Indian languages

“ What is more, it need hardly be said that among a thousand or more languages and dialects there is opportunity for every range of variation, and any attempt to characterize the phonetics of all Indian languages by one term or by a single description must necessarily be fallacious. As a matter of fact there are many forms of native speech that are exceedingly smooth, harmonious and pleasing even to English ears. On the whole the American Indian finds English as full of strange sounds and difficult sound-combinations as we think the Indian languages to be when first we hear them. ”

“ But, of all languages under heaven, the Indian dialects appear to me the most fruitful in terminations and adjuncts to point their expressions, and to give to them living and spiritual meanings. They appear, by their words, to live in a world of spirits. ”

“ On similar grounds ancestors of the Indians have been found among the Phœnicians, Scandinavians, Welsh, Irish, Carthaginians, Egyptians, Tartars, Hindus, Malays, Chinese, Japanese, and all the islanders of Polynesia. It is not wonderful that, with the choice of three hundred Indian languages, besides their dialects, from which to make selections of sounds, some one should be likened to some other language, for all spoken languages can in that manner—i.e., by a comparison of vocables—show identity of sound and a percentage of coincidences of significance. ”

“ The people of India have surpassed all other peoples, ancient or modern, in the earnestness and assiduity with which they have studied the grammars of their various tongues, and to this must be attributed the wonderful perfection several of those languages have reached as organs of thought and much of the acuteness for which the Indian mind is famed. But the study of the languages of their country by Indian scholars has never beeome comparative and, therefore, has never become scientific. ”

“ But they do indicate the existence, in varying degrees of purity, of five different origins, of which the Dravidian and Mundā alone can be said to be purely indigenous and confined to the Indian peninsula. Nowhere is it more easy than in India to see how languages spread from race to race, from tribe to tribe, with a sort of linguistic contagion; the stronger, more supple, more copious, more cultivated languages replacing and gradually destroying weaker forms of speech. ”

“ Owing to the breaking up of the tribal system and the consolidation of the smaller with the larger tribes, to the adoption by the Indians of civilized manners and pursuits, and to the extinction in some portions of the country of the language with the Indians who spoke them, the Indian languages are fast disappearing from the face of the earth. Accordingly, a large share of the time and labor of the bureau force has been, and will continue to be, devoted to the record and preservation of aboriginal languages. ”

“ We have got too much into the habit of talking about India and the Indians as if they were one country and one people, and we too often forget that there are far more absolutely distinct languages spoken in India than in Europe; that there are far more profound racial differences between the Mahratta and the Bengalee than between the German and the Portuguese, or between the Punjabee and the Tamil than between the Russian and the Italian ”

“ I have frequently questioned Indians who had been educated at our schools, and could understand, read, write, and speak both English and German, whether they could express their ideas better in either of those languages than in their own, and they have always and uniformly answered that they could express themselves with far the greatest ease in their own Indian, and that they never were at a loss for words or phrases in which to clothe every idea that occurred to them, without being in any case obliged to gesticulate or make motions with their hands or otherwise. ”

“ The interpreters are expected to perform the Herculean task of interpreting successfully in four languages, viz., Tamil, Telugu, Hindustani and Gujarati. The trading Indian invariably speaks Hindustani or Gujarati. Those who speak Hindustani only, speak high Hindustani. The interpreters, with one exception, speak the local Hindustani, which is a grotesque mixture of Tamil, Gujarati and other Indian languages, clothed in extremely bad Hindustani grammar. Very naturally, the interpreter has to argue with the witness before he can get at his meaning. ”

“ At one time the opinion was widely prevalent that primitive languages changed very rapidly, sometimes even within a generation, and the American Indian tongues were rather freely used as typical examples of such extreme General character of Indian languages. ”

“ The similarity of the Indian languages points without doubt to a common origin, while their variety and immense number are indications of a high antiquity; for who can estimate the succession of years necessary to subdivide a common tongue into so many languages, and to give birth out of a savage or nomadic life to a civilization like that of the Aztecs?
In the passage of man from one hemisphere to another he sees no difficulty ”

“ THE day is past when educated people believed that the Indian languages were only random jargons of a few inarticulate sounds, without grammar or order, and so badly in need of supplementary gestures to make them intelligible that the Indians could not converse in the dark. ”

“ Other tribes are assigned much lower rank in the scale.
The above is peculiarly true of the student of language. He who studies only one Indian language and learns its manifold curious grammatic devices, its wealth of words, its capacity of expression, is speedily convinced of its superiority to all other Indian tongues, and not infrequently to all languages by whomsoever spoken.
If like admirable characteristics are asserted for other tongues he is apt to view them but as derivatives from one original. ”

“ The classification of the languages of the North American Indians is closely connected with the synonymy XLIVof tribal names, each work assisting the other. During recent years the number of students who have directed their attention more or less exclusively to the study of Indian languages has been constantly augmented, and as a result of their labors the number of vocabularies has been correspondingly increased ”

“ In whatever way the multiplicity of American Indian languages and dialects may have arisen, one can be reasonably sure that the differentiation and divergence have developed here in America and are in no sense due to the occasional intrusion of Old World tongues individually or en masse.... ”

“ Speaking of the peculiarities of the language, it may be remarked that the Indian languages have no words properly to express abstract qualities, no words to express the ideas of love, peace, pardon, repentance, etc., as we understand them. ”

“ We certainly cannot hope to use the Indian languages to form any considerable, part of the language of the present day. It is, however, advantageous to have the Indian words enter into our daily life in some capacity, so that they may be PRESERVATION OF INDIAN NAMES 363 a living force and a sign board to all future generations point- ing to the period in the development of the race, of which all that remains of a thousand years of human life, is words and a problem for students to decipher. ”

“ This began to make me believe that everything was not as it should be, and that I was not in the right way to learn the Indian language.
It was not only in substantives or the proper names of things that I found myself almost always mistaken. Those who are not acquainted with the copiousness of the Indian languages, 320 can hardly form an idea of the various shades and combinations of ideas that they can express. For instance, the infinitive Mitzin signifies to eat, and so does Mohoan. ”

“ Among the two hundred and fifty or three hundred thousand Indians in the United States, there are scores of languages, so that often a language is spoken by only a few hundred or a few score of people; and as a means of communication between tribes speaking different languages, a sign language has grown up, so that an Indian is able to talk all over—with the features of his face, his hands and feet, the muscles of his body; and thus a skillful preacher talks and acts; and, inspired by a theme which treats of the gods, he sways his savage audience at will. ”

“ Those English books which are valuable we should translate into the various Indian languages. We should abandon the pretension of learning many sciences. Religious, that is ethical, education will occupy the first place. Every cultured Indian will know in addition to his own provincial language, if a Hindu, Sanskrit ”

“ The philosophy of our Indian languages has become very fashionable among the learned in Europe. The Institute of France has offered a premium of a gold medal, of the value of 1200 francs, for the best essay on the grammatical construction of the family of North American languages, of which the Chippewa, the Delaware and Mohegan are considered the principal branches, of course including the Iroquois, Wyandot, Naudowessie, &c. ”

“ The Iranian languages conduct us to the very borders of India: beyond those borders, in Hindustan, between the bounding walls of the Himalayas and Vindhyas, and eastward to the mouths of the Ganges, lies the easternmost branch of that grand division of human speech to which our own belongs, the Indian branch, comprising the ancient Sanskrit, with its derived and kindred languages. ”

“ Nothing can be more erroneous than the inference that the North American Indian dialects differ in this respect from those of Asia and Europe. In the previous comparison numerous examples present themselves in which the same words unequivocally exhibit at once both the roots and the inflections of words belonging to the languages termed Indo-European, as in Patam-awan, Patam-awos, Kis-ina, M. huk, Mok-um, Khe-cush, Nimp-amino, &c.! ”

“ Popular, or favourite expressions are often repeated, often transposed, and often exhibited with some new shade of meaning. The structure and flexibility of the language is highly favourable to this kind of improvisation. But it is difficult to translate, and next to impossible to preserve its spirit. Two languages more unlike in all their leading characteristics, than the English and the Indian were never brought into contact. ”

“ Language is not only the most general and important help to ethnology, but outside of race, it is also the most ancient of all; ethnologists are well aware of this fact, but do not generally apply it to their studies, because they find it too tedious to acquire the language of unlettered tribes by staying long enough among them.
The help afforded to linguistic studies by the books published in and upon the Indian languages is valuable only for a few among the great number of the dialects. ”

“ Whatever may be the truth, as respects the root and the genius of the Indian tongues, it is quite certain they are now so distinct in their words as to possess most of the disadvantages of strange languages ”

“ If the ancestors of the American Indians emigrated at a remote period from the opposite Asiatic Coasts, we have no right to anticipate in their dialects a complete conformity to any one language of the old world, but general and varying features of resemblance to several. The kindred dialects of the same Continent after the lapse of a considerable time do not exhibit any other kind of resemblance! Now this is the species of relation which the North American Indian dialects actually display when compared to the Languages of the Old World! ”

“ The continent of India has not lost the languages of the tribes who were in the land before the Aryan invasion gave rise to the Hindu population. Especially in the south whole nations, though they have taken to Hindu civilisation, speak languages belonging to the Dravidian family, such as Tamil, Telugu, and Canarese. The importance of this element of Indian population may be seen by these non-Aryan tongues still extending over most of the great triangle of India south of the Nerbudda, besides remnants in districts to the north. ”

“ India is inhabited by about 200 millions of people, speaking at least eleven totally distinct languages, and innumerable dialects, and differing amongst each other in features, character, and social customs, quite as much as the Russian or Spaniard does from the Englishman. ”

“ In these days of international trade there is no provision in any of the Indian universities for the teaching of modern languages. While Germans, Austrians, Italians, Americans and Japanese can learn Hindustanee and English in their own countries in order to further their trade{44} with India, the Government of India has never given a thought to the necessity of making a provision for the teaching of German, French, Japanese, &c., to the Indians and of encouraging Indians to learn these languages. ”

“ The languages or dialects spoken by many native Indian tribes have undoubtedly perished with the races to which they pertained; but the numerous Huron-Iroquois dialects still existing, not only in written form, but as living tongues, afford valuable materials for ethnical study. The history of other Indian tribes abundantly accounts for the multiplication of a minute diversity of languages so specially characteristic of the American continent, with the endless subdivisions of its indigenous population into petty tribes, kept apart by internecine feuds. ”

“ The system of government generally prevailing among the Indian tribes, is indeed so simple and natural, under their circumstances, that it is thought no person would long seek for the traces of any great legislator, giving them laws in any past period. When, however, we consider the curious structure of their languages, we find an ingenuity and complexity, far surpassing any theory to be discovered in that of the modern languages of Europe, with, perhaps, some exceptions in the Basque and Majyer, and even beyond any thing existing in the Greek. ”