The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies Part 14

None of the previous languages were mentioned in the last chapter; in fact, they were those different Hindu tongues which were contrasted with the Tamulian, and which, in the northern part of the Peninsula had effected those displacements which separated, or were supposed to separate, the Rajmahali, Kol, and Khond dialects from each other. They formed the _sea_ of speech, in which those tongues were _islands_.

Now what is the inference from these per-centages? from such a one as the Bengali, of ninety out of one hundred? What do they prove as to the character of the language in which they occur? Do they make the Sanskrit the basis of the tongue, just as the Anglo-Saxon is of the English, or do they merely show it as a superadded foreign element, like the Norman--like that in kind, but far greater in degree? The answer to this will give us the philological position of the North-Indian tongues. It will make the Bengali either Tamul, with an unprecedented amount of foreign vocables, or Sanskrit, with a few words of the older native tongue retained.

If the question were settled by a reference to authorities, the answer would be that the Bengali was essentially Sanskrit.

It would be the same if we took only the _prima facie_ view of the matter.

Yet the answer is traversed by two facts.

1. In making the per-centage of Sanskrit words it has been a.s.sumed that, whenever the modern and ancient tongues have any words in common, the former has always taken them from the latter,--an undue a.s.sumption, since the Sanskrit may easily have adopted native words.

2. The grammatical inflections are so far from being as Sanskritic as the vocables, that they are either non-existent altogether, unequivocally Tamul, or else _controverted_ Sanskrit.

Here I pause,--giving, at present, no opinion upon the merits of the two views. The reader has seen the complications of the case; and is prepared for hearing that, though most of the highest authorities consider the languages of northern India to be related to the Sanskrit, just as the English is to the Anglo-Saxon, and the Italian to the Latin; others deny such a connexion, affirming that as the real relations of the Sanskrit are those of the Norman-French to our own tongue, and of the Arabic to the Spanish, there is no such thing throughout the whole length and breadth of Hindostan as a dialect descended from the Sanskrit, or a spot whereon that famous tongue can be shown to have existed as a spoken and indigenous language.

But, perhaps, we may find in Persia what we lack in India; and as the modern Persian is descended from the Zend, and as the Zend is a sister to the Sanskrit, Persia may, perhaps, supply such a locality. The same doubts apply here.

Such are the doubts that apply to an important question in Asiatic ethnology. I am not, at present, going beyond the simple fact of their existence. Rightly or wrongly, there is an opinion that the Sanskrit never was indigenous to any part of India, not even the most north-western; and there is an extension of this opinion which--rightly or wrongly--similarly excludes it from Persia. So much doubt should be relieved by the exhibition of some universally admitted fact as a set-off.

Such a contrast shall be supplied, in the shape of a comment on the following tables.[41] It is one of Dr. Trithem's.

ENGLISH. LITHUANIC. RUSSIAN. SANSKRIT.

_Father_ tewas otets pitr.

_Mother_ motina mat' matr.

_Son_ sunai suin sunu.

_Brother_ brolis brat bhratr.

_Sister_ sessu sestra svasr.

_Daughter-in-law_ -- snokha snusha.[42]

_Father-in-law_ -- svekor[43] svasura.

_Mother-in-law_ -- svekrov'[44] svas ru.

_Brother-in-law_ -- dever'[45] devr.

_One_ wienas odin eka.

_Two_ du dva dva.

_Three_ trys tri tri.

_Four_ keturi chetuire chatvarah.

_Five_ penki piat' pancha.

_Six_ szessi shest' shash.

_Seven_ septyni sedm' saptan.

_Eight_ a.s.stuoni osm' ashtan.

_Nine_ dewyni deviat' navan.

_Ten_ dessimtis desiat' dasa.

The following similarities go the same way, _viz._, towards the proof of a remarkable affinity with certain languages of _Europe_, there being none equally strong with any existing and undoubted Asiatic ones.

ENGLISH. LITHUANIC. SANSKRIT. ZEND.

_I_ a.s.s aham azem.

_Thou_ tu twam tum.

_Ye_ yus yuyam yus.

_The_[46] tas ta-_d_ tad.

-- szi sah ho.

LITHUANIC.

Laups-inni = _I praise._

_Present._

1. Laups -innu -innawa -inname.

2. -- -inni -innata -innata.

3. -- -inna -inna -inna.

SANSKRIT.

Jaj-ami = _I conquer._

_Present._

1. Jaj -ami -avah -amah.

2. -- -asi -athah -atha.

3. -- -ati -atah -anti.

LITHUANIC.

Esmi = _I am._

1. Esmi eswa esme.

2. Essi esta esti.

3. Esti esti esti.

SANSKRIT.

Asmi = _I am._

1. Asmi swah smah.

2. Asi sthah stha.

3. Asti stah santi.

The inference from the vast series of philological facts, of which the following is a specimen, has, generally--perhaps _universally_--been as follows, _viz._, that the Lithuanic, Slavonic, and the allied languages of Germany, Italy, and Greece--numerous, widely-spread, and unequivocally European--are _Asiatic_ in origin; the Sanskrit being first referred to Asia, and then a.s.sumed to represent the languages of that Asiatic locality. I merely express my dissent from this inference; adding my belief that the relations of the Sanskrit to the Hindu tongues are those of the Anglo-Norman to the English, and that its relation to those of the south-eastern Slavonic area, is that of the Greek of Bactria, to the Greek of Macedon--greater, much greater in degree, but the same in kind.[47]

The Brahminic creed of Hindostan is the next great characteristic.

Brahminism may be viewed in two ways. We may either take it in its later forms, and trace its history backwards, or begin with it in its simplest and most unmodified stage, and notice the changes that have affected it as they occur. At the present its principles are to be found in the holy book called _Puranas_; the Brahminism of the _Puranas_ standing in the same relation to certain earlier forms, as the Rabbinism of the Talmud, or the Romanism of the fathers does to primitive Judaism and Christianity. The pre-eminence of a sacred caste--the sanct.i.tude of the cow--an impossible cosmogony--the worship of Siva and Vishnu--and an indefinite sort of recognition of beings like Rama, Krishna, Kali, and others, are the leading features here; the recognition of the Ramas and Krishnas being of an indefinite and equivocal character, because the extent to which the elements of their divine nature are referable to the idea of _dead men deified_, or the very opposite notion of _G.o.ds become incarnate_, are inextricably mixed together. The Puranas are referable to different dates between the twelfth and sixth centuries A.D.