Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/114

 92 INTRODUCTION. Das, Samal Bhatt, and others. In modern times the Gujaratis, though rather a backward people as times go, have been stimu- lated into activity. There are a good many newspapers in the language, some of which, from the specimens I have seen, possess considerable merit, though others, again, are as bad as they can well be. Under English influence also, translations and original works have been produced, though it is stated that "a shelf of moderate dimensions would accommodate all the published prose works, translations included, which have yet been written by Hindu Gujarati authors." Some societies are at work fostering native literary efforts, but not much is to be expected from them. The literature of a nation to be of any value must be a vigorous spontaneous growth, not a hot-house plant. Translations of goody-goody children's stories, or histories of India, dialogues on agriculture, Robinson Crusoe, and the like, though useful for schoolboys, do not form a national literature; no Tekchând Thâkur appears yet to have arisen in Gujarat. To show how little the language has changed since it was first put upon paper, I give a short piece from Narsingh Mehta, the earliest poet, and an extract from a modern Gujarati newspaper. Narsingh's poem is as follows:- as an era bat atar geta l durat att gê era atâ the art arcu efter at ang at fier caâ Gerg || and and at at cute turg | ma at at Bucet strang te stata un atger and disent rent von era arut catat a ¹ Preface to Leckey's Gujarati Grammar, p. viii.