming with a class of food it is unable to assimilate. The simile usedby Mr. Beames is a good one. He likens Bengali to an overgrown child tied to itsmother's apron-string, and always looking to hear for help, when it ought to be supportingitself. Although Bengali displays the greatest weakness in this respect, and has lost allpower of ever developing a vigorous literature, racy of the soil, until, some great geniusrises and sweeps away the enchantment under which it labours, other Indian vernaculars,especially Hindi, show signs of falling under the same malignant spell. The center ofHindi literature is naturally Benares, and Benares is in the hands of the Sanskritists. Thereis no necessity as may have existed in the case of Bengali for Hindi to have recourse tothe classical tongue. In themselves, without any extraneous help whatever the dialectsfrom which it is sprung are, and for five hundred years have been, capable of expressingwith crystal clearness any idea which the mind of man can conceive. It has the enormousnative vocabulary, and a complete apparatus for the expression of abstract terms. Its oldliterature contains some of the highest flights of poetry and some of the most eloquentexpressions of religious devotion which have found their birth in Asia. Treatises onphilosophy and on rhetoric are found in it, in which the subject is handled with all the



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subtilty of the great Sanskrit writers, and this with hardly the use of a Sanskrit word. Yetin spite of Hindi possessing such a vocabulary and a power of expression not inferior tothat of English, it has become the fashion of late years to write books, not to be read bythe millions of Upper India, but to display the author's learning to a comparatively smallcircle of Sanskrit-knowing scholars. Unfortunately, the most powerful English influencehas during this period been on the side of the Sanskritists. This Sanskritised Hindi hasbeen largely used by missionaries, and the translations of the Bible have been made intoit. The few native writers who have stood up for the use of Hindi undefiled have had asmall success in the face of so potent an example of misguided efforts. Arguments maybe brought forward in favour of using Classical Sanskrit words for expressing technicalterms in science and art, and I am willing to admit their force. I am not one of those who(to quote a well-known example) prefer "the unthrough forcesomeness of stuff" to the"impenetrability of matter," but there the borrowing from the parent language shouldstop. There is still time to save Hindi from the fate of Bengali, if only a led is taken bywriters of acknowledged repute, and much can be done in this direction by the use of awise discretion on the part of the educational authorities of the provinces immediatelyconcerned." (Census of India 1901, given as an appendix in the Census of India 1961, pp.407-408).

Grierson on the Impact of Foreign Tongues on Indian Languages

"The Indo-Aryan vernaculars have also been influenced by languages altogether strangeto India. Contact with the tongues of foreign nations has affected their vocabularies tovarying extents. The one which has had most influence is Persian, not the old Eranianlanguage of Pre-Musalman times (though that has also contributed a small quota), but theArabicised Persian of the Mughul conquerors. Thus, through Persian, the Indo-Aryanvernaculars have also received an important contribution of Arabic, and even some Turkiwords. The influence of the Musalman religion has opened another door for the entry ofArabic, and few have words have also been imported on the west coast from Arabtraders. In the main, however, the Arabic element in all the Indian vernaculars, whetherAryan or not, came in with Persian, and as a part of that language. The pronunciation ofthe Persian words so imported is that of the Mughul times, and not the effeminatearticulation of the land of the Lion and the Sun at the present day. The extent to whichPersian has been assimilated varies greatly according to locality and to the religion of thespeakers. Everywhere there are some few Persian words which have achieved fullcitizenship and are used by the most ignorant rustic, and we find every variation betweenthis and the Urdu of a highly educated Muhammadan writer of Lucknow, who usesscarcely a single Indo-Aryan word except the verb at the end of his sentence. Under allcircumstances, however, it is the vocabulary, and but rarely the syntax which is affected.Only in the Urdu of the Musalmans do we find the Persian order of words in a sentence.There has been no other introduction of Persian construction, nor are the Arabic wordsinflected (except by purists) according to their own rules, but they have to conform to thegrammatical system of their host. So strong is the native instinct against the use offoreign constructions that Hindu writers class a dialect as Urdu, not on the basis of itsvocabulary, but on the order of words which it employs. A well-known work was issuedin the last century entitled "Tales in pure Hindi". It does not contain a single Persian word



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from cover to cover and yet Hindi writers class it as Urdu, because the writer orders hissentences in the Persian fashion. He was a Musalman, and could not release himself fromthe habit of using idioms which had been taught him by Maulvis in his school days."(p.409)

Grierson on the Characteristics of Hindustani

"As a vernacular, Hindostani is the dialect of Western Hindi which exhibits that languagein the act of shading off into Panjabi. It has the Western Hindi grammar, but theterminations are those which we find in Panjabi. Thus, the true Western Hindipostposition of the genitive is kau, and the form used in Panjabi is da. The Hindostanidialect of Western Hindi takes the k of kau, but the termination a: of the Panjabi, and haska:. So also in all adjectives and participles. Hindostani must be considered under twoaspects (1) as a vernacular dialect of Western Hindi and (2) as the well-known literarylanguage of Hindostan and the lingua franca current over nearly the whole of India. As avernacular, it may be taken as the dialect of Western Hindi spoken in the Upper GangeticDoab, in Rohilkhand, and in the east of the Umbala district of the Punjab. It is spoken inits greatest purity round Meerut and to the north. In Rohilkhand it gradually shades offinto Kanauji, and in Umbala into Panjabi. In the rest of the Eastern Punjab the language isBangaru except in Gurgaon where vernacular Hindostani merges into Braj Bhasha, whichmay be considered to be established in the east of that district. In the neighbourhood ofMeerut, save in a few minor particulars, the language is practically the same as thattaught I the usual Hindostani grammars. It is not, however, as the vernacular of the UpperDoab that Hindostani is generally known. To Europeans it is the polite speech of Indiagenerally, and more especially of Hindostan. The name itself is of European coinage, andindicates the idea which is thus connoted, it being rarely used by natives except underEuropean influence. As a lingua franca Hindostani grew up in the bazaar attached to theDelhi Court, and was carried everywhere in India by the lieutenants of the MoghulEmpire. Since then its seat has been secure. It has several recognized varieties, amongstwhich may be mentioned Urdu, Rekhta, Dakhini, and Hindi. Urdu is that form ofHindostani which is written in the Persian character, and which makes a free use ofPersian (including Arabic) words in its vocabulary. The name is said to be derived fromthe Urdu-e mu'lla or royal military bazaar outside the Delhi palace. It is spoken chiefly inthe towns of Western Hindostan and by Musalmans and Hindus who have fallen underthe influence of Persian culture. Persian vocables are, it is true, employed in every formof Hindostani. Such have been admitted to full citizenship even in the rustic dialects, or Ithe elegant Hindi of modern writers like Harishchandra of Benares. To object to their usewould be affected purism, just as would be the avoidance of the use of all words of Latinderivation in English. But in what is known as high Urdu, the use of Persian words iscarried to almost incredible extremes. In writings of this class we find whole sentences inwhich the only Indian thing is the grammar, and with nothing but Persian words frombeginning to end. It is curious, however, that this extreme Persianisation of Hindostani isnot, as Sir Charles Lyall rightly points out, the work of conquerors ignorant of the tongueof the people. On the contrary, the Urdu language took its rise in the efforts of the everpliable Hindu to assimilate the language of his rulers. Its authors were Kayasths andKhatris employed in the administration and acquainted with Persian, not Persians or



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Persianised Turks, who for many centuries used only their own language for literarypurpose. To these is due the idea of employing the Persian character for their vernacularspeech, and the consequent preference for words to which that character is native."Persian is now no foreign idiom in India, and though its excessive use is repugnant togood taste, it would be a foolish purism and a political mistake to attempt (as some haveattempted) to eliminate it from the Hindu literature of the day." I have made thisquotation from Sir Charles Lyall's work, in order to show what an accomplished scholarhas to say on one side of a much debated question. That the general principle which hehas enunciated is the correct one I think no one will dispute. Once a word has becomedomesticated in Hindostani no one has any right to object to its use whatever its originmay be, and opinions will only differ as to what words have received the right ofcitizenship and what have not. This, after all, is a question of style, and in Hindostani asin English, there are styles and styles." (p. 420-421).

Grierson on the Use of the Term Hindi

"… Europeans use the word (Hindi) in two mutually contradictory senses, viz.,sometimes to indicate the Sanskritised, or at least the non-persianised, form of Hindostaniwhich is used as a literary form of speech by Hindus, and which is usually written in theDevanagari character, and sometimes, loosely, to indicate all the rural dialects spokenbetween Bengal Proper and the Punjab. It is in the latter sense that the word wasemployed at the last Census, but, in the present pages, I use it only in the former. ThisHindi, therefore, or, as it is sometimes called, "High Hindi," is the prose literary languageof those Hindus who do not employ Urdu. It is of modern origin, having been introducedunder English influence at the commencement of the last century. Up till then, whenHindu wrote prose and did not use Urdu, he write in his own local dialect, Awadhi,Bundeli, Braj Bhasha, or what not. Lallu Lal, under the inspiration of Dr. Gilchrist,changed all this by writing the well-known Prem Sagar, a work which was, so far as theprose portions went, practically written in Urdu, with Indo-Aryan words substitutedwherever a writer in that form of speech would use Persian ones. It was thus an automaticreversion to the actual vernacular of the Upper Doab. The course of this novel experimentwas successful from the start. The subject of the first book written init attracted theattention of all good Hindus, and the author's style, musical and rhythmical as the Arabicsaj` pleased their ears. Then, the language fulfilled a want. It gave a lingua franca to theHindus. It enabled men of widely different provinces to converse with each other withouthaving recourse to the, to them, unclean words of the Musalmans. It was intelligibleeverywhere, for its grammar was that of the language which every Hindu had to use inhis business relations with Government officials, and its vocabulary was the commonproperty of all the Sanskrit languages of Northern India. Moreover, very little prose,excepting commentaries and the like, had been written in any modern Indian vernacularbefore. Literature had almost entirely confined itself to verse. Hence the language of thePrem Sagar became, naturally enough, the standard of Hindu prose all over Hindostan,from Bengal to the Punjab, and has held its place as such to the present day. Now-a-daysno Hindu of Upper India dreams of writing in any language but Urdu or Hindi when he iswriting prose; but when he takes to verse, he at once adopts one of the old nationaldialects as the Awadhi or Tulsi Das or the Braj Bhasha of the blind bard of Agra. Some



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adventurous spirits have tried to write poems in Hindi, but the attempts have beendisastrous, and have earned nothing but derision. Since Lallu Lal's time Hindi hasdeveloped for itself certain rules of style which differentiate it from Urdu, the principalones relating to the orders of words, which is much less free than in that form ofHindostani. It has also, of late years, fallen under the fatal spell of Sanskrit, and isshowing signs of becoming, in the hands of Pandits, and under the encouragement ofsome European writers who have learned Hindi though Sanskrit, as debased as literaryBengali, without the same excuse. Hindi has so copious a vocabulary of its own, avocabulary rooted in the very beings of the study peasantry upon whose language it isbased, that nine-tenths of the Sanskrit words which one meets in most modern Hindibooks are useless and unintelligible excrescences. The employment of Sanskrit words issupposed to add dignity to the style. One might as well say that a graceful girl of eighteengained in dignity by masquerading in the furbelows of her great grandmother. Someenlightened native scholars are struggling hard without displaying any affected purism,against this too-easily acquired infection, and we may hope that their efforts will meetwith the encouragement which they deserve.

Varieties of Hindustani

"We may now define the three main varieties of Hindostani as follows: Hindostani isprimarily the language of the Norther Doab, and is also the lingua franca of India,capable of being written in both Persian and Devanagari characters, and, without purism,avoiding alike the excessive use of either Persian or Sanskrit words when employed forliterature. The name "Urdu" can then be confined to that special variety of Hindostani inwhich Persian words are of frequent occurrence, and which hence can only be written inthe a Persian character; and, similarly, "Hindi" can be confined to the form of Hindostaniin which Sanskrit words abound, and which hence can only be written in the Devanagaricharacter. (pp. 420-422).

"The great difference between the poetry of Urdu and that written in the various dialectsof Eastern or Western Hindi lies in the system of prosody. In the former the prosody isthat of the Persian language, while in the latter it is the altogether opposed indigenoussystem of India. Moreover, the former is entirely based on Persian models ofcomposition, which are quite different from the older works from which the nativeliterature took its origin. Urdu prose came into existence, as a literary medium, at thebeginning of the last century in Calcutta. Like Hindi prose, it was due to Englishinfluence, and to the need of text-books in both forms of Hindostani for the College ofFort William. The Bagh-o-Bahar of Mir Amman, and the Khirad Afroz of HafizuddinAhmed are familiar examples of the earlier of these works in Urdu, as the alreadymentioned Prem Sagar written by Lallu Lal is an example of those in Hindi. Since thenboth Urdu and Hindi prose have had a prosperous course …" (p. 422).

It is important for us to remember that the observations of Grierson were written at a timewhen the British consolidation of their power in India was more or less complete. TheBritish officials were looking towards managing the the country as best as they could,based on their appreciation of the religious, cultural and linguistic diversity of the



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country. Punjab had now been annexed, and it came to the British with the legal and otheradministrative arrangements that were followed by the powers that preceded the Britishannexation. The British wanted to continue the existing structure as best as they could,but were not unwilling to depart from the past conventions and practices.

Focus of the Correspondences

The correspondences we reproduce below were written by the government officials andthose connected with the government decision-making process. These were writtenmostly in the last decade of the nineteenth century, a few years before the 1901 census.Grierson who wrote the chapter on language classification and language use for thiscensus focused more on the controversy and competing claims of Urdu and Hindi versusHindustani. His focus was on the similarities and dissimilarities between these styles orspeech varieties. On the other hand, the correspondences reproduced below focus moreon the administrative steps that needed to be taken in relation to language recognition andlanguage use in the government offices and in the courts of law. These correspondencesfocused also on the medium of instruction that should be adopted in the schools run withgovernment funds. A greater focus was on what languages should be taught in theschools. Some of the points that need to be emphasized are as follows:

1. There was a struggle for recognition and survival first between the Persian andUrdu languages. Persian had been taught for long in the schools and had beenused as the medium of administration and courts. Urdu was being slowlyrecognized as the most popular language spoken in north India and a claim wasmade that it be the language of primary communication between the British andother government officials and the people of north India. Which one should betaught in the government schools, and which language should be used in thegovernment documents and deliberations with the people of the Punjab becamethe question for discussion. In due course, Urdu replaced the Persian language andbecame the language of administration and courts.

2. The second stage of the struggle was between the Urdu and Punjabi languages. Tobe precise, the struggle was between the Urdu language and the "dialects" ofPunjabi, since the authorities and sections among the Punjabi speaking peoplethemselves, were unwilling to concede that there could be an independentlanguage called Punjabi!

3. That an Indian language with a large population speaking it has to wage a strugglefor recognition in itself was a tragedy. But the tragedy got worse when it wasclaimed that the Punjabi language did not have any great literature, etc.

4. Yet we should recognize the fact that the participants in the dialogue were mostlythe people from another country (England) and they, indeed, wanted to do theright thing as they saw it fit.

5. The discussions shed light on the methods of governing a foreign people, and thecomplexity of the situation of this rule. It also showed how issues relating tolanguage planning were handled in the past under the British. The rulers were allwilling to introduce the Roman character to write the Punjabi language althoughthey were quite reluctant to let Punjabi assume its rightful place. Was it only



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them? The religious divide between the Muslims and the non-Muslims was takennote of, and the decision was to continue a language (Urdu) as the medium ofinstruction and the medium of government dealings with the people of the Punjab.Because the Punjab as an administrative unit under the British was not ahomogeneous monolingual area, Urdu as the more widely known language in andoutside the Punjab got the place of importance within the Punjab government.

6. Arguments in favor of Punjabi revolved around the demand that in order to attractthe boys from the agricultural classes it was necessary to introduce Punjabi as themedium of instruction in the schools. Although the participants in the discussionsaw some merit in this argument, other reasons for the lack of progress in schooleducation in the Punjab were also given. Such arguments favored the continuationor introduction of Urdu as the school language.

7. Hardly any mention of the education of the girls was made. But one of the writersnoted the role of the rustic Punjabi illiterate women in sustaining the survival ofthe Punjabi language! Yes, indeed, the desire was to see that the Urdu languagewas established as the only language of the Punjab, but these womenfolk, notinitiated into school education, were seen as the stumbling block for the progressof the Urdu language.

8. The dynamics of the social conditions were all clear in these correspondences. Itis the agricultural communities that were seen to be very backward and notsending their children to the schools because they did not find the schoolingrelevant to their way of life.

9. Like in most government sponsored discussions, the original intent was lost andthe issues got distracted. The focus finally was on the introduction of the Romancharacter for writing Urdu in place of the Arabic character. The case of Punjabiwas lost, but the officials of the British Raj were interested in seeing that the Urdulanguage was written with the Roman character so that learning and using itwould be easier for all, especially for the government officials.

Conscience Keeping

In an important sense these documents form a response to the socio-political activity thatstarted after the British introduced Urdu as the language of their administration in thePunjab and elsewhere. A demand for education in the Panjabi language written inGurmukhi script was first made in 1871 in a resolution by some of the prominent peopleof the Punjab. Such a demand turned itself into a language controversy by the year 1882,when, contrary to the past practices, the people started rallying around Urdu, Panjabi andHindi as their identity markers as well as expressions of their political will. The year1882, incidentally, is a landmark year in the field of education in the Punjab. It was in1882 that the first printing press was set up in Lahore, and in the same year the PunjabUniversity in Lahore was also established. With such swift changes, it is very natural thatby 1894, the year of the documents, the British rulers are seen discussing the issues ofeducation and administration, and the language or languages that should be recognizedand encouraged for the purpose.



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The arguments for and against Urdu or Panjabi in the discussion presented in thecorrespondences are not just simple discussions on issues relating to education in thePunjab or the use of Punjabi or Urdu language. Rather, the points reaised in thediscussion reveal the dynamics of the comparative power positions of various parties andtheir assertion within the state. The decision that followed the discussion was not simplya decision for or against a given language; it had certain far-reaching socio-politicalconsequences. However, the consequences could not be foreseen at that time. (Or was italready known and hence the push towards a particular direction?) The British officialswere seen to be sorting out the issues of administation and education, as a matter ofpolitical expediency, but the socio-political consequences would emerge only later on. Inthis sense, these documents form an important chapter in the political history of thePunjab.

There is a very interesting argument in these documents. Call it a lost argument forPanjabi. The fact that most of the people of the Punjab, except the rulers themselves,spoke one form of Panjabi or the other was of no relevance for the discussants in thesecorrespondences. The language which every body spoke in the Punjab was just dismissedas no language! It is thought to have no literature. One must say that this was grossignorance bordering on arrogance, because some of the best literature, i.e., the medievalliterature, of Panjabi till date was composed much before the inauguration of the Britishrule in Punjab.

Further, that the agricultural masses did not understand Urdu was also of no consequence.The expressed assumption is that these masses neither sent their children to school, nordid they find the education offered in the schools relevant. Ideally, this should not havebeen a ground for winning the argument for Urdu, especially if it was considered that thetarget group of the original proposal was the children of the agricultural masses. If thesepeople did not understand, and did not find the education offered to them interesting orrelevant, forget about them; why change - was the attitude and not the argument that won.

But, alas, the creation of the educational opportunities in the Panjabi was proposedkeeping this group of people in mind. If one went by a rough estimate that 90 to 95percent of the people of the Punjab were either directly or indirectly dependant onagriculture, then the intention of the whole exercise in the discussion was altogetherdifferent.

That is, seen from the bottom, there wass never any argument either for this or that. Andthere was indeed no concern for the masses either. One could argue that it was the 5percent and odd section of the total population of the state whose education was beingdiscussed and bothered about. This was nothing more than sheer political expediency; asimple case of a polity where rulers were just interested in educating a tiny section of thesociety to create help in governance, on the one hand, and for the convenience of theruling elite on the other.

This conclusion may be reached even when we look at the arguments that listed thedifficulties in implementing the proposal for recognizing Punjabi as the language of



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administration, etc. In one of the opinions, the official files (records) were cited as thearea of difficulty in shifting from Urdu to Panjabi. There is considerable scope toquestion this assumption as to whether the so called files were really maintained in Urdu,including the ones that the rulers created. The records were known to have beenmaintained, right from the days of the Mughals in Persia,n written in Perso-Arabic script.But, even if it was really the case that the existing files were to be translated into adifferent language, there was no reason why this should not have happened, especially ifthe education of the masses was really at stake. Moreover, if Urdu was not very difficultto learn for the village lads, then the task must have been easy to accomplish this task.

At a different level of consideration, the documents present a grand scheme of privilegecreation and privilege gaining: first you learn an unknown language, then you geteducation in the language, and only then all the benefits that accrue the learning areyours. It is understandable as to why the level of literacy was low during the British rulein the Punjab. By the same token it also becomes clear as to why Panjabi,notwithstanding the script in which it is written, had to wait till 1950 to officially walkinto public educational system (see Zaman 2000 for information on Pakistan).

This issue of recognizing or not recognizing Panjabi relates to the contemporary politicalreality in a very direct way, because the documents may help raising a central question:should the choice of the language of the masses be left to political expediency only? Ifyes, then how do polities democratize themselves? By denying the right to get educatedin their own language, could societies sustain themselves for long? Given thetechnological advancement it is possible to educate the people though their own mothertongues even if these people are small in number. Will societies be willing to do that?

Many current issues that are being debated in the language planning circles are present inthe documents in one form or another. The officials were aware of these problems, andtried to solve these problems in their own way, as they understood the situation beforethem and as they were consciously or unconscioulsy guided by their interests. Some ofthese issues are: A language could be created out of some formal diversity. Only thatlanguage that has good body of literature may serve as the medium of education.Education should be such that it relates the educated people to the demands of the socio-political reality, on the one hand, and to the advancements of scientific knowledge, on theother. The State has its responsibility towards the education of its masses. In this sense,the documents form a chapter in the history of the field of knowledge called languageplanning as well, except for the fact that the idiom in which the statements were made isfrom an earlier period.

The main question from the point of view of language planning is this: Should languageplanning be geared up towards what may be called the maximization of the opportunityfor all to develop, or should it plan for the perpetuation of a few? How sensible couldlanguage planners be if they recommend this kind of extreme and intentional syllabus tothe contemporary world? Further, even if such policies are made to justify, would suchpolicies last the test of time? Where from should the test of a language planning packagecome if it is not linked to the societal consequences?



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Finally, language planning is also a matter of conscience keeping (see also Nazm HussainSayed 2000), both for the ruler and the ruled. If the rules framed by the ruler do not invitethe subjects of the ruler to participate in the game of illuminated life-making, the ruler isbound to perish. The power of the ruler does not last long. Every society, howsoeverinsignificant in number, has its in-built mechanisms to learn and create. If governanceproves to be an impetus to learning, the impact is just astronomical.

The correspondences presented here were taken from Development of Urdu as OfficialLanguage in the Punjab (1849-1974), published by the Director of Archives (NazirAhmad Chaudhry), Government of the Punjab Government of the Punjab, Pakistan,1977. This is an excellent collection of the government correspondences on the languageof administration, education and courts.

Here are the correspondences.

FromLieutenant Colonel J. A. L. MontgomeryOfficiating Commissioner and Superintendent, Rawalpindi Division

ToThe Under-Secretary to Government, Punjab,Home (Education) Department.

Dated 1st September 1894.

I have the honor to forward in original some papers connected with a scheme proposedby Mr. Wilson, Deputy Commissioner of Shahpur (now on leave), for popularisingeducation among the masses of the Punjab. Mr. Wilson's paper is written with his usualability, and is deserving of consideration. I circulated it for opinion among the DeputyCommissioners of the Division, and enclose in original the replies received fromGujranwala, Jhelum, Sialkot and Rawalpindi. The opinion from the last-named district isthat of Lala Sagar Chand, B. A., Inspector of Schools of the Circle, and has beenforwarded by Mr. Beckett with the remark that he agrees in its conclusions. The notewritten by Mr. Watson, Assistant Commissioner of Gujranwala, is a scholarly essay onthe general question, and specially creditable to an officer who has only been a fewmonths in India. The opinions of Mr. 0' Dwyer and Lala Sagar Chand are also wellconsidered and valuable.

2. Mr. Wilson recommends that(1) In all Government schools and colleges and in all Government offices only theRoman character should be used.(2) In all primary schools education should be carried on only in the Punjabi languagewritten in the Roman character.(3) A committee of scholars should assemble to draw up in Punjab and in the Romancharacter a grammar and dictionary of the authorised Punjabi language and school-bookscomposed in that language and that character.



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3. I agree generally in Lala Sagar Chand's opinion. The same conclusions are expressed,though more briefly, by Lieutenant Douglas, Officiating Deputy Commissioner ofSialkot. The advantages of the Roman character are enumerated by Mr. Wilson and LalaSagar Chand, and I entirely agree that we should do our best to introduce this characterinto the schools. In order to make this more popular, we must, as Lala Sagar Chand says,bring it into use also in our courts and offices.

4. Mr. Wilson's most radical proposals are for the formation of a common Punjabilanguage and its general introduction as the language of the primary schools and of thecourts. I think that Mr. Wilson is here aiming at an impossibility. Urdu itself is no doubt amixed language which was introduced in a manner by order. But it is a language with alarge vocabulary and a wide literature. It is also now generally spoken in a large part ofIndia, including the Punjab. There are few p1aces even in remote parts of the Punjabwhere it is not understood. To attempt to suppress such a language and to introduce in itsplace a practically unwritten language, with such poor vocabulary would in my opinionbe a retrograde step.

5. I join issue with Mr. Wilson in his opening argument. He says that education is notpopular among the agricultural classes because it is given in Urdu. The true reasonappears to me to be that there is at present no desire for education for its own sake; it isregarded generally only as a means to Government employment. The fact that Urdu istaught in the schools does not, I believe, in any way retard the spread of education. Iwould go further and say that I believe the change proposed by Mr. Wilson would not bepopular even among Punjabi villagers In any case, Mr. Wilson's paper deservesdiscussion by all officers who are interested in education, and for this reason I forwardthese papers to Government.

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Note by J. Wilson, Esquire, Deputy Commissioner of Shahpur on PrimaryEducation in the Punjab and the teaching of Punjabi, in the Roman character.

Dated 21st April 1894.

I wish to draw attention to what I consider to be serious faults in our system of primaryeducation in the Punjab, and to suggest improvements.

(1) It fails to attract more than a small proportion of the boys, we wish to educate, andespecially of those belonging to the agricultural classes, in which I include not only land-owners and tenants, but also artisans and village menials. According to the Census Reportof 1891 only 4 per cent of the boys in the Punjab between the ages of five and fourteeninclusive were learning to write, the proportion among Hindus being 12 percent, andamong Mussalmans 3 per cent; of the whole male population only 5.89 per cent were ableto read and write, the proportion among the commercial classes being 17.8 per cent,among the agricultural classes only 1.44 percent and among the artisan class only .88 percent.



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(2) It is conducted for the most part in a language foreign to the people. To the ordinaryPunjabi village boy Urdu is almost as foreign as French would be to an English rustic.The Punjabi boy is not taught to read the language he speaks, but a language many of thewords in which he does not understand until they are translated for him into his ownPunjabi.(3) Although much has been done of late years to simplify the language of the text-books,it still too often makes use of unfamiliar, pedantic words drawn from Persian, Arabic orSanskrit, which require to be translated into Punjabi before they are understood by theschool-boy.(4) In so far as education is conducted in the Arabic character, it is conducted in acharacter totally foreign to the genius of the language employed. The Arabic character issuited only to the writing of Arabic words, and is as unsuited to represent the soundsemployed by a Punjabi or Urdu speaker in words derived from Hindi of Persian, as theHebrew character would be to represent English or French words.(5) Although considerable improvement has been effected of late years in the subjectsstudied, there is still far too much prominence given to mere literary instruction, and toolittle to technical and scientific instruction.

In short, we get out Punjabi village boys to learn Urdu in the Arabic character and thenteach them Saadi's Gulistan in Persian, which is much the same as if the system ofeducation for English village boys were to begin by teaching them French in the Hebrewcharacter and go on to teach them Virgil's Aeneid in Latin.

The history of education in England affords an instructive parallel. In the dark ageseducation was given only in Latin, and was confined to a very small proportion of thepopulation. Later on French became the official language, and education in that tonguespread among the upper classes. But it was not until the native English tongue wasadopted as the means of instruction that education became general among the masses ofthe people. Similarly, in the Punjab, fifty years ago, Persian was the official language andthe chief means of education. We have now made Urdu the official language and teach itin our schools, and thus attract a considerably larger proportion of the total population,but chiefly those who aim at obtaining employment I our offices. And it will not be untilwe offer education to the people in their own familiar Punjabi that we shall succeed ininducing the masses to take advantage of it. There are in the Punjab nearly sixteenmillions of people whose mother-tongue is Punjabi. Is it to be imagined that we can in thecourse of several generations, teach any large proportion of this vast number to read andwrite a language so foreign to them as Urdu?

It may be objected that there is no one Punjabi language, but several distinct dialects.This is true, but it was also true of all written languages before the particular dialectultimately adopted became specially favoured by the literate. Modern standard Englishwas originally only one of many dialects; so were modern French and modern German.Similarly, there can be little difficulty in adopting some one dialect of Punjabi anddeveloping it into a language which will be readily understood by all Punjabi speakers,and at the same time capable of expressing all their ideas with as little admixture offoreign words as possible.



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As regards the character to be used, there can be little doubt that in the circumstances theRoman character is the most suitable. Being a character developed by speakers of Aryanlanguages, it suits the genius of the Punjabi tongue much better than the Arabic character,which is fitted to express only words of Semitic origin; it does not require so many dotsand diacritical marks as the Arabic character; it is easier to write it clearly; it can beprinted very much more clearly and satisfactorily; it is the character used in English,which is rapidly becoming the official language and the language of the educated classes.No doubt the Gurmukhi or Nagri character is much better suited to express indigenousPunjabi words than the roman character, but it is less able to express words of Persian,Arabic or English origin, of which there are now a considerable number adopted intoordinary Punjabi speech; it is much more difficult to write and print clearly; and it wouldnever be adopted by the Mussalman portion of the population, while all will readilyaccept the Roman character.

The adoption of the roman character has been artificially and unnecessarily renderedmore difficult by the introduction of diacritical marks and dots intended to make itrepresent distinctly every sound in the language, and event he derivation of foreignwords. For instance, what does it matter to a Punjabi speaker whether Sawar, Sabit, Sadarare spelled with a sin, a se, or swad? To him in all three cases the sound is a simple s. Oragain, why should he be required to distinguish between the Arabic letters te and toe, asin tan and talab? To him the sound is the same. Moreover, even where the sound of aletter differs to his ear, there is no more necessity for his having different marks torepresent the different sounds than there is for an Englishman's having different marks forthe different sounds of the th in thin and in this, or for the different sounds of the u inunder and in unit. Thus, although it may be necessary for an Englishman, learningPunjabi to represent the different sounds of the two ts or two ds or two rs by putting a dotbelow the letter for one of them, no Punjabi requires such help in reading his ownlanguage. He does not even require marks to show when the vowel is long or nasalized asan Englishman learning the language would. For instance, if the sentence tittar te bater aturda phar lenda hai, what native Punjabi, who knew the Roman character and wasaccustomed to this mode of writing could fail to read it correctly and understand it,although it might at first sight puzzle an Englishman? It might possibly be foundadvisable at all events in printed books, to distinguish the long vowels by an accent overthem, and to mark the nasal sound by a circumflex over the nasalized letter (it oughtnever to be represented by the letter n), but it can never be necessary in books printed inPunjabi for Punjabi-speakers to dot the different letters so as to mark slight differences ofsound which come naturally to their lips. If the attempt, in some cases pedantic, in othersunnecessary, to distinguish by marks and dots letters which have the same or nearly thesame sound be abandoned, the writing and printing of Punjabi in the Roman characterbecomes a much more simple matter than is generally considered necessary in booksprinted in that character under the guidance of English scholars.

Again in grammars and dictionaries of Punjabi drawn up under the guidance of Europeanscholars, the object being to represent the different dialects as they really are, manydifferent forms of the same word or inflection are necessarily shown, and the subject thusrendered confusing and complicated. But if one particular dialect wee adopted as the



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authorized Punjabi language, just as has been done in the case of English. French,German, and indeed all standard literary languages, and only those words and inflectionsshown which were approved as belonging to that authorized language, a grammar anddictionary of Punjabi would be very much simpler than such books ordinarily are, just asa grammar and dictionary of the "Queen's English" is much simpler than one that takesaccount of dialectical peculiarities and obsolete words and inflections.

I would suggest that a committee of competent scholars, European and Native, beappointed to determine what words and inflections should be accepted as belonging to thestandard Punjabi language, and what should be discarded as merely dialecticalpeculiarities. In deciding any doubtful point regard should be paid to the extent to whichthe word or inflection is current throughout the Province, and favour should be shown tothe simple forms as compared with the more complex. For instance, the ne or nai of theagent case might be dropped with advantage, as it is in Western Punjab and Mooltani,and wherever a nasal or an aspirate is found to be dispensed with in some of the currentdialects of Punjabi, it should be dropped out of the authorized language; and no wordshould find a place in the authorized dictionary which is not current at least over a largeportion of the Punjab.

The language having been thus fixed, a grammar and dictionary should be drawn up,entirely in Punjabi and in the Roman character, without any diacritical marks exceptthose necessary to mark the long vowels and nasalized letters. School-book should beprinted in the same language and character, and by degrees a literature would spring upwritten in a language readily understood by all the people of the Punjab and printeddistinctly in the roman character. All instruction in Primary Schools controlled byGovernment should, without exception, be given in the Punjabi language and the Romancharacter.

Similarly, all advanced instruction in schools and colleges controlled by Governmentshould be given either in the Punjabi language and Roman character or in English, whichis already the language of the educated classes throughout India, and is rapidlysupplanting Urdu for purposes of higher instruction and communication between nativesof different Provinces. If a Punjabi boy wishes to learn another language besides his own,he will find English a much more useful acquisition than Urdu, and if he has from thefirst been made familiar with the Roman character he will not find English so difficult tolearn as he does at present; and his mind not being burdened and confused as it now is bya smattering of Urdu or Persian besides his native Punjabi his progress in real educationand knowledge will be more rapid. Youths who wish to study foreign or ancientlanguages such as Urdu, Sanskrit, Persian or Arabic should be left to obtain an educationin those language in private schools and colleges supported by their fees or by privateliberality, and the public monies, which are largely subscribed by the agricultural classes,should be expended only on education given in a form which will commend itself tothose classes and be directly useful to them.

There can, I think, be little doubt that if all education in primary schools were given inthe Punjabi language and the Roman character, and the school-books were drawn up in



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clear, simple words ordinarily understood by the peasant, and dealt with agricultureelementary science, geography, history and kindred subjects, in short, if they aimed moreat explaining to the mind of the village boy the common objects of his daily life,education would rapidly become more popular, and the numbers of scholars in villageschools would rapidly increase.

In this country, where so large a proportion of school boys look forward to employmentunder Government, it is no doubt essential to the success of the proposed change that theconditions of Government service should altered to suit it. All work in Governmentoffices should be conducted in the Roman character and either in English or Punjabi, theUrdu language and the Arabic character being entirely banished. But if it be admitted thatthe change would be a beneficial one, neither the Government nor the EducationDepartment should wait for the other to commence it. Both should take it up at once andwork for it together.

The change would of course have to be gradual and would take years to carry out. But itmust come some day and the sooner the better. If the system of education in the Punjabhad been started on these lines forty years ago, who can doubt that education would bythis time have been much more general and much more sound than it is? My suggestionmay be summed up as follows:

1. In all Government schools and colleges and in all government offices only the Romancharacter should be used.

2. In all primary schools education should be carried on only in the Punjabi languagewritten in the Roman character.

3. A committee of scholars should be at once formed to draw up in Punjabi and in theRoman character a grammar and dictionary of the authorized Punjabi language andschool-books composed in that language and that character.

*** *** ***

FromM.F.O'Dwyer, Esquire,Deputy CommissionerGujranwala

ToThe Commissioner and SuperintendentRawalpindi Division.

Dated 9th June 1894.

In reply to your Circular No. 48/1293 dated 2nd May 1894, forwarding for opinion copyof Mr. Wilson's letter No. C-29 dated 21st April 1894, regarding the education of the



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agricultural classes, I have the honor to forward a note on the subject by Mr. Watson,Assistant Commissioner, with whose opinion, as expressed in paragraphs 6, 7 and 8, Igenerally agree, and to make the following remarks seriatim with reference to thesuggestions made by Mr. Wilson regarding the present system of primary education inthe Punjab and the teaching of Punjabi in the roman character:

1. Mr. Wilson says that "the present system of education fails to attract more than a smallproportion of the boys we wish to educate and especially of those belonging to theagricultural classes." I am not sure that this is so much the fault of the medium ofinstruction as the result of backward state of civilization. Is it a fact that where instructionis given through the medium of the popular language, e.g. Urdu in most of the North-Western Provinces, Marhatti in the Deccan, that primary education is much more popularthan in the Punjab?

2. I think the foreignness of Urdu to a Punjabi school-boy is rather exaggerated. No doubtmany of the words are unfamiliar to him at first, in the same way as polysyllable Englishwords are unfamiliar to an English school-boy learning his a primer; but just as theEnglish boy improves his vocabulary as he goes on, so does the Punjabi boy. The Urduwords he learns-where they are not pedantic terms which have useful and simple Punjabiequivalents-are so much gained, even admitting Mr. Wilson's parallel, an English boy'sstudy of French increases his vocabulary and his mastery of his own language.

3. The argument that the language of the text-books too often makes the use of unfamiliarpedantic words drawn from Persian, Arabic or Sanskrit, which require to be translatedinto Punjabi before they are understood by the school-boy, is rather one against setting upa bad standard of Urdu than one for the elimination of Urdu altogether. The difficult isone that can be overcome-

a. by eschewing the use of far-fetched pedantic expressions where there is a simpleexisting Urdu word.

b. by borrowing judiciously, where there is no Urdu equivalent, from Arabic, Hindior Sanskrit.

4. I admit the disadvantage of the Arabic characters. It is a stumbling-block to everyEnglish official who has to transact work in vernacular. The substitution of the Romancharacter would be open to similar objections as regards representation of Punjabisounds, but would have many administrative advantages from the point of view of theEnglish official. The transition from the use of one to the other in records, files, & c.,would be attended with many difficulties and inconvenience.

5. The fact that too much prominence is given to mere literary instruction and too little totechnical and scientific instruction is a matter concerning the substance of the educationrather than the medium of form through which it is conveyed. The unpractical nature ofthe education is perhaps the main reason why it has caught on with the agriculturalclasses. If you ask a zamindar why he does not send his son to school, his reply is that itunfits the boy for the plough. Even some of the most intelligent zamindars, who are most



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anxious to give their sons a good start in life, think it a wise precaution not to give eventhe rudiments of education to the boy who is destined to carry on his father's work ofagriculture.

Surely there can be no more conclusive proof than this of the unsuitability of the presentsystem of instruction.

As regards Mr. Wilson's three suggestions in his last paragraph I would remark-

1. If we retain the Urdu language we should logically, I suppose, retain the Arabiccharacter, as many of the sounds of Arabic and Persian words borrowed by Urducan only be properly expressed by that medium. At the same time the greatadvantage as regards clearness and precision attending the use of the Romanalphabet is a strong argument in favour of its being substituted for the Arabic.

2. As regards superseding Urdu by Punjabi in primary schools the question turnslargely on the possibility of evolving from existing dialects a standard Punjabiwhich will gradually crush out the existing dialects and become the lingua francaof the Punjabi, I doubt if this is feasible, and even if feasible, whether it isdesirable. Many of the words and inflexions of the standard we set up will be asunfamiliar to many of the students who have not been accustomed to theparticular dialect from which they are drawn as the present Urdu words andforms. Moreover, the measure would be a distinctly reactionary one. We have inUrdu not only the best language in the East for colloquial purposes, but also aflexible formation and copious vocabulary, capable of expressing a great numberof even modern ideas with clearness and precision. In Punjabi we have only arough working dialect, good enough for colloquial purposes, but too poor in itsvocabulary and so limited in its formation and power of adaptation to be suited tothe wants of advancing civilization.

3. As to Mr. Wilson's third suggestion, I think the questions he raises might besubmitted to a criticism of experts.

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FromH.D. Watson, Esquire,Assistant Commissioner,Gujranwala

ToThe Deputy Commissioner,Gujranwala

Dated 30th May 1894

I herewith submit some remarks on Mr. Wilson's suggestions as to the alteration in thesystem of education in the Punjab contained in his letter to the Rawalpindi Division. I



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know little as yet both of the working of this system and of the Punjabi language whichMr. Wilson wishes to substitute for Urdu in its curriculum, but I will put down some ofthe ideas that have occurred to me in the perusal of his note.

2. In the first place, does he not rather exaggerate the difference between Urdu andPunjabi? The difference appears to me to be mainly one of words; the construction of thesentences and the syntax in general is pretty nearly the same. In learning French one hasto accustom one self to new modes of expression and construction, not, it is true, sonumerous or so difficult as would be found in earning Greek or Latin, but still enough topuzzle the beginner very considerably. In Punjabi, on the other hand, so far as my studieshave gone, you can generally turn an Urdu sentence into Punjabi simply by substitutingPunjabi words and inflections for the corresponding Urdu ones, and leaving theconstruction of the sentence as it was before. This is due of course to the fact that Punjabiis simply a dialectical variation of Hindi (the syntax of which is the same as that of Urdu)and is not a separate language. A priori therefore I cannot speak a posteriori I should saythat a Punjabi boy ought not to find it so very difficult to learn to speak Urdu as Mr.Wilson would make out.

3. I would venture also to disagree with Mr. Wilson's remarks as to the Arabic character.The Arabic alphabet with a few Hindi and Persian letters added has for long been thecharacter adopted in written Urdu, and it seems to me to be admirably adapted forexpressing the sounds of the various consonants and vowels. The fact that this characterhas so long been employed with success in Persian also is additional evidence to itssuitability for a language in which there are so many Persian words.

It is certainly suited for Punjabi in which there are several sounds which cannotadequately be represented by Arabic letters, but to say that you might as well representEnglish words in Hebrew characters as Hindi or Persian words in Arabic is surely anexaggeration. There are numerous words common to Urdu and Punjabi which can as wellbe represented by Arabic as by Gurmukhi letters.

If Punjabi be substituted for Urdu in the Government schools, Mr. Wilson urges theadoption of the Roman character in the place of the Gurmukhi or Nagri. I should havethought the Roman character was very ill adapted to express indigenous Punjabi words,more so even than the Arabic character, which in its 'Aryanized' form adequatelyexpresses the sounds of some of the Hindi letters.

4. But granting that the Roman character is so far superior to the Gurmukhi or Nagri,would the change be so readily accepted as Mr. Wilson contends? I should have thoughtthat Sikhs at any rate would strongly object if, as I understand, the Gurmukhi alphabetwas invented, or rather adapted from the Nagri character, by their Chief Guru, and is thecharacter in which the Granth is written. Mr. Wilson thinks that a committee of Europeanand Native scholars might set up a standard Punjabi language which would come to beuniversally accepted throughout the Province. He says that just as what is now modernEnglish was originally one of many dialects, so a single Punjabi dialect could be easilyadopted and developed till it became intelligible to all Punjabi speakers. But I am not sure



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that the analogy is correct. Modern English can hardly be said to have been originally adialect. It is, I suppose, a conglomeration of words of Saxon of Latin origin, and it wasnot developed from one particular dialect, but was the langue of the towns and centers ofcivilization, the original pure Saxon being considerably modified by an admixture of newwords and phrases which intercourse with other nations brought into use. You do not callthe language of Chaucer a dialect; his is a well of pure English undefiled and modernQueen's English is its direct descendant. It represents the original stock and modernEnglish dialects are its off shoots that branched off most of them long ago and still retainwords and expressions formerly in use in another language, but now obsolete. Since theseparation each has gone through many modifications, but he fact still remains that theone was originally contained in the other and was not, as Mr. Wilson seems to hold, ajoint offshoot of a higher stock.

5. In Punjabi the case is different. Here we have nothing but dialects, derived, mainlyfrom Hindi, which is little spoken in the Province; there is no one parent language whichcan be set up as a standard; it must be left to the committee of experts either to select oneparticular dialect and say "this shall be the universal standard," or to make a selectionfrom all the dialects and insist on that as the true and pure Punjabi language, -- a task ofvery considerable difficulty. It is as if one were to try and establish a standard Englishlanguage by taking the dialects of Northumberland, Norfolk, Cornwall, Somerset shireand the London coster, and either saying, 'The coster's is the language of the future; anyone who fails to drop his h's or calls a donkey a moke is committing a solicism', or elseinsisting on every one speaking and writing a language arbitrarily formed by a selectionfrom all these dialects, and so neither fish, flesh, fowl nor good red herring. I knownothing of the various Punjabi dialects, but I imagine that a native of the extreme west ofthe Punjab would hardly be intelligible to a native of the extreme east, and to provide alanguage which would be acceptable as a standard to both would be no easy matter.

6. But granted such a language could be established would it be a satisfactory one andcapable of fulfilling all the demands made upon it? A dialect has never very extensivevocabulary; it has not many words for expressing abstract or complex ideas. It requires along course of elaboration and development before it becomes a literary language. Urdu,with the help of Arabic and Persian, has far more capacities in it. If you have a standardlanguage, it ought to be a good one and a suitable vehicle for all kinds of expression. Inthis case Mr. Wilson wishes to substitute a language which is still in a comparativelyrudimentary state and is spoken little by the educated classes for one which ahs reached ahigh stage of development, and is far better suited for expressing the technicalities oflegal phraseology and abstract or complex ideas in general. It would be a very long timebefore Punjabi could attain to the elegance of Urdu, and it could only be done if at all, bya large importation of Arabic and Persian words which Mr. Wilson desires as much aspossible to exclude.

7. And lastly, even assuming that the teaching of Punjabi in Government Schools and theadoption of it in place of Urdu as the official language have all the advantages Mr.Wilson claims, would the change be worth the trouble? The transition would inevitablybe extremely difficult. At present all the vernacular files are in Urdu; in future Mr.



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Wilson would have them written in Punjabi and the Roman character. But, unless Mr.Wilson would recommend having the old files rewritten in Punjabi-an immense labour-for many years to come native officials would have to know both Urdu and Punjabi, andin the schools there must be means of teaching both languages; else how could theadministration be worked? When once an official language for records has been fixed onand in use for a long period, it is surely a doubtful policy to throw everything intoconfusion by the arbitrary substitution of a new language and character unless you canshow overwhelming reasons for the adoption of the latter.

8. The chief advantage to be gained by such a course as Mr. Wilson suggests would bethat more children would be attracted to the Government schools. On the other hand, Iwould urge that a child can find no very great difficulty in learning Urdu, that it will notbe easy to set up any particular Punjabi dialect as a standard and get every one toconform thereto; that if you do succeed in setting up such a standard you will besubstituting for a language that is comparatively highly developed and a suitable vehiclefor expressing the technicalities of legal and other phraseologies a dialect that as suchcannot be well adapted for use as an official language, and can only be made so byborrowing largely from foreign sources; that by adopting the Roman instead of theArabic or Gurmukhi character you will not be making a change that will be any greatimprovement or very acceptable to any one except the English themselves; and finally,that the difficulties of the transition would be so numerous, the unnecessary expenditureof labour so great, and the period of confusion resulting therefrom so prolonged that evenif there were no other objections to Mr. Wilson's proposals it would seem hardly worthwhile to carry them out at such a cost.

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FromW.S. Talbot, Esquire,Deputy CommissionerJhelum

ToThe Commissioner and Superintendent,Rawalpindi Division

Dated 26th June 1894

I have the honor to reply to your Circular No. 48-1293, dated 2nd May 1894, regardingMr. Wilson's suggestions for the improvement of our system of primary education in thePunjab.

2. It cannot be doubted that, if it were possible to Punjabi the medium of education, oursystem would be more attractive than at present to the agricultural classes, and would inall probability bring to the schools a considerably large proportion of boys of thoseclasses. Whether the increase would be as great as Mr. Wilson believes is a matter as to



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which there is room for doubt. It will be along time before education for its own sakebecomes popular with the agricultural classes. Meanwhile the change proposed would bea step in the right direction.

3. There would be no serious difficulty in evolving a standard Punjabi for the purpose,though the task would be no light one; and if Punjabi is to be introduced at all, it will bewell to make the change through one, and introduce the Roman character as well. Its onlyserious is the Arabic character, and Mr. Wilson has given good reasons for preferring it tothat character.

4. But the change, it is said, would involve the supersession of Urdu by English orRomanized Punjabi in all the Government offices. The difficulties here would be great;the bulk of officials, especially those in the subordinate grades, have been educated inUrdu only, and a coming generation of officials is being educated for the most part in thesame way. It is true that Urdu-educated Punjabis would only have to learn the Romancharacter, and the slight variations of the standard Punjabi from that to which he wasaccustomed; and for English-educated Punjabis the fresh knowledge to be acquiredwould be even smaller; but it would be impossible to send all our subordinate officials toschool again even for the acquisition of this slight knowledge, and the only other way ofpreserving their usefulness, while providing for a new generation of Punjabi-educatedmen, would be a partial introduction of the new language, which could never be effectedeven after years of preparation without dislocating the whole system, and at least causingvery serious inconvenience for many years.

5. Very strong reasons would have to be shown before such a sweeping change as thiscould be effected; and I venture to think that the disadvantages of the present system havebeen a little overstated. For instance, Mr. Wilson's argument that Urdu is as foreign to thePunjabi village as French to the English rustic. It is of course indisputable that Urdu doesnot come naturally to the Punjabi rustic, but he can as a rule catch the drift of what is saidto him in Urdu if he chooses to try.

6. One disadvantage of the change, if thoroughly carried out, would be the isolation of theProvince, or rather of the Punjabi districts. Mr. Wilson meets this objection by saying thatEnglish is rapidly becoming the medium of intercourse between different parts of India,which is doubtless true; but it is surely the case that Urdu is still (and will be for a longtome to come) far more used than English for this purpose.

7. I do not feel competent to give an opinion as to the practicability of Mr. Wilson'ssuggestions. The difficulties which would be met with are formidable, but should not beinsurmountable. At any rate his proposal is worthy of full discussion in the waysuggested by him.

8. I regret the delay in replying to this reference, which is due chiefly to the papershaving been mislaid by me.

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FromThe Inspector of SchoolsRawalpindi Circle

ToThe Director of Public InstructionPunjab

Dated 23rd June 1894

I beg to reply to your demi-official asking for my opinion on the points raised by Mr.Wilson in his memorandum on education in the Punjab.

2. Before being sent to me the paper was given to Babu Hari Singh and Lala Amlok Ramto criticize, and when it came to my hands I gave it to Lala Sheo Lal, so that the mostimportant points for or against Mr. Wilson's proposal have already been noticed by one ofother of these gentlemen. Lala Sheo Lal has also contributed a history, herewithsubmitted, of the attempts made from time to time to extend the use of the Romancharacter both in this and elsewhere, which is interesting.

It is hardly necessary for me after this to make any lengthened remarks on thememorandum, and I shall accordingly try to be as brief as possible.

3. The reform in our educational system advocated by Mr. Wilson is three-fold, first, thatUrdu should be replaced in our schools by Punjabi, second that the Roman charactershould be substituted for the Persian character; and third, that more prominence should begiven to scientific and technical than to literary instruction in the scheme of studies.

4. The ground on which the first change is desired is that Urdu is foreign language to aPunjabi as foreign in fact as French to an English rustic. Now, with all respect for Mr.Wilson, it is, I think, scarcely correct to say that the relation between Urdu and Punjabi issimilar to that between French and English. The former appear to be dialects of the samelanguage; the latter are fundamentally different. An Englishman travelling throughFrance and knowing no French would not be able to make himself understood. AHindustani making a tour of the Punjab would find few place (leaving out the Pashto-speaking districts on the frontier and some of the hill tracts in the north) where he wouldnot be able to make his meaning known, the vocabulary and the grammar of the twolanguages being fundamentally the same. And not only do these languages agree in allessentials, the knowledge of Urdu is widely diffused in the Province through social andcommercial intercourse, and through it's being the language of the courts. No doubt thelast census report shows that only 17 percent of the people speak Urdu, while 62 percentspeak Punjabi; but the report does not show what proportion of the Punjabi-speakingpopulation can converse in Urdu also. If such statistics were available they would showthat Urdu is widely known in the Punjab; and so great is its influence on the sisterlanguage in towns at least, it is changing the character of the latter by modifying itspronunciation and idiom.



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While, therefore, it cannot be said that Urdu is as different from Punjabi as French fromEnglish, it may be admitted that to a Punjabi lad books written in his own dialect wouldbe more familiar.

5. The question, however, whether Urdu should be replaced by Punjabi in our schoolsdoes not depend for its solution upon this consideration only. We have to see whether thechange is on the whole desirable, and on this point the weight of argument seems to be infavour of preserving the status quo. In the first place, as I have endeavoured to show,Urdu is not so very foreign to the Punjabi as is alleged, whether we consider its grammarand vocabulary or its wide diffusion in the country. In the second place, the people arereconciled to it. There is, therefore, no urgent necessity for the change, and a stepinvolving consequences of such magnitude as this should not be taken without animperative call for it. Moreover, Urdu has now become literate; and it would take manyyears before any dialect of the Punjabi could arrive at the same stage of development. Isthe progress of the country to be put back for a generation while a new instrument ofthought is being perfected?

6. Mr. Wilson draws a parallel between the history of education in England and that inIndia. He says: "In the dark ages (in England) education was given in Latin, and wasconfined to a few. Later on French became the official language, and education in thattongue spread among the upper classes. But it was not until the native English wasadopted as the means of instruction that education became general among the masses."From this it is argued that if Punjabi were taught in our schools, the masses would flockto them too.

With regard to these remarks I would respectfully observe that while no doubt the fact ofLatin being the language taught in the schools was one of the causes of the backwardnessof England educationally during the middle ages, there still more potent causes at worktending to the same result. In the first place, the mass of the nations was at that periodquite indifferent education, as the bulk of the people of India are still. They prized onlythe profession of arms, and did not think much of book-learning. In the second place,printing not having been invented, mass education, or even a large extension of it, was animpossibility then. The same cause prevented the spread of French among the masseslater on. And, moreover, mass education was not thought of in the dark ages. Even afterEnglish became the official language, the masses remained for a long time sunk inignorance, and it was only in the last century that people began to turn their attention tothe mental improvement of the great body of the nation. Therefore the history ofeducation in England does not seem to lead to the conclusion that Urdu repels boys fromour schools. If when Norman French was introduced into England a State department ofeducation had been in existence there, to look after the advancement of the people inreading and writing, and if cheap books had been available French might have made greatprogress in England.

Similarly, in India the knowledge of Persian was limited to a small number of the peopleunder the Muhammadan Kings, not chiefly because Persian was repellent, but for want ofcheap books and for want of an organized attempt to spread it among the people.



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I may here observe, to guard against being misunderstood, that trying to extend theknowledge of a language among a people up to a certain standard is not the same astrying to change their language. In India it would be quite possible, for example, towidely spread a knowledge of English up to the Upper Primary Standard, say; that wouldnot be changing the language of the people, but the attempt would be so expensive, andso utterly useless, that it is wise that nothing of the kind is done. (Note: Teaching Urdu inour schools, however, is, in my opinion, not teaching a foreign language.)

7. Holding these views, I repeat it does not seem desirable to make any change in thelanguage taught in our vernacular schools, but the adoption of the Roman character isdictated by every consideration of policy.

As remarked by Mr. Wilson, "it is easier to write it clearly; it can be printed much moreclearly and satisfactorily; it is the character used in English, which is rapidly becomingthe official language and the language of the educated classes; "and last, but not least, itwould enable people to write their petitions in a character known to the authorities, whowould be less liable to be deceived by their Munshis. There is also hope that if adopted inthe Punjab it might become general in the whole country, removing one difficulty in theway of a stranger acquiring the numerous languages spoken in India. Mr. Wilson'sremarks regarding the transliteration of Indian words into the Roman character seem veryjust. The spelling would perhaps at first vary, but would gradually become fixed, and Isee no inherent difficulties in the way of carrying out this change, but it must beintroduced into the Vernacular Government offices first. This could be easily done, as ithas already been ruled that from 1896 forward all ministerial offices in districts such asthose of Sarishtadar, Naib-Sarishtadar, Kanungo, Naib-Kanungo, & c., shall be filled bymen knowing English. All new hands would thus be transliterate. And as for the oldhands they could learn it in a short time. All that is necessary is that it should be ruledthat from such and such a date all writing in the Persian offices must be in the romancharacter.

The charge need not be necessarily more expensive. You can write very well with reedpens on country paper, with country ink, sitting down on the ground, with the paper youare writing on placed on your knee for a table. There would be no difficulty in teachingthis character in the schools either. Transliteration was formerly a subject in NormalSchools, and could be easily introduced in them again; so that our schools wouldgradually be furnished with teachers knowing this character. And if introduced into theGovernment offices, it would acquire an importance which would guard its beingneglected. Gradually it would be possible to give all instruction through the medium ofthis character. (Note: Some think that because past attempts to introduce the Romancharacter into India have failed, therefore, it is proved that the people of India will havenone of it. This I do not admit, for it was never adopted in the Government Offices. Itsintroduction is now advocated on the express understanding that it is so adopted.)

8. The third point in Mr. Wilson's proposal is that the present scheme of studies gives toomuch prominence to literary and too little to scientific and technical instruction; and heproposes that "the school books should be drawn up in simple words ordinarily



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understood by the peasant," and that they should deal with Agriculture, elementaryScience, Geography, History and kindred subjects. Now, what Mr. Wilson says regardingthe subjects that should find a place in the vernacular Readers is very just, but theDepartment has already anticipated him in this, and the new Readers for vernacularprimary schools are written very much on the lines suggested by him. As regards theremark that undue prominence is give in the curriculum to literary at the expense ofscientific and technical instruction, it should be noted that for the last 15 years naturalScience has formed an optional and sanitation compulsory subject for the Middle SchoolExamination; that more recently Object Lessons have been prescribed for all the classesof the Primary Department so as to accustom the boys to observation from the verybeginning, and that especial schools have been established for the children of zamindars(whose education is particularly desired by Mr. Wilson), for which a special course ofstudy with agricultural Readers has been prescribed. Beyond this it is hardly possible togo at present.

The language of the Readers has also been greatly simplified, as Mr. Wilson admits.

9. In conclusion, I would remark that in condemning the present scheme of studies as notsufficiently attractive to the people, especially the agricultural classes, we should bear inmind the following fact:

First, although it is true that compared with the mass of agricultural children of a school-going age in the country the numbers of this class actually under instruction are small,they yet constitute the majority in our public primary schools, and also I believe in theprivate schools open to inspection, where the education is one the same lines as in publicschools: at least such is the case in these schools in this circle. The percentage ofagriculturists in secondary schools is low, but this is owing to the latter being mostly intowns and to the fact that secondary education, especially Anglo Vernacular is expensive.The low percentage is no way attributable to the vernacular taught in our schools.

Second, the reason that large numbers are not attracted to our schools is not that ourscheme of studies repels boys, but there is yet no general desire for education in thecountry. Education is sought for by persons from one of two motives, either because to beilliterate is regarded as a disgrace, or because it helps a man to get on in the world. Now,the state of society in the country is not such as to render a certain amount of mentalcultivation a necessity for every one, and the bulk of the people follows occupations inwhich the ability to read and write is not much needed. The classes which live by the pen,e.g., the Kayasths, will be found to be almost wholly literate. The trading classes alsocontain a large proportion of men who can read, write and cipher, but chiefly in theMahajani character, though numbers of them having taken to Government service canread and write in the Persian character, too and know English. But the non-literary classes(as I may call the agriculturists and artisans) are, as a body, indifferent to education.

But lastly, suppose for a moment that our schools are unpopular. In asking for reforms soas largely to extend education, we should remember that even as it is, even with thepresent very limited demand for education, we are unable to provide adequately for the



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wants of the country. Local Bodies are constantly complaining of the drain upon theirresources made by education, and are unwilling to contribute money to provide moreclass accommodation, furniture and teaching, power and if the desire for educationbecame general, it would be impossible to provide for it. Even if the numbers weredoubled, it would be difficult to make both ends meet. All that is possible with the limitedmeans at the disposal of the Government is being done for the country, and we must notbe in a hurry.

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FromLieutenant M.W. DouglasDeputy CommissionerSialkot

ToThe Commissioner and SuperintendentRawalpindi

Dated 6th August 1894

In reply to your No. 48-1293 dated 2nd May 1894, I have the honor to state as follows.

Mr. Wilson's scheme resolves itself into two propositions.

1. The introduction of the Roman character for vernacular work in all governmentschools and offices.

2. That primary education should be conducted in the Punjabi language only and inRoman character.

I am in favour of the first proposal. But I think it would be very unpopular, and in orderto introduce it at all we should have to instruct both in the Arabic and in the Romancharacter.

I am not in favour of the second proposal.

1. There is no such language as Punjabi, and it would I think be a difficult matter toconstruct one which would be comprehensible to all classes. There is no doubt a skeletonof a language talked throughout the Punjab in various forms differing according to raceand tract. Muhammadans as a rule enjoy the Arabic character in writing this language;Sikhs, only numbering about two millions, the Gurmukhi character. The nearest approachto literature is the Adi Granth of the Sikhs, which is so interspersed with Hindi, Sanskrit,and Mahratti words as to be unintelligible to the ordinary Punjabi I doubt there beingsufficient data for the formation of a general Punjabi language.



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2. It is objected that to the Punjabi rustic Urdu is a foreign language. Not more so, I think,than English was a century ago to the Gaelic-speaking Scoth rustic. Similar analogiesexist no doubt in the cases of Ireland and Wales. I imagine that in due course of timePunjabi will go the way of the original languages of Britain, though the illiteratecondition of the women of this country will no doubt retard its disappearance.

3. Given a Punjabi equipped with ability to read and write in one language, it would bebetter that the language should be Urdu than Punjabi. The former is the language of ourcourts, and proficiency in it would at least place the rustic on more level terms with thevillage money-lender. A knowledge of Urdu would, moreover, be of avail to himanywhere in Northern India, whereas the value of Punjabi would, only extend to this ownprovince. I am in favour of the extension of Urdu instruction as much as possible, but amaverse to any additional impetus being given to the study of Punjabi.

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CONTENTS PAGE

CHAPTER 3OFFICAL LANGUAGE AND THE INDIAN SUBJECTS OF

THE BRITISH RAJ

Establishing a Connection Between the Government and the Subjects

In the following correspondences we observe that although the British officials wereinterested in the use of English as the official language of India and the provinces, theywere no less keen to develop an Indian language or Indian languages to function as thelanguages of administration and courts. They felt that the Indian languages were notreally adequate enough to carry this load, but they recognized that it was in the Britishinterest to establish a connection between them and their subjects through the use ofIndian languages. They saw the need for the civil servants to learn the languages of thepeople. Towards this end, they wanted to develop suitable textbooks, dictionaries, andsystems of testing and evaluation. They realized that the language or the style used inthese textbooks and tested in the examinations was rather pedantic with no relevance tothe needs of interpersonal communication. They also realized that the officials, both highand low, would not come forward to learn these languages unless there was some supportgiven to these people in the form of monetary inducements. Then they began to rank thelanguages in terms of their importance for a province and the functions these wereexpected perform in various departments. It is amazing to see that most of thecorrespondents had some firm opinion about the linguistic demands that theadministration needed to meet, and the resources already available in the market. It is alsoamazing to note that the "language experts" among these officials were very critical ofthe officialese, and wanted that the writings in the Indian languages be more natural, and



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that the Indian languages develop their styles according to their genius. They were verymuch against the extremes. Some like Sir Trevelyan indeed feared that if the Indianlanguages failed to come up to the standards they should have, when used as the languageof administration, they would soon be replaced by English.

Most of the correspondences presented here were written around 1864, just seven yearsafter the First War of Independence or Sepoy Mutiny. The correspondents wanted toestablish better contacts and communication with the natives. They would love to learnand use the Indian languages, but at the same time they recognized that the Indianthemselves were quite willing to learn English, and use English words in their nativelanguage sentences. Borrowing from English to the Indian languages was already wellset. They hoped that learning English by the natives "would lead to a more completeremoulding of the popular language." While such a remoulding took place, it was all themore important for the British and Indian officials to learn the local languages, theyconceded. But the officers who knew the local languages were very few, theyacknowledged. Some of them argued that "we ought to renew our endeavours to installthe popular language in the courts and offices of Government." Several appliedlinguistics principles were enunciated and encouraged to be adopted in the preparation oftextbooks, etc. For example, consider the following quotation:

"Whenever an English word is better understood by the natives than an Arabic synonym,the English word should, of course, be preferred; and, as between two technical words,one English and the other Arabic, both of which are equally unknown to the vulgartongue, the English word should be chosen. Every new English word imported into thelanguage establishes an additional link of connection with ourselves and our literature;and it will, at least, be known to us and to the large number of natives who learn English,whereas new Arabic words are known to nobody except to a few persons who have had acomplete education in Muhammadan literature."

Similar objections to the excessive use of Sanskrit words were made. Officials declaredthat it was their policy to develop a common medium that would be understood by thevast majority in the country. We see the roots of the language provisions incorporated inthe Constitution of India in these declarations.

Minute by the Hon'ble Sir C. E. Trevelyan, K.C. B., on the tests to be passed in theNative language by Junior Civil Servants in Northern India.

Dated Calcutta, the 25th July 1864.

Thirty years ago I took an active part with others in obtaining the exclusion of the Persianlanguage from the courts and offices of Government. On my return to Northern India, atthe commencement of last year, I made particular enquiries as to the course which thematter had taken during this long interval, and I found that, under the name ofHindustani, an official language had grown up which was more Persian and Arabic thanever. At first this seemed incredible, but, on a slight examination, it was easily accountedfor. Hindustani is a purely popular language which has few scientific or abstract terms of



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its own; and as legal improvement and codification advanced, it became necessary toborrow various new words from other quarters. According to the prevailing practice,these were taken from Persian and Arabic and the result is that, with the exception of afew Hindustani verbs and post-positions, we have a language which is totallyunintelligible to the people at large. The barrier between them and ourselves is moreimpenetrable than ever, and the time both of Europeans and Natives is wasted inacquiring an imperfect acquaintance with a medium which has nothing to recommend it,except that, for the present, it is entrenched in the strongholds of our judicial andadministrative systems. We are revolving in a vicious circle. The official language cannotbe fully under stood without learning Persian and Arabic, and, by compelling ouradministrators to learn Persian and Arabic, this type of official language is perpetuated.The translations of the code and other textbooks are written in it, and the class books usedin the examinations at Calcutta are as near an approximation to it as can be found.

This state of things cannot continue. If some effectual steps are not taken, English will besubstituted for this Persianized, Arabicized jargon. The pressure for this change on thepart of the increasing class of. independent Europeans is already strong; and since themutiny, the English language has been studied by the upper and middle classes of thenatives on a scale beyond all former precedent. The change from Arabic and Persian toEnglish would be a decided improvement, because the official language would then atleast be understood by those who have to administer justice; the natives, would have astronger motive than ever to learn our language and literature and it would lead to a morecomplete remoulding of the popular language, which it may be desirable that the countryshould go through. But, whether desirable or not, I repeat that this revolution is inevitableif the matter is allowed to drift on in its present course.

The state of the official language also exercises an injurious influence on the generalintercourse of our civil officers with the natives. Mr. Carnac, Officiating Commissionerof the Agra Division, remarks on this point as follows:

"The official language of your courts, which 25 years ago was entirely Persian, may nowbe said to be Persian with the exception of the Grammar, which is Hindi; and it is, I think,much to be lamented that the tendency of officials should be to exclude all Hindi wordsin the transaction of the business of our courts, and in practice to ignore that languagealtogether. The result is, that officials, in their intercourse with the People, notuncommonly converse in a language which is almost as foreign to the peasant of thecountry; as the official mother tongue would be; and the number of officers throughoutthe presidency, who can converse freely either in Bengalee, in pure Hindi, or in thePunjabee corruption of Hindi, form, I believe, but a comparatively small proportion of thewhole civil service."

According to every view we ought to renew our endeavours to install the popularlanguage in the courts and offices of Government. For this purpose the study of Persianshould no longer be obligatory, which is the view taken by the Secretary of State, theCalcutta Board of Examiners, Mr. Harrington, Mr. Maine, and myself; the codes andother text books should be retranslated on the principle of arriving at the nearest possible



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approximation to the popular language; and the selection of class books for students inthe languages should be similarly revised.

Up to the present time, whenever a legal term was wanted which the ordinary languagecould not supply, it was taken, as a matter of course, from Arabic, even if there werefamiliar English terms in general use. This pedantic practice ought to cease. The greatmerit, of the Hindustani language is that it affords a medium which admits of the easyand unlimited assimilation of foreign words, from whatever source they may be derived.It is in this respect, like our own composite English, when it began to be powerfully actedupon by Norman French. So far from being opposed to the introduction of English words,the natives are decidedly favourable to it. It is natural that they should be so. It is of theutmost importance to them to be understood by those who have the determination of theirinterests. When they particularly wish to be intelligible, they constantly use Englishterms; and it is interesting to observe that a class of words which have a peculiarsignificance in connection with Christian morality, such as "character, "Conscience,""duty," "honour," & c., has come into use.

Whenever an English word is better understood by the natives than an Arabic synonym,the English word should, of course, be preferred; and, as between two technical words,one English and the other Arabic, both of which are equally unknown to the vulgartongue, the English word should be chosen. Every new English word imported into thelanguage establishes an additional link of connection with ourselves and our literature;and it will, at least, be known to us and to the large number of natives who learn English,whereas new Arabic words are known to nobody except to a few persons who have had acomplete education in Muhammadan literature. When the existing official obstructionsare removed, Hindustani will absorb English words faster than it ever did Arabic andPersian, because we have the advantage of a popular system of English education. TheBengalee language is rapidly undergoing this process.

As regards class books for students in the language, there has been a great deal ofunnecessary difficulty made in reference to the diversity of dialects. If a personapproaches the subject with a Persian or Arabic standard fixed in his mind, he accepts theBagh-o-Bahar and Ikhwan-us-Safa as works of authority; while others, who take theSanscrit line, exclude every Arabic and Persian word, as has been done in the PremSagar. None of these books, however, arc written in the language of the People, and theyare intelligible only to very limited classes. But there is a common language of daily lifewhich is understood by every body, both high and low. Hitherto the Missionaries havebeen almost alone in the cultivation of this popular common medium; and the Hindustanitranslation of the New Testament, which was originally written by Henry Martin in high-flown Persianized Hindustani, and has since been tone down by successive revisions, tillit has been conformed to the language actually spoken by the People, is, perhaps, the bestmodel of this standard Hindustani. As observed by Mr. Cust, the familiar parts of theNew Testament are, owing to the beauty and simplicity of the style, the best text book fora person who is beginning to learn a new language, especially if he has a previousacquaintance with the sacred scriptures. Our endeavour should be to provide class books



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on this principle which will approximate, as closely as possible, to the language whichwill be most generally intelligible.

It is one of the advantages of our position in India that one simple, flexible language ismore or less understood in every part of the continent, with no greater differences ofdialect than prevail in different parts of the United Kingdom. It is obviously our policy tofavour the development of this common medium. No language was ever successfullycultivated by learning it in its component parts. It is only when a language begins to bestudied for its own sake, and when a demand has been created for good books in the formin which it is most commonly spoken, that real improvement commences.

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CHAPTER 4A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE FOR THE BRITISH INDIAN

ARMY:PRINCIPLES AND PROBLEMS

One Army, One Language

The correspondences presented below deal with the policy of British Raj regarding theneed for and recognition of a common language for the British Indian Army. Thesecorrespondences took place around 1864. Hindustani was accepted as the commonmedium in military life for all India. However, the phrase used was Hindustani, or Urdu(camp) language. We saw earlier that a distinction between Hindustani and Urdu hadbeen made in some of the correspondences. The recommendation given by Sir Trevelyanstoutly rejects the proposal that Hindi and Urdu are distinct languages. It made aconcession to the southern India that "In reference to the South of India, the objections toHindi have increased force, because the basis for such an innovation is entirely wantingthere." However, this observation seemed to have been made on the assumption that theofficials serving in south India might not be required to serve in north India: "The wasteof time which would be caused by every officer having to learn a new language andcharacter, would not be compensated by any advantage that might be gained in the fewcases in which Madras officers might be employed in Northern India." The commonmedium would be taught using the Roman character.

Minute by the Hon'ble Sir C. E. Trevelyan, K.C.B., on the tests to be passed byMilitary Officers in the Native language.

Several important principles have been established by the valuable labours of thisCommittee.



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1st-That the Hindustani, or Urdu, (camp) language shall be finally adopted as thecommon medium in military life for all India.

2nd - That there shall be only two standards, one in which all military officers will haveto pass, and another higher one in which those will have to pass who aspire to specialemployment; and

3rd-These standards shall apply to every part of India.

But, even in reference to Northern India, a mistake has, in my opinion, been made inproposing to establish a distinction between Urdu and Hindi. There is one commonlanguage which is spoken in our camps and bazaars, and is understood, more or less, byeverybody, high and low, in town and country. This popular dialect is as far removedfrom the high-flown Persian diction of the Bagh-o-Bahar, as it is from the pedanticSanscritized idiom of the Prem Sagar, from which even the Persian and Arabic words inmost ordinary daily use have been carefully eliminated. These books were written inlanguages manufactured by the Moonshees and Pundits of Fort William, according tocertain ideal standards of former days. They are unintelligible to the body of the People;and, after passing the examination, a student is still unable to communicate freely withthem. I have already recommended, in reference to the Civil Department, that class booksshould be selected or composed approximating, as nearly as possible, to that commonHindustani or Urdu language, which is understood and spoken in every part of India; andas I have no new reasons to give, I will merely annex a copy of my Minute on the subject.

In reference to the South of India, the objections to Hindi have increased force, becausethe basis for such an innovation is entirely wanting there. The languages spoken by thePeople are Tamil, Telegu, Canarese, Malayalim, which, although cognate amongthemselves, belong to an entirely different class from Hindi. Urdu has been extensivelyintroduced through the Muhammadan soldiery of Hyderabad and Mysore, and latterlythrough our own military; but Hindi has no existence south of the Nerbudda. Theobjections of the Madras officers are, therefore, quite sound. The waste of time whichwould be caused by every officer having to learn a new language and character, wouldnot be compensated by any advantage that might be gained in the few cases in whichMadras officers might be employed in Northern India.

According to my view, therefore, although there would be two standards for all India,there should be only one language, and that language should be the one which isunderstood by our native soldiers in every part of India, and which is more generallyintelligible to the rest of the population than any other. If we wish to encourage ourofficers to become good practical linguists, we ought to make it as easy as possible tothem, and to give them the same facilities as we have at home in learning French, Italian,or any other language in which there are many dialects but only one standard. Theroundabout, pedantic, elaborate manner in which the native languages are taught, evenfor the commonest colloquial purposes, is one of the remaining weak points of the oldsystem, and after all, this circumlocutory process is not so effective as the direct andpositive instruction given in every other similar case.



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Notes by the Benares and Mirzapore Missionaries, on the revision of the Hindustaniclass books.

FromMr. M. A. Sherring

ToMessrs. Smyth, Leupolt and Fuchs.

Dated Nil, April and May 1864.

The accompanying papers have been sent by Sir C. Trevelyan to Mather, together with aletter which I send on to you, having erased Mather's letter to me, written upon it. Pleaseread the papers, and return them, and Sir C. Trevelyan's letter to me, and kindly writeyour views upon the query at the close of the letter.

Note by Mr. Fuchs.

I am glad to see the language of the Urdu New Testament recognized in high quarters asthe language of the people of the North-West Provinces, and am of opinion, that for theimprovement of class books, its simple easy language should be as closely adhered to asthe subject matter would allow; but I am afraid, that for many years yet to come, greatdifficulties will be met with in writing scientific works, on account of the deficiency oralmost absence of a fixed and well understood terminology, for which either the Sanscritor Arabic and Persian must be had recourse to. In the course of time all the terms will befixed and clearly understood, and the present difficulty disappear.

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Note by Mr. M. A. Sherring.

I cannot agree with Mr. Smyth that the books he mentions would be suitable for theobject intended, inasmuch as they are not on general subjects, but are theological books,full of theological terms, and destitute of a vast number of terms and phrases in commonuse.

For colloquial Hindi couched in good language, I would suggest Pandit Badri Lal'stranslation of Robinson Crusoe into Hindi. The style of this book is excellent.

I am unable to suggest a good Urdu book.

But would it not be better to regard the colloquial language of the people as a mixture ofthe Hindi and Urdu, as in fact it really is, and to substitute, except Honours, anexamination in Hindi and Urdu, as found blended together in books now being issued



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from the press in more places than one, for an examination in these languages separately?All Baboo Shiva Prashad's own books are, I believe without exception, in this mixeddialect; and no one can say that they are not idiomatic. He is just bringing out a briefhistory of India in the same mixed language. The 'Mammalia' now being printed in theMirzapore Press and translated under the Superintendence of Pandit Badri Lal beforealluded to, who is one of the Hindi Pandits of the Benares College, is neither in Hindi norUrdu, but is in this mixed dialect, the Hindi preponderating Pure Hindi I rarely or neverhear, even in Benares. The educated Muhammadans affect a pure Urdu, and according totheir learning or vanity, or both, introduce Persian and Arabic words into theirconversation; but this is the language of only a fraction of the People. Missionaries speakand preach in the mixed dialect; and I believe all persons who hold much inter-coursewith the people are obliged to do the same. If this dialect were enforced among theofficers of the Courts of Law, and the high Persianized mode of pleading and speakingand writing there, were utterly discountenanced, it would be greatly to the advantage ofthe natives generally.

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Note by R. C. Mather.

It stands to reason that in towns and cities where Hindoos and Muhammadans livetogether, hold civil appointments involving the exercise of authority one over the other;or pursue professions requiring habitual trust, or buy and sell to each other, or stand in therelation. of master and servants to each other, there must be a language common to bothclasses, or their transactions could not be carried out with any comfort or success. Thatlanguage created by necessity is what was originally meant by the Urdu. The enquiryarises, what language it is, and how may it be known by those at a distance from thepeople themselves? It is not the Hindi or most of our School Books and modernpublications. For all who have had much to do with Vernacular Schools, know that theHindi of our School Manuals is not well understood, and requires to be explained byUrdu words. Even our Hindi Scriptures, although religious terms are more widelydiffused, and the difficulty of their being generally comprehended is less, still carry thisdisadvantage with them, that much has to be explained in Urdu.

Still the common language referred to, is not Persianized Hindustani. Some high Persianwords, but in a corrupt form, have become current amongst the Hindoos, and they areused by them even when words of the same meaning exist in their own language. Yetwere any book written in Persianized Urdu, which would suit the taste of theMuhammadans to be addressed especially to the Hindoos, it would create little interestamongst them, just as any work, written in modern Hindi and intended forMuhammadans, would utterly fail of commanding their sympathies.

If these remarks be correct, it will appear that, although necessity united the two classesto that degree, that a common language was produced, yet since then the work ofamalgamation has not progressed, but actually receded; so that at present, althoughHindoos and Muhammadans in their daily inter-course still speak a common language,



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yet they rarely, if ever, write it. It was however at first not only a spoken, but a writtenlanguage. The Baital Pachisi in prose is written in the language common to Hindoos andMuhammadans. The Qisssa Kamrup-Kala, of which an edition in Urdu-Roman has latelybeen published in Paris by Mons. Leabbe Bertrand, is in verse and written in the samelanguage; and one has only to look up in Shakespeare's Dictionary the quotations madeby him from the native poets Mir Soz and others, most of whom wee Muhammadans, tosee how many Hindi terms and phrases they used which would be repudiated now. Thefact is that almost from the beginning of our power in these provinces, through variouscauses, the amalgamating process has been checked, and the tendency to Persianize thelanguage has been largely developed. The Bag-o-Bahar by Gilchrist's Mir Anuman wasin reality a departure from the previously existing standard. Since then, the tendency towiden the gulf of separation created by separate languages has been more clearlydisplayed. During the existence of the Lucknow monarchy, a standard or Urdu wasoriginated by the Munshees and Maulavies of that city and patronized by the kinghimself, so different from that of Mir Anuman's works, that the Munshees generallyrefused to admit it to be Urdu. The dethronement of the king, and the dispersion of thelearned men who had been attracted to the Oude Capital, was a heavy blow and a sorediscouragement to all who had taken part in this Persianizing scheme. TheDiscontinuance of Persian studies in all government Colleges was another and verydamaging move I the same direction.

This excessive zeal in favour of the Persianizing process tended, naturally, to create arevulsion of feeling on the part of the Philo-Hindoos, and especially the Teachers ofSanscrit Colleges, and the result was an unmistakable determination to Sanscritize theUrdu. Hence within the last ten years, the cause of Hindi purism has gained manyadherents.

On the other hand, the discouraging action of Government in respect to Persian studieshas tended to unite the Muhammadans, and to some degree the Kayasthis as originallytaught by Muhammadans, into a determination to do for themselves what theGovernment will not do for them. Hence the late proceedings in Ghazeepore originatedby Kayasthis and Muhammadans to found a College for all languages, English with therest, but Arabic and Persian necessarily. The curious circumstance is that the Sadr AminSaiyad Ahmad, who called on me on his way to Allygurh, does not know a word ofEnglish himself, though professedly so zealous to have it taught.

Similar endeavours are being made here from various motives to get up a School orCollege for Persian and Arabic and English, but all originate with those who do not knowEnglish, but all originate with those who do not know English, which renders themovement rather suspicious. (And here I would say, by the way, that, if left tothemselves, little harm would be done, but when a Judge-English and Christian-presides,and a Muhammadan acts as Chaplain, and prays a prayer in the presence of all and for all,the proceeding becomes very questionable if not dangerous).

To return to the subject under notice, it is, in the circumstances detailed, very desirablethat Government should complete the work begun, by reviving Urdu as it was at first, a



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common language written as well as spoken. Were the Quissa Kamrup-o-Kala, which hasbeen very incorrectly Romanized, reproduced in a correct form, good would result. TheBaital Pachisi and Singhasan Baitisi might also be re-produced:

Pandit Badri Lal's translation of Robinson Crusoe is pure (thenth) Hindi. In a secondedition he might Urduize it. I agree with Sherring that Munshi Shiva Prasad's Urdu isvery much what we want; and as he is well educated and a very intelligent man, were theidea given him, and he approved it, he would be the man to edit or even originate (bytranslation) a series of Classics.

The general question as affecting the language of ordinary life seems to me easy ofsolution, but difficulties arise when we have to do with abstract ideas and generalizationsof science. The modern Urdu, having been more cultivated, is more available and usefulwhen writing on scientific subjects. But were a Terminology established, giving to eachword or phrase both a Hindi and Urdu form, the difficulty would be overcome. Dr.Ballantyne essayed a Sanscrit Terminology, but his health failed before he had mademuch progress. Were this work kept steadily in view, something effective would be done.To produce the original Urdu, the Kayasthis are the persons most likely to be useful. HadMunshi Shiva Prasad been employed to translate the Penal Code instead of Abdul Latif,and had he been told that what the Government wishes is the language common to bothHindoos and Muhammadans, a usable translation would surely have been the light.Common Law Terms should at once be adopted, and the language of the Wakeels andMukhtars be purified. Much of what is now current is not even grammatical; and from theretention of the Persianized law terms it has the appearance of such a horrible hash, thateven the rural Hindi ganwari is to be preferred.

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CHAPTER 5PRINCIPLES OF MATERIALS PRODUCTION AND

LANGUAGE TEACHING

Some Basic Principles Adopted

One of the correspondents state a basic principle: "There can be no doubt that when atechnical or professional subject is under treatment, a special terminology must beemployed, and that, that terminology must come mainly from Sanscrit, or some foreignlanguage. But the question of technical terminology is distinct from that of the style ofordinary language, and it is easy to treat even an abstruse - subject with simplicity ofgrammatical construction, although the terms used, would certainly be ordinarily above



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the comprehension of the mass of the people. Indeed, it is a fact that the more difficult thesubject, the greater the ease of the language which is written."

Another statement was made: "to provide a set of class books, not only free from thepuerilities and indecencies which disfigure the existing set, but composed in an idiomrepresenting as nearly as possible the languages actually spoken in our Civil and MilitaryStations and by the population at large in town and country …"

Some of the other important statements that have a direct bearing on the principles ofmaterials production and language teaching are as follows:

" … the work should be entrusted to persons who were practically conversant with thelanguage of every-day life"

"This of itself presents a state of society far different from what is usually now met within India, hence the vocabulary used is also limited and particular. It would be simplyimpossible now to write an essay on the ordinary business of the court, the camp, themarket, or the railway …"

"They abound in the following peculiarities which are all borrowed from the Persian, andare not natural to Hindustani, (1) the free use of the Persian form of the genitive case, thewords being transposed or constructed with the "izafat," (2) the use of Persianprepositions, (3) the too frequent introduction of dependent clauses in a sentence, and ofphrases directly taken from Arabic or Persian languages."

"This is a far more important examination than that by the first standard. It will probablybe submitted to by every one who may wish to acquire a practical acquaintance withIndia and its people in any official relation. The candidate is now required to read andwrite in two languages; to read MSS in two characters, and to converse freely on ordinarysubjects with any educated or uneducated native of India who can speak Hindustani inshort to be practically conversant not only with the language of the people of India, butwith their habits, wishes, and feelings so far as may be possible. The changes, which wewould propose in this examination, are considerable, some tending to simplify it, andothers to render it more difficult."

"A junior civil or military servant must not for an instant suppose, that having scrapedthrough a pass examination at college, he is fully qualified as regards scholasticknowledge of the native languages, for any duties that he may be called on to perform.The great exigencies of the public service requiring that young men should be placed atthe disposal of the Government at the earliest possible opportunity, alone necessitates thepass standards being kept low; but every officer who desires to be an efficient servant ofthe State, must remember that in many respects he is amenable to the opinion of thenative, rather than to the European public, and that however early he may be permitted toenter on his official career, it is nevertheless a portion of his duty to acquire such aknowledge of the language of the people he has to aid in governing, as will place him intheir estimation in the position of an educated gentleman."



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"Such a language cannot be created by an edict. But authors in Behar and in the NorthWestern Provinces are even now grappling with the question, and Government, can, byreadily encouragement of such authors, and more especially by the organization of itsschools, so control the tendencies of current literature, and so help to fix the standard ofeducated speech, as to hasten this desirable consummation. In an illiterate age, and withno efforts of Government tending to promote the union, it took two centuries to weld theEnglish and the French elements of the language into the national speech of England. Itshould not take so long now."

Correspondences

Minute by the Hon'ble the Sir C. E. TREVELYAN,K.C. B., concurred in by the other Members ofthe Governor General's Council.

In connection with the discussion on the tests to be passed by Civil and Military Officersin the native languages, I was authorized to submit to the Council a plan for effecting arevision of the Hindustani and Bengali Class Books.

As the object was to provide a set of class books, not only free from the puerilities andindecencies which disfigure the existing set, but composed in an idiom representing asnearly as possible the languages actually spoken in our Civil and Military Stations and bythe population at large in town and country, it seemed advisable that the work should beentrusted to persons who were practically conversant with the language of every-day lifein each of the two regions concerned; and with the sanction of the Governor General, Iapplied to Mr. McLeod, the Financial Commissioner in the Punjab, to assist me with hisadvice upon the subject, and, if the Government should approve, to undertake theChairmanship of a Committee to be appointed for the revision of the Hindustani ClassBooks.

Mr. McLeod kindly consented, and the result is that we recommend the appointment of aCommittee to assemble at Lahore in November; and to be composed as follows:

PRESIDENT:Mr. D. F. McLeod, C.B.C.S., Financial Commissioner, Punjab.

MEMBERS:Rev. R.C. MATHER, M. A., London Missionary, Society, Mirzapore.Capt. W.R.M. HOLROYD, Inspr., of Schools, Umballa.H.E. PERKINS, Esq., C.S., Offg. Depy. Comsr., Sealkote.BABOO SHIVA PRASHAD, Educational Dept.,N.W.P., well known as the author of several successful popular books in Hindustani.

The only expense that will have to be incurred, as far as I am aware, is the travelingexpenses of such of the Members of the Committee as are not already in the Punjab.



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I recommend that the Committee should be instructed to make a preliminary, report uponthe scheme of class books they would propose in the Hindustani language, and thearrangements they would suggest for the composition of such portions of them as maynot already be available.

After I have returned to Calcutta and conferred with the Lieutenant-Governor and others,I hope to be able to submit a plan for the revision of the Bengali Class Books.

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FromThe Commissioner for revising Test Books.

ToThe Government of India, Military Department No.1

Dated Lahore, the 28th December, 1864.

We beg leave to submit our report on the proceedings of the Commission appointed byHis Excellency the Governor General of India in Council in the Military Department, byGeneral Order No. 175, dated 10th September last, for the revision of books for theexamination of military officers in the vernacular language of North-West India.

2. We met at Lahore on the 19th December, and have remained together during thecourse of our deliberations. We had the assistance of Syad Hadi Husain Khan. ExtraAssistant Commissioner, and of Moonshis Pyare Lal and Hukm Chand of the DelhiCollege. We have carefully considered the subjects on which we were instructed by theabove named resolution to submit our views as well as some cognate matters, in regard towhich we were led by demi-official communications to think that an expression of ouropinions would be acceptable. These will be reported on in a separate letter of this date.

3. The grounds on which this commission was constituted were (1) the unsuitability ofthe existing test books, and (2) the necessity for advice as to how their defects should beremedied, or more suitable books should be substituted.

4. The objections to the existing books are (1) their puerile or immoral tendency, (2) thepedantry of the style in which they are composed. It appears to be needless for us to dilateon the former of these objections, since it is universally admitted that the Prem Sagar, theBagh-o-Bahar and the Baital Pachisi are wholly uninstructive, useless, and in manyplaces highly immoral in their subjects; but as regards the style we wish to offer few briefremarks. In the first place the language of the Prem Sagar and Bagh-o-Bahar is not (touse the words of the Government resolution No. 734, dated 9th September) "such as isusually spoken in civil and military stations, and which is understood by the population atlarge, in town and country." The Bagh-o-Bahar is less open to this objection than thePrem Sagar, but in both there may be found unusual or high flown words used in placeswhere simpler vacables would be equally appropriate and more generally understood.



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Both books would, in very many passages, be quite unintelligible to an uneducatednative, and many words and phrases that have now become obsolete may be found inboth.

5. The boast of the writer of the Prem Sagar was that every word of Arabic or Persianorigin had been banished from his work. This drove him to the necessity of choosing inthe first place, a mythological subject, abounding in Sanscrit terminology, and carefullyremoved from all traces of Mogul civilization. This of itself presents a state of society fardifferent from what is usually now met with in India, hence the vocabulary used is alsolimited and particular. It would be simply impossible now to write an essay on theordinary business of the court, the camp, the market, or the railway, which should becouched in language similar to that of the Prem Sagar.

6. Next; to consider in what manner the Hindustani books, now chiefly ready by natives,differ from the correct standard of a pure, simple, and classical style. They abound in thefollowing peculiarities which are all borrowed from the Persian, and are not natural toHindustani, (1) the free use of the Persian form of the genitive case, the words beingtransposed or constructed with the "izafat," (2) the use of Persian prepositions, (3) the toofrequent introduction of dependent clauses in a sentence, and of phrases directly takenfrom Arabic or Persian languages. In a word our objections to the Prem Sagar chiefly onthe ground of its vocabulary and subject matter; and to the generality of Hindustani booksboth on this ground, and also on the ground of their corrupt syntax. To us it seems to be amatter of very great importance to preserve in Hindustani the syntactic peculiarities of theHindi language. However much the preponderance of Arabic and Persian vocable mayvary in Hindustani, as spoken or written in different parts of India, the correct andidiomatic arrangement of those words in a sentence is the same everywhere, and hence itfollows that any one thoroughly conversant with Hindi syntax, and knowing a fairnumber of words derived from various sources, will, for the most part, he easilyunderstood by any educated or uneducated Hindustani speaking native of India.

7. If it be admitted that these observations are just, it follows that some other book orbooks must be substituted for those now in use. We proceed to state the result of ourconsiderations on this matter by taking in order the different standards of examinations asat present prescribed.

8. As regards military officers, this standard of examination, will to a considerable extent,be a professional one; but it will be also needful for them, and still more so for thegeneral student, that they should be taught to express themselves correctly on ordinarysubjects, and, as was pointed out by the late Special Committee for fixing thesestandards, that they should have a good knowledge of the general structure of thelanguage. For imparting these varieties of knowledge we think that a work, in two parts,should be prepared, one containing a well-selected set of dialogues on military subjectsand also another set on ordinary matters. The other; consisting of a chapter of an easywork, entitled the Rusum-I-Hind, which will be presently described, and a series oftranslations in simple language of dispatches and general orders. In the preparation of thebook of dialogues, we would avail ourselves, as far as possible, of the extant works



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issued by Gilchrist and others. This book would be the test book; while, to enable thestudent to acquire easily and quickly a general knowledge of the Hindustani language, ithas occurred to us that a treatise should be composed, somewhat on the plan of ProfessorOllendorff's well known works, but avoiding his principle of repetition, which has givenrise to a well-founded objection of tediousness being raised against his books. Our reasonfor proposing entirely new works, as test books for this examination, is, that we haveafter most diligent search, failed to find any book which is written in entirely suitablelanguage, and of unobjectionable matter. All these books can be compiled by a Sub-Committee under the instructions of this Commission, as will be presently explained. Inother respects we would leave the standard for this examination as it is.

9. This is a far more important examination than that by the first standard. It willprobably be submitted to by every one who may wish to acquire a practical acquaintancewith India and its people in any official relation. The candidate is now required to readand write in two languages; to read MSS in two characters, and to converse freely onordinary subjects with any educated or uneducated native of India who can speakHindustani in short to be practically conversant not only with the language of the peopleof India, but with their habits, wishes, and feelings so far as may be possible. Thechanges, which we would propose in this examination, are considerable, some tending tosimplify it, and others to render it more difficult. First, we would simplify it by notrequiring the knowledge of Hindi as a separate language; by excusing the candidate fromlearning to compose in the style of the Prem Sagar; and by lessening the circle of hisacquaintance with MSS. Secondly, we would make it more difficult by requiring him tobe acquainted with a larger field of Hindustani literature, properly so called, and with agreater variety of style than can possibly be found in the two test books now used.

10. We have carefully considered the possibility of retaining the whole Bagh-o-Bahar asa text book, and have come to the conclusion to reject it for reasons which have beenalready detailed. A work seems to be called for, which shall shew the natives of India intheir everyday life, introducing scenes of rural simplicity, and domestic occasions of joyor grief, with some interspersed proverbs, a few ballads trite sayings of common use, andconversations between people of different ages, sexes and positions in life; in fact a work,which, while giving the student a knowledge of words and phrases in most frequent use,shall avoid the forced and foolish descriptions of places, supernatural wonders, and otherblemishes in the Bagh-o-Bahar. This work is now under preparation by one of theMembers of this Commission, aided by native scholars of Delhi, and some specimensheets of it in the Roman character accompany this report as Appendix A. We thoroughlyapprove its style, and trust that its completion and adoption may be sanctioned by theGovernment of India. It will be entitled "Rusum-I-Hind," or Manners and Customs ofIndia. We consider that it is calculated to throw over the whole course of study ahomeliness reality and interest which it has never yet possessed. It will contain so large aproportion of Hindi words in the conversations, ballads, and proverbs that will beintroduced as to obviate in our judgment the necessity which has heretofore existed forthe study of a purely Hindi book like the Prem Sagar.



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11. But in order to give the variety of style, which is the next object that we haveproposed, another volume will be required consisting of selections (probably annotated)from extant books of good repute, and interesting matter, which in style approach mostnearly to the standard style which we suggest for adoption. It is to be regretted that we arenot in a position to submit a complete list of the works from which we would propose tomake extracts. But a list will be drawn out and submitted at an early date.

12. Again it is proposed to widen still further the field of view for the student byrequiring his study of a volume of letters in the ordinary style of correspondence, writtenpartly in the Persian and partly in the Devanagri characters. Such a book forms a part ofevery course of study in the native academies, and we think it to be very valuable adjunctto other studies. These letters will also of necessity tend to illustrate the national characterand customs. We are of opinion that if a sufficient variety of hand-writings wereintroduced, and the book were lithographed, the candidate would, by the study of it,acquire a greater insight into the distinctive peculiarities of the written characters of thecountry than he can possibly obtain by the present haphazard mode of selecting MSS.Some of us also have personal experience of the fact that the present mode ofexamination on chance documents is practically inoperative. Either are such plainlywritten letters presented to the examinee that reading them is no merit, or else theexaminers strain a point in the candidate's favour, and a very stumbling reader will obtaina mark of sufficient merit to pass him.

13. In our judgment the style in which the translations from English into Hindustanishould be written should be that of the narrative portions of the Rusum-I-Hind, that ISTO SY SIMPLIFIED FROM THAT OF the Bagh-o-Bahar. This modification will bemainly in the banishment of words and phrases taken from Arabic and Persian, not incommon use.

14. We have also given our attention to the subject of the examination for highproficiency in Urdu and Hindi, and have come to the conclusion that the books now usedfor these examinations in the College of Fort William are inferior to those which mightbe selected, partly on account of their subject matter, and also as presenting acomparatively narrow field of style. We would propose to substitute for theIkhwanussafa, a volume of letters of a nature similar to that proposed for the secondstandard, but approximating more nearly to the style adopted by learned native gentlemenin their correspondence, and thus containing a greater number of Arabic and Persianwords, idioms, and phrases. We shall also hereafter submit lists of works from which wewould propose to make copious extracts that a volume or two of good selections may bethus formed to supersede the existing test books, both in Urdu and Hindi.

15. We think that all the books used in the first two standards should be printed in theRoman, as well as in the Persian character and that an acquaintance with the Romancharacter on Sir W. Jones' system and power to read fluently in it should be required ofevery candidate for the first standard, while for the second standard candidates shouldalso be able to write it from dictation. We also conceive that, with the exception of theUrdu letters proposed for the second standard, all these works should be printed in the



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Devanagri character also. We would not extend the Roman character to the examinationsfor high proficiency in either Urdu or Hindi.

16. We observe that in the Government Order No. 734, the Persian character iseverywhere named, while in nearly all the books now used as test books and in all theexamination papers sent from the College of Fort William, the Arabic type is alone used.This type is foreign to Hindustani, it is never used amongst the natives, and even welleducated men find trouble in reading it. The reasons for its adoption heretofore have beenconnected with the great typographical facilities which it presents, while it has beenfound very expensive and comparatively unsuccessful to print the Persian letters fromtypes. We have carefully weighed this advantage, which is no doubt a very cogentargument in favour of the Arabic type, and another, is the fact that Grammars andDictionaries exist only in that type; but we think that both these advantages arecounterbalanced by the consideration that the Arabic type is not the one natural toHindustani scholars, is very distasteful to the native community, and is very much furtherremoved than the Persian from the written hand of the country. As it is very properlyrequired of candidates for the second standard that they should be able to read MSS., theexamination is not at all simplified by excusing them from learning to read plainly-lithographed or printed "Nastaliq" character. Moreover, we understand that successfulefforts have been lately made to print Persian from types. If this be the case, the mainargument against it is for ever removed; and even if it be not so, we think that goodlithography cold be made to supply the place of types. Specimens of good printed Persianwill be submitted hereafter.

17. It is proper that we should indicate, in conclusion, the manner in which propose toarrange for the preparation of the new works which we have suggested. The city of Delhiis the most convenient place to us for obtaining good native assistants for the preparationof Hindustani books. Two of our members, Lieutenant Holroyd and Mr. Perkins willprobably reside there during the cold season, and occupy themselves as a Sub-Committeeof this Commission in this work. Lieutenant Holroyd has undertaken the authorship of theRusum-I-Hind, and the books of dispatches and dialogues, as also the introductory workon the plan of Professor Ollendorff. Mr. Perkins (with some assistance from Baboo ShivaPrasad) will prepare the high proficiency examination in Urdu. These gentlemen willmutually confer with each other, and pass in review each other's work. Arrangements willbe also made for placing at their disposal two highly-educated and skilful natives of Delhias assistants. In like manner the Reverend Dr. Mather, and Baboo Shiva Prasad will forma Sub-Committee at Benares, the seat of Hindoo learning, where the aid of excellentPundits can be procured, for the preparation of the Hindi letters proposed for the secondstandard, and of selections for the high proficiency examination in Hindi. It is proposedfinally, that the Members of the Commission, or as many of them as can possibly attend,should meet at Delhi in about three months' time to review and finally.. (coordinate) .. thework of each Sub-Committee. It may be necessary that Baboo Shiva Prasad should, in theinterim, pay a short visit of a few days to Delhi, and we hope that the Government of theNorth-Western Provinces may be moved to allow him to do so. He will continue to beresponsible for the due conduct of his own official duties during his absence.



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FromThe Commission for revising Military Test Books.

ToThe Secretary to the Government of India,Military Department.

Dated Lahore, the 28th December 1864.

It has been noticed in our report of this date, that with reference to demi-officialcommunications received by us, we have had under review several subjects, which notspecified in the Government Resolution appointing the Commission; but which it appearsnevertheless desirable that we should consider.

Details of subjects

2. These subjects are the following:1. How to establish a good standard for pure, simple, and idiomatic Hindustani in ourGovernment Orders, Schools, and Courts of Law.2. How to extend a knowledge of the Roman character, and of the English numerals to allGovernment servants, and to the mass of the People.3. How far it would be expedient to extend to barristers, members of the EducationalDepartment, and junior civil servants, the prizes now offer3d to military officers, andinducements to study the languages of India.

We proceed to discuss these matters separately.

It has been ascertained by inquiry from learned natives, that Hindustani is still consideredto be in a very unfixed condition. There may have been a good standard at the time whenMr. John Gilchrist published his volumes, but that has been to a great extent lost by themodern school of Persian loving Moulvies and pedants, and now the book most admiredby this school, is a mixture of Arabic and Persian terms in Persianized syntax, and asutterly unlike the natural language spoken or written by ordinary natives, as can well beimagined. We think that it is of the last importance, to endeavour to attain to a stylewhich shall be acknowledged by scholars as chaste and simple. We append amemorandum (Appendix A) by the native member of this Commission, on the History ofHindustani, which he believes to exhibit the stages of the change that has taken place inthe language. We believe that any books which may receive the sanction of Governmentas its model for style, its test of knowledge, will be universally looked up to; and considerthat the same should be adopted as the model on which all public documents should becast.

4. We cannot but deplore the viciousness of the style which regulates the language of ourCourts of Law. The object of the change from Persian to Hindustani was, that justice



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might become more accessible. This humane and liberal purpose has been almost entirelydefeated by the style of the language which has crept in. The deposition of a peasantwhen it is read over to him, is little better understood by him if it were in Greek, and thevery decree which conveys to him his rights, must be interpreted to him sentence bysentence by some one whom he must pay for the duty. This crying evil should be at onceremedied. It is not our desire that the language of our Courts of Law should degenerateinto slang, or vary with the local peculiarities of each district of Her Majesty's widedominions. But we do think it to be a duty and an attainable object, to introduce into ourCourts of Justice, a language which shall be understood by ordinarily intelligent personsof all ranks. We hold that this language should be understood by ordinarily intelligentpersons of all ranks. We hold that this language should be used wherever a Governmentimpress is on the work in hand, that it should be taught in our schools, adopted by ournative officials of every grade, it and in every official proceeding or order, and that itshould be the medium through which public proclamations, orders, and the acts of theSupreme or Local Councils, are presented to the People.

5. As an instance of our meaning, we append to this letter (Appendix B), a translation inthe style which we propose, of Lord Elgin's address to the Hill Chiefs, published asnotification No. 302, dated Simla, 30th May 1863. A comparison of this, with thetranslation published in the Allahabad Gazette of July 7th, 1863 will shew the difference.This order was selected at random. It was the first which came to view in turning over theopening leaves of a file of old gazettes. It is a fair specimen of its class, and wouldcertainly require a great deal of explanation before it could be made intelligible, even tothe native gentlemen for whom it was designed, much more to a shop-keeper, and thisalthough it is signed as the work of a Hindoo scholar of great repute and learning.

6. We think that the books which may now be prescribed by Government, as the test forexaminations of military officers by the second standard, should be ordered to be thestandard of Hindustani for use in the Court, the Gazette, and the school exercise. Theprincipal native officials, heads of the Educational Department, Government translators,and heads of vernacular law officers, viz. Sarishtadars, should be required to see that thisstyle and none other be adopted. There can be no doubt that when a technical orprofessional subject is under treatment, a special terminology must be employed, andthat, that terminology must come mainly from Sanscrit, or some foreign language. Butthe question of technical terminology is distinct from that of the style of ordinarylanguage, and it is easy to treat even an abstruse - subject with simplicity of grammaticalconstruction, although the terms used, would certainly be ordinarily above thecomprehension of the mass of the people. Indeed, it is a fact that the more difficult thesubject, the greater the ease of the language which is written. There are extant manyworks on Muhammadan polemics, which are very nearly in the style which we wish tosee, because their authors desired that they should be generally understood. It is theromance and the official proceeding which is thrown into the corrupt style we condemn.As heretofore, the Government as represented by its subordinates, has been the chiefoffender, so now we take it that it should be the principal reformer.



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7. To this end we think it very important that Government should, at once issue a shortmanua1 of 15 Manual of instruction in style, or 20 pages, containing models of the stylewhich we have been advocating. It should contain reports, petitions, depositions,notifications of Government, translations of short acts of the legislature, or portions ofacts, and official proceedings in imaginary cases of a judicial nature. Such a manual isnow under- preparation, and may be printed with advantage in the Persian, Devnagri, andRoman characters.

8. All Government officials employed in posts that involve writing, should be required topass an examination in the manual within six months of its promulgation, and everycandidate for such offices should prove his acquaintance, with it before admission toemployment.

9. The next subject before us is the general introduction of the Roman character. It is notexpedient, and it would probably be impossible to cause the English alphabet tosupersede vernacular characters; but we are of opinion that the advantages of the Romancharacter are so many and great, that a vast boon would be conferred upon the country atlarge, if Government were to shew its willingness to encourage a knowledge of it. Weobserve that in the Madras Presidency, a successful attempt has been made to introduceEnglish numerals into Village and Talook accounts; we find that in the Punjab, it is verycommon for petitions to be presented to civil officers in the Roman character, particularlyin cases, where the petitioner is desirous of approaching the officer, without theintervention of native ministerial officers. The experience of many years has proved thatthe Roman character, can convey the sounds of the Indian vernaculars with the mostfaithful exactness; it is unrivalled for cheapness of printing, neatness of appearance, andaccuracy in delineating words, which in the Persian character at least are 1iable to beoften misread, and as the leanings of the people in many parts seem to be towards it, andthere are languages in the wilder parts of India, which from having no written characterof their own, may at lest adopt it as well as any other, there would seem to be noobjection to permit, though we would not enjoin, its use in any official documents.

10. To this end a manual will be required, adapted for instructing natives in the systemintroduced by Sir W. Jones, with some slight modifications, which have been recentlyintroduced by the principal modern Romanizers. We believe the system adopted by theBritish and Foreign Bible Society to be the best, but before pronouncing a decidedopinion, we should be glad to be favoured with an expression of the views of theGovernment of India, after communicating with the Asiatic Society. We forward asAppendix C. of this letter, a manual of instruction which was prepared in 1861, by BabooShiva Prasad for a similar purpose. That is in the Devanagri character, while the bookwhich we propose would be in the Persian character, but something of that nature isneeded, and we wish to know whether the system of transliteration adopted in this treatiseor the slightly different one for which we have above indicated a preference, meets withthe approval of government. Some authorities are for making the system a purelyphonetic one, while others would distinguish between the nearly similar letters whichoccur in the Persian and Devanagri alphabets by a variety of diacritical marks. Beforeproceeding further in this matter, we await instructions. The manual should also contain



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lessons in English numerals, with a view to the adoption of our next proposal. It shouldbe taught for the present in all schools above the grade of village schools, an indeed onemember of this Commission who has charge of a large and most important circle ofeducation in the North-Western Provinces, is prepared to introduce it experimentally intoevery school under his Superintendence, if Government should so desire. He has alreadyintroduced it with great success into some normal schools. We believe that thesemeasures would very quickly spread abroad a very general acquaintance with thecharacter.

11. The next proposal which we beg leave to make is this, that the mode of writingfigures called "Raqm" should be as soon as possible discontinued in all public offices. Itis one of the most inconvenient methods of writing figures that was ever invented. It hasall the disadvantages of the Roman system of numbering by letters of the alphabet, andhas this additional defect, that it depends entirely on the form given to the termination ofthe symbol, whether it represents rupees, seers, or bighas, and a very slight turn of thepen at the end of a numerical sign will entirely alter the whole meaning of a sentence. Itis not possible to make calculation in this character. Every arithmetical operation isworked out by the system called "Hindisa," or Arabic numerals, which are very similar inform and nearly identical in system, with those used by the Hindoos and by all Westernnations. The Hindisa, however, offers singular facilities for being tampered with, and wetherefore recommend that Government should use every effort to introduce the Englishnumerals alone into all vernacular accounts.

12. We have been desired to state our views on a proposal to extend to barristers, and wewould add to members of the Educational Deptt., and to junior civil servants, theprivilege of submitting to the examination for prizes for high proficiency and degrees ofhonor, as explained in Rules XII, XIII, XIV, of Government Resolution 734, dated 9thSeptember. Although the principle of admitting gentlemen not in the service ofGovernment, to pecuniary rewards for a knowledge of Indian languages is a novel one,still we think that it is of such great importance that these languages should be known tothose who are to practise in our Courts of Justice, that we recommend that the proposalbe adopted as regards English gentlemen practicing at the Indian bar.

13. As regards the examinations for civil servants, we consider that it would be highlybeneficial to the public service, if the liberal rules for military officers were extended tocivilians. It can be no object to Government to encourage the slow standard ofscholarship, which the pass examinations for civilians in the College of Fort William nowrequire. On this subject, we beg leave to quote the words of the Secretary to the Board ofExaminers, as given in the introduction to his book "A Guide to the Examination in theCollege of Fort William": He says:

"A junior civil or military servant must not for an instant suppose, that having scrapedthrough a pass examination at college, he is fully qualified as regards scholasticknowledge of the native languages, for any duties that he may be called on to perform.The great exigencies of the public service requiring that young men should be placed atthe disposal of the Government at the earliest possible opportunity, alone necessitates the



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pass standards being kept low; but every officer who desires to be an efficient servant ofthe State, must remember that in many respects he is amenable to the opinion of thenative, rather than to the European public, and that however early he may be permitted toenter on his official career, it is nevertheless a portion of his duty to acquire such aknowledge of the language of the people he has to aid in governing, as will place him intheir estimation in the position of an educated gentleman."

We fully agree in the views herein expressed, and think that while on the one hand, it isdetrimental to the young officer to be kept so long in Calcutta, as he is by the presentrules while studying for honors, it is no less injurious to the state to be deprived of hisservices during the same period. Moreover, some of us have in our own experience,known of a case where residence in Calcutta was so distasteful to a young civilian, thatafter passing the compulsory examinations, and also attaining to some honorabledistinctions, he voluntarily gave up the idea of any further study even for the prizes,which were open to him, in order to enter on active life, whereas, if rules similar to thosenow published for military officers had been in force, he would have prosecuted hisstudies after joining his station, to a much higher and more useful degree of knowledge.An additional argument for the extension which we advocate, is to be found in the fact,that owing to a young civilian's inexperience I his work, it is commonly impossible tofind for him at first, sufficient official duty to employ him for more than a small part ofhis time. He has consequently much leisure, which would probably in many cases beusefully employed in study of the languages, if these prizes were open to him. Werecommend then, that as soon as a junior civil servant shall have passed the testsprescribed for qualification for the public service, he be required to join his station, andthat he should be afterwards allowed to present himself for examinations for certificatesof high proficiency, and for degrees of honor, under the same rules and with a prospect ofthe same rewards, as are now available for officers in the Army.

14. It is also of such great importance, that English officers of the Department of PublicInstruction, should have a thorough and scientific knowledge of oriental languages andliterature, that we cannot but think that Government would be a gainer, were the sameprivileges extended to them also. It needs no argument to prove the value of this sort ofknowledge in this department. If it be thought worth while to hold out such inducementsto military officers, it seems to follow that the same inducements might well be offered toeducational officers also.

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FromE.C. Bayley, EsquireSecretary to the government of India

ToCaptain W.N. Lees, L.L.D.Secretary to the Board of Examiners.



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Dated Fort William, the 16th March 1866.

I am directed to forward to you the accompanying copy of a Despatch from the Secretaryof State, and of its enclosures on the subject of the preparation of a selection of Urzeesand other Vernacular documents as filed in the Courts of Justice in the several Divisionsof the Bengal Presidency, for the purpose of familiarizing candidates for the CivilService, previous to their appointment, with the style of these documents; and to requestthat you will be good enough to undertake the duty in communication with theGovernments of Bengal, the North-Western provinces, and the Punjab, who have beenaddressed upon this subject.

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(Enclosures)

FromC. Wood

ToHis Excellency the Right Hon'bleThe Governor-General of India in CouncilIndia office.

London, 25th January 1866.

Sir,

I forward for your information a copy of a memorandum by Mr. E.B. Cowell, latelyPrincipal of the Sanscrit College, Calcutta, and now one of the Examiners for the IndianCivil Service under her majesty's Civil Service Commission, on the subject of providinga collection of Urzees in the different vernaculars of India, for the purpose offamiliarizing candidates, previous to their appointment to the Indian Civil Service, withthe style of such documents.

2. I am of opinion that the plan suggested by Mr. Cowell is likely to prove very useful;and I have to request that your Government will cause a Selection of Urzees and otherdocuments filed in the Courts of Justice to be prepared in the Vernacular Languagescurrent in the several Divisions of the Bengal Presidency in which candidates areexamined in this country, and will have the same lithographed, and copies forwarded tothis office.

3. The Volumes should be accompanied, as suggested by Mr. Cowell, with an EnglishTranslation and it might be expedient that, in each Volume, a small number of the Urzeesshould be fac-similes of the originals.

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Memorandum by Mr. Cowell on a Selection of Urzees, dated 9th November, 1865.

The vernacular languages of India can never be studied for their literature, for they havenone worth reading; they are useful simply as a means of communicating with the people.Our chief object in these examinations must be the practical one how best to fit thecandidates for being efficient officers in their country districts. The language, whatever itbe, must, of course, be first learned grammatically and this can only be done by studyingthe best books which are written in it, but after a time there comes a point where thescholar's and the practical man's knowledge diverge. All these languages have highwritten style, and also one less grammatical and more colloquial; the former used by thelearned natives in written composition, the latter by all in daily life. The high dialectcannot be ignored, some knowledge of it is indispensable, for the colloquial is based on itand high phrases borrowed from it are elsewhere current, but it is of no practical use tostudy this artificial dialect beyond a certain point.

An officer of government in India finds two main uses of the Vernacular; viz., talkingwith the people, and reading the written documents presented to him. With regard to theBombay languages, it appears that the main test of the examinations in Bombay hasalways related to the candidates proficiency in these two points, and to certain extent itwas attempted in the examinations of Madras. But in England we can only expect a verylimited proficiency in either. The accurate pronunciation of these oriental languages cannever be learned except from a native; and the power to converse comes slowly to mostmen, as the ear is gradually accustomed to the sounds which everybody is using around;and in the same way the power to read the written character (unless it be very clear andeasy) is only given by a great familiarity with the language. The difficulty in readingthese current hands arises mainly from the long flourishes, the omission of diacriticaldots, etc., and the irregular forms and contractions, which disguise the words even to apracticed eye, unless they can be guessed from the context. If the student has masteredthe language, it will be an easy matter for him to master the ordinary handwriting, but nototherwise.

But it seems to me highly desirable, and at the same time perfectly practicable, toaccustom the candidate, while in England, to the style of the urzees and other courtdocuments which he will have so much to do with in India, and this very familiarity withtheir ordinary style and phrases will in itself be a great step towards his reading thesedocuments for himself thereafter in the current hand as they are actually written.

I would recommend that a Volume should be compiled in India by some officer ofGovernment, selected in each Presidency consisting of about one hundred urzees andother similar documents, in each of the seven vernacular languages in which thecandidates are respectively examined. This volume should be studied in the fourth half-year, and form one of the text books for the last examination. It should be lithographed ina plain handwriting, corresponding to our copper-plate writing in English, for I do notthink that it would be wise, especially at present, to embarrass the student withdifficulties in the handwriting. The style of these papers will be in itself difficult to him,coming as he will to them from the classical style of the printed books. I also think that it



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would be well to accompany each selection with an English translation, to be printed in aseparate volume, as the student might thus exercise himself in re-translation, as well asacquire practice in reading the originals by himself.

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CHAPTER 6WHAT LANGUAGES TO BE LEARNED AND WHY?

Extract from the proceedings of the Government of India in the Home Department(Punjab), No. 134, under date Fort William, the 15th January 1873.

RESOLUTION: The great importance to the administration of a knowledge on the part ofPublic officers of the languages spoken by the people with whom they have to deal haslately been prominently brought to the notice of the Government of India.

2. There is reason to fear that, especially in the wilder districts peopled by aboriginaltribes, sufficient attention has not been paid to the subject, although it is admitted thatconstant and easy intercourse between Government officials and the people is essentiallynecessary to the good government of half-civilized races. An instance has been brought tothe notice of the Government of India in which, out of a body of fourteen officersemployed in the administration of an outlying district, one only was acquainted with thevernacular, although some of the officers had been employed in the district forconsiderable periods ranging as high as 16 years, while the character of the district andthe condition of the aboriginal tribes inhabiting it were so peculiar as to demand that itshould be exempted from the judicial procedure in force elsewhere and subjected tospecial regulations. From another province a representation has been received, whichshows that difficulty is experienced in providing for the administration of hill tracts byofficers acquainted with the language of the aborigines.

3. The Government of India now desires that the attention of the Local Governments andAdministrations may be directed to this important subject, and that each Government willreport how the case stands in the territories under its administration, and by whatmeasures it would propose to further the desired object.

4. The local languages for the acquisition of which inducements have been held out bythe Government are:I. Languages spoken locally within British territory.II. Languages of bordering frontier tribes.

The rewards which have at times been sanctioned for proficiency in such languages are asfollows:



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In the Lower Provinces of Bengal.To any Officer passing in Sonthali, Rupees 1,000.To any officer in the Assam Commission for passing an examination in Cossyah, Mikir,Naga, Garo, Abor, Bootea, Kamptee Mishmee, Munipooree, Kookee, Cachari or Mugh,Rupees 500.In the Madras Presidency, to Covenanted Officers serving in the Ganjam andVizagapatam Districts for passing in Ooriya, rupees 1,000.

These rewards have, however, failed in inducing any considerable number of officers tostudy the languages.

5. With regard to each local language which is spoken in British territory over so limitedan area that it has not been brought within the scheme of compulsory Examinations theGovernment of India desires to have before it reports from all the Local Governmentsembodying the following particulars:

I. The approximate area over which each language is spoken, and the approximatenumber of the population of whom it is the vernacular;II. By what officers, and in what language the local administration is carried on in thetract in which the language prevails;III. Whether it can be said generally that, in addition to their own vernacular, the peoplein question also use and are familiar with any other language, especially that in which theadministration is carried on, and with which the Government officers with whom they arebrought in contact are conversant;IV. Whether any difficulty has been experienced in the administration in consequence ofa paucity of officers who know the language of the people, and if so, in what districts;V. The measures which the Government would propose to adopt;VI. As the proficiency of the officers must necessarily be tested by examinations, anopinion should be expressed as to the degree and nature of qualification to be requiredand of the examinations by which they should be tested.

6. In addition to the offer of money-rewards in one payment, suggestions have at differenttimes been made that as an inducement to officers to qualify for service in the tracts inwhich special languages are spoken (which are often, from their circumstances,unpopular) a local allowance should be given, in addition to the ordinary pay of hisgrade, to an officer who has passed the requisite examinations in the language, for acertain number of years or during the time which he may serve in such a tract.Suggestions have also been made that some of the languages now referred to might bebrought into the scheme of compulsory departmental examinations by including themamong the languages in which an officer may elect to pass. It has also been suggestedthat the object might be attained by absolutely debarring an officer whose services arerequired in one of these special tracts from ordinary promotion until he shall havequalified in the special language.

7. It will be understood that the Government of India does not wish by the proposedmeasures to foster and encourage mere provincial dialectic variations of recognized



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languages spoken by people who belong to one race. The object is only to recognize andencourage officers to give their attention to languages of which the individuality isdistinct, and which are peculiar to particular races and tribes.

8. In addition to the above information and opinions as to languages spoken by races inBritish territory, the Government of India wished that the Local Governments andadministrations will similarly consider and make recommendations with regard to thoselanguages which it is desirable that officers employed on the frontier should acquire forthe purpose of communicating with the tribes with whom they are brought in contact.

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CHAPTER 7HOW TO REDUCE THE ANTAGONISM BETWEEN HINDI

AND URDU

Code Mixing

The phenomenon of Urdu as a linguistic process is not new to India. Code mixing hasbeen going on for centuries. Through this process new languages had emerged from theold ones. There are also instances of failed attempts at code mixing not emerging asindependent languages. Sometimes, code mixing is frowned upon, but always resorted to.However, in the case of Urdu, unfortunately, attitudes and loyalties to religion andlanguage got mixed and this made the situation more complex and volatile.

The British officials were always perplexed by the ongoing processes of code mixing inIndia. They knew that such a situation might have prevailed even in their own countryand in English. But by the time they were settled in India code mixing was not prominentin English. Their language had somewhat assimilated the borrowed words and phrasesfrom French and other languages, and had established the conventions for the process.They were not expecting that they would contribute to an admixture of English and theIndian languages. Some of the officials were really at loss to understand the Englishwritten by the natives and the British officials who had been living in India for a numberof years. The recent arrivals had great difficulty in learning this lingo of the mixture ofIndian languages and English. At one time the Secretary to the Board of Administrationin the Punjab was forced to write a letter on the 11th April, 1849 to all commissionersunder the Board of Administration that they "will point to all the officers under you howgreatly public business may be facilitated by the habitual use of English, instead ofVernacular and often Provincial, terms in their correspondence. The Board are aware thatmany native terms are untranslatable, but in that case they should be explained in a



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marginal note. At present, cases referred for Government decision are often unintelligiblefor want of a glossary."

Grierson's 1901 census report on the mothertongues spoken in India also cited a situationin which how the natives mixed the English words and phrases in their own language:"English is being introduced into Indian languages inthe same way. Once in Monghyr Ioverheard one Bengali say to another 'e: de:se:r climate constitutione:r janya ati healthy.'A native horse-doctor once said to me about a dog licking his wound, 'Kutta:-ka: salivabahut antiseptic hai,' and Mr. Grahame Bayley has heaard one Panja:bi dentist say toanother 'continually excavate na karo:.'"

Correspondences

FromA.P. Howell, Esquire.,Officiating Secretary to the Government of India, Home Department

ToThe Secretary to GovernmentPunjab

Dated Fort William, the 17th November 1875.

I am directed to forward the accompanying papers, including a minute by Mr. A.W.Croft, inspector of Schools in Bengal, on the adoption of Hindi as the court language ofBehar.

2. The Government of India re not aware how far Mr. Croft's remarks are applicable tothe circumstances of the Punjab, but desire to express general concurrence in the viewthat it is an object to diminish the antagonism between Hindi and Urdu, and that it isinexpedient to foster in Government or aided schools under the name of Hindi anartificial, Sanskritized language, which is in most cases as far removed from the commonrustic vernacular as it is from the ordinary language of the towns. The Government ofIndia are further of opinion that the Educational Departments can give efficient help inthis matter in connection with preparation of text books.

3. I am to request that the final orders which His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor maypass on this question maybe communicated to the Government of India.

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From S.C. Bayley, Esquire.,Commissioner of the Patna Division.



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ToThe Secretary to Government, Bengal,Judicial Department.

Dated Bankipur, the 20th May 1875.

In returning herewith the Nagri pamphlet received with your memorandum No: 101 T, ofthe 25th ultimo, I have the honor to submit as follows.

2. The pamphlet purports to be a petition from some of the residents of Patna andBhagalpur, addressed to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, showing the superiority ofthe Nagri character to the Persian, and of the Hindi language to the Hindustani, andpraying, that the orders of the late Lieutenant-Governor, directing the introduction of theNagri character into the courts and Government Offices in Behar, may be carried out andmaintained in force.

3. The following considerations are urged in support of the above petition and prayer:

1st. The anti-Nagri party calls Hindi a rude language, having neither a literature norgrammar. This cannot be true, as Hindi is a branch of the Sanskrit, which is, according tothe principal English and German scholars, such as Professor Max Muller, Haug,Goldstucker, Wilson, Colebrooke, and C., the best language in the world all the otherlanguages, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Persian, being derived from it. How can then, such alanguage be unfit for the transaction of court business?

2nd. It is objected to Nagri that it cannot be written quickly. This is merely a question ofpractice.

3rd. Nagri can be mastered in three or four months, while Hindustani cannot be learnt soeasily. Even the best Persian scholars cannot read an official paper without one or twoyears' practice in reading Persian manuscripts.

4th. Nagri is better adapted for transliteration than Persian, e.g. "Revenue Board," "FirstArts Course," &, C.

5th. The Persian characters can be altered with much greater facility than Nagri andhence it affords greater temptation to fraudulent tampering with documents.

6th. Nagri is used in the transaction of all kinds of business in Nepal, Nagpur, andCommissioner's Office at Almoraa, fact which proves that there is no defect in it.

7th. True, the Nagri takes a little more space in writing than Hindustani, but this defectcannot weight against the many considerations in favour of the use of Nagri, which is thevernacular of Behar throughout the Province.



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4. I fully agree in the petitioners' view that Nagri can be and should be graduallyintroduced into the courts and offices of Behar. On this subject I submitted a report toGovernment in October 1873, from which it will be seen that Nagri has been prettyextensively introduced into the districts of this division, and that all processes,notifications, proclamations, & C., and all police reports, diaries, and registers are writtenin that character. The court amlah also were made to pass examinations in the Nagricharacter and language, and they are now conducting their duties with tolerable facility init. The change, however, is steadily opposed by this class of people, who as Kyests orMussalmans, have almost a monopoly of the court language, and consequently of thecourt places.

5. This opposition is not without its effects on their superiors at the head offices, whounconsciously imbibe their prejudices, and it requires persevering and steady pressurefrom above to get the reform carried out. There is to my mind no more reason for havingone other than Hindi, than there is in Bengal for having one other than Bengali. Theintroduction of Bengali as the court language in Bengal was, I have been told stronglyopposed at the time. Now no one ventures to suggest that it was not an improvement.

6. The law papers of the present day written in so-called Hindustani differ very little fromthose of the time when Persian was the avowed language of the courts. Inflexions andauxiliary verbs are Hindustani, but the body of the document consists still of the largestArabic words that eh mookhtear who compiles it can retain, and it is absolutelyunintelligible to any but the specially educated classes. Hindi is the language of thePeople - the language in which accounts, zemindari business, private business, and, as arule, private communications by letter are conducted; and why the courts should continueto use an absolutely artificial language, which has, to counterbalance all itsdisadvantages, only the one advantage of being more rapidly written, and amore easilymiswritten and misread, I cannot understand.

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FromC.E. Buckland, Esquire.,Officiating Junior Secretary to the Government of Bengal

ToThe Commissioner of the Patna Division

Dated on board Yacht Rhotas the 9th July, 1875

With reference to your letter No. 182J, dated 20th May last, reporting on a Nagripamphlet entitled "Why should Nagri be introduced in the Courts and other Offices ofBehar," I am directed to forward, for your information, a copy of a Note by Mr. A.W.Croft, Inspector of Schools, on "Hindi as the Court Language of Behar," and to state thatthe Lieutenant Governor concurs generally in the views therein expressed.



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2. His Honor has no desire to pass any orders that may countenance the idea that Hindiand Urdu are two distinct languages; but he recognizes the tendency of some writers ofthe former to reject every word which is not Sanskrit in origin, while some writers ofUrdu confine themselves strictly to words of Persian origin. He would wish to encouragethe growth of a full, harmonious language uniting these two elements, now separate anddiscordant; and for this purpose he would require that all candidates for employmentabove the lowest should be equally familiar with both the Nagri and Persian characters.

3. The Lieutenant-Governor is of opinion that the orders of Government, terminating withMr. Dampier's letter No. 1210, dated 2nd April 1874, should be steadily carried out.Those orders enjoined that all processes, notifications, and proclamations should be madein Hindi; that official records should be kept in Hindi; that petitions should be received ineither Hindi or Hindustani; and that a knowledge of the Hindi character should be insistedon in the case of police officers and amlahs. The late Lieutenant Governor was stronglyopposed to making Hindi the exclusive court language at present, and to this policy SirRichard Temple desires to adhere. It is apparent that there is some amount of passiveobstructiveness to be overcome, although progress is being made in the introduction ofthe reform instituted by Government. His Honor trusts to you persevere steadily in thepolicy already indicated.

4. For these reasons the Lieutenant-Governor is unable to accede to the request preferredby the subscribers to the pamphlet above mentioned, and I am to ask you to communicateto the petitioners this decision.

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Note by A.W. Croft, Esquire, Inspector of Schools, on "Hindi as the CourtLanguage of Behar," dated the 16th June 1875.

THE petition mixes up two things - the character and the language - which should be keptdistinct. To call Hindi and Urdu two languages is to perpetuate a vicious error, originallydue to the antagonism of Pandits and Maulavis. They have the same accidence andsyntax, and the same stock of words for most simple objects and conceptions; they onlydiverge when it is necessary to express the language f compliment of science, or ofcomplex ideas in general. This is not to have two languages, but to have a languagecapable of being enriched from two different sources; and I conceive that it is the objectof Government to destroy or to diminish this antagonism.

It can do so in two ways, - its ordinary civil administration, and by means of itseducational machinery. In the first place, it can, I believe do much more than it has yetdone in discountenancing the Persian-Urdu of the public offices and courts - a languageunintelligible to any native of this country who has not received a special education. I donot refer to technical terms of law or of civil business; these are in possession; they are asconvenient as any, and they could not, in fact, be replaced by others. They are parts of theHindi language, just as the legal terms of French origin are parts of the English language.I refer to the jargon in which the body of court documents is couched - a language



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altogether Persian, except for Hindustani inflexions, and not always with that exception; alanguage known only to the initiated, who cling to it as the source of their livelihood.Government has repeatedly fulminated against this court language, and I am told muchhas been done towards simplifying it. But the effort requires constant vigilance, theamlah have every interest in quietly opposing the change, and there still remain inconstant use numbers of words and phrases that have not the smallest justification. This isto perpetuate the delusion of two languages; and still more, it is to give the largest sectionof the people a substantial grievance, by excluding them from the most lucrative forms ofcivil employ. So long as a document read out in court is not intelligible to any person,Hindu or Mohammedan, of fair education, much remains to be done. As it is, our middleschools are deserted, because the education they give is valueless as an avenue to civilemployment. I cannot but believe that the constant and clear expression of the will ofGovernment, the steady discouragement by all officers of exaggeration in language, andthe occasional rejection of a petition on this ground, would gradually, if not speedily - inthe next generation of amlah, if not in this - produce marked results.

The Education Department can, in a different fashion, give efficient help towards thesame end, namely, the unification of Hindi and Urdu. The books used in the schools ofBehar ought to be books of such a style that they might be written indifferently, and withequal propriety, in either character. No one will say, for example, that a sentence like"Suraj nikalta hai" is distinctively Hindi or distinctively Urdu; and it is the business of theEducation Department to extend the bounds of this common language. The test of a goodschool book for Behar, is that it can be printed without violence in either character.Individual authors, on the other hand (with a few noticeable exceptions), generally striveto intensify the difference by rejecting every word which is not either Sanskrit in origin,or for it is not to be supposed that pedantry is confined to writers of Urdu. On thecontrary, the pedantry that I have chiefly to complain of in may own work is that ofwriters of Hindi. The purism of men who carry their repugnance to Urdu so far as to say,not admi but manush, not sirf but kebal, not chiz but vestu, not magar but parantu, is athing not to be tolerated in a region where some kind of compromise is a necessity. Inlooking about for books for the Behar schools, I have had to reject numbers for this veryfault; one in particular, an elementary book of Natural History, which I sorely needed, butwhose pages bristled with Sanskrit expressions for the commonest conceptions, e.g.,Utpatti, bishay, manushoa, brittanta, parantu, bahuddha, nirog, karan; all occurring on apage taken at random.

This sort of pedantry reaches its culminating point in the very pamphlet sent for reporttranscribes the opening sentence;

"Siddha Sriman maharaja dhiraj Bharatvarshiya purvadesh adhikari yashasvi tejasvisriyukta Laftanent Gavarnar maha prapike nikat ham sab Patna nagur kepraphan nivasi,jamidar, sahukar, ade prjayonka tan manasekoti koti dhanyabaid pahunche. Apaisebaddhiman prajopakari, desh hitakari raj niyamak ki reaisha sada sarvada sarva shatimanjagadishvar karta rahe."



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This, coming in a prayer for the restoration of the language of the people, represents, Isuppose, that language. It represents, I have no doubt, the language of the people,represents, I suppose, that language. It represents, I have no doubt, the language which itsauthor would rejoice to introduce into the courts in place of Urdu. Nothing could be moreintolerant or more ludicrous. It is like a man, in his zeal for pure English, rejecting theimpenetrability of matter," and substituting the "unthorough foresomeness of stuff."

I repeat my opinion that it is desirable for Government to guard most carefully againstpassing any orders which countenance the idea that Hindi and Urdu are two distinctlanguages, and more particularly, having this object in view, to guard againstencouraging eccentricities of style, whether having a Persian bias such as I havedescribed above. I regard it as well worth the attention of Government to try, by everymeans at its command (the educational means being not the least efficacious), to untiethese two elements, now separate and discordant, into one full and harmonious language.If civil officers will repress Persian exaggerations the Education Department can wagevigorous war against Sanskrit aggressions. The result will be a joint language aboundingin synonyms of different origin, in this respect resembling English and the wealthiergroup of living languages. The varieties of such a language will differ no more than thestyle of Rasselas differs from that of the Lord's Prayer. It is equally English whether youspeak of "an unlikely thing to happen" or "an improbably event to occur," and it is onlyusage that determines which is the best style.

Such a language cannot be created by an edict. But authors in Behar and in the NorthWestern Provinces are even now grappling with the question, and Government, can, byreadily encouragement of such authors, and more especially by the organization of itsschools, so control the tendencies of current literature, and so help to fix the standard ofeducated speech, as to hasten this desirable consummation. In an illiterate age, and withno efforts of Government tending to promote the union, it took two centuries to weld theEnglish and the French elements of the language into the national speech of England. Itshould not take so long now.

Only on condition that efforts are made so to settle the language question do I see anychance of satisfactorily meeting the second difficulty, that of character. Government hasalready done much. All processes and notifications - all documents, in fact, destined forservice outside cities - are in Nagri, and all petitions may be presented in that character.If, further, the order of the Magistrate were always transliterated, when required, fromUrdu into Nagri, probably every need of suitors would be satisfied. But it is not the needsof suitors that have prompted the present petition. It is the need of that large body ofHindus whose education does not fit them for the public service; and they are toonumerous for their claims to be lightly set aside.

I should think it a very hazardous experiment definitely to substitute Hindi for Urdu asthe language of the courts. The temporary block to public business would be a smallmatter compared with the political danger involved in the disaffection of a class of menabout whom the complaint already is that their means of living are too scanty. TheMuhammadans in fact would be ousted from public employ. But the same principle of



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fairness to them suggests a course which might possibly be pursued in the interests of thelarge body of Hindus. Mr. Bayley says that all the Persian-writing amlahs have beenrequired to pass an examination in Hindi; is it too much to require that Brahman andother Nagri-writing candidates for employment should pass an examination in Urdu? Itis, no doubt, too much as matters stand; for we see that, with the exception of the facileKayasth, no Hindi will now submit to learn a new character in which to write his ownlanguage - a very different and much more simple matter.

If all candidates for employment above the lowest were required to be equally familiarwith two characters (and to such an end ought our school education to be directed), and itconsequently both were used indiscriminately in official writing, it might not happen thatone would drive out the other. Nagri undoubtedly takes more time and more room, butthe same objection might be urged against English; and if for other reasons it isconvenient to write it, it will be written. It might be conjectured, indeed, that the force ofnumbers would gradually make itself felt, and that Nagri would prevail; but even if not, isthere any serious objection to the use in courts of two characters side by side? They existin fact already for Kaithi accounts are filed with Urdu plaints and have to be interpretedby irresponsible experts. But whatever the objection, it could not weight against theadvantages on the other side; for it is evident that the friction produced by the contract oftwo characters would rub down the harsh points peculiar to each, whether Persian orSanskrit. By the ordinary reaction of character upon language, the conflict of Nagri withUrdu would go far to produce the kind of compromise that we desire. A document thathas to be written indiscriminately in one of two characters will not often bear marks ofspecial alliance with either.

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FromT.H. Thornton, Esquire.,Secretary to Government, Punjab

ToThe Officiating Secretary to the Government of IndiaHome Department

Dated Lahore, 30th November 1875.

I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your letter No: 2-207 of 17th instant, andaccompaniments, on the subject of diminishing the antagonism between Hindi and Urdu.

2. In reply, I am directed by the Honorable the Lieutenant Governor to state that thequestion discussed therein may be said not to exist in the Punjab. In the Punjab it has longbeen decided that the recognized language of the courts and of education is to be Urdu ofa simple, character, neither highly Sanskritized, nor greatly intermixed with Arabic.There are still a few Hindi primary schools in the Delhi Division, but they are rapidlydying out, and almost the only advocates of Hindi remaining are a few Bengali clerks.



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3. Under these circumstances, the Lieutenant Governor considers that no action is calledfor in reference to your letter so far as this Province is concerned, and he would deprecatethe question being raised, as any initiation of the subject will only give rise to profitlessdiscussion by a clique of purists.

4. I append copy, not printed, of correspondence which took place in 1863 on the subjectof the language to be used in court proceedings which may be of interest.

The court vernacular should be fixed, as proposed by the Judicial Commissioner,according to the language in ordinary use as distinctly marked in various portions of theprovince. For the Hissar division, notwithstanding that Punjabi is in ordinary use in Sirsaand the confines of the Patiala state in Sirsa, and Hissar, the Urdu should be the courtvernacular.

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REFERENCES

1. Bhatia, T.K. "Punjabi," in William Bright (ed.) International Encyclopedia ofLinguistics. Vol. 3, Oxford University Press, New York, 1992. pp. 299-302.

2. Grierson, G.A. "Census of India 1901 Mother Tongue Report," published asAppendix to Census of India 1961, Language Tables, Part II (c). Government ofIndia, 1965.

3. Chaudhry, N.A.(ed.).Development of Urdu as the Official Language in the Punjab(1849-1974). Director of Archives, Government of the Punjab, Pakistan, 1977.

4. Sayed, Najam Hussain (2000). "Aab Aab Kar Moio." SAMDARSHI 59: 75-92.Panjabi Academi, Delhi.

5. Zaman, Fakhar (2000). "Ailaan Nama: Aalmi," Panjabi Conference 1992 Lahore.SAMDARSHI 59:354-359, Panjabi Academi, Delhi.

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Ranjit Singh RangilaCentral Institute of India LanguagesManasagangotriMysore 570006, [email protected].



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