Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/14

viii Grammar of the Dravidian Languages, and it immediately occurred to me that a similar book was much wanted for the Aryan group. It was evident that no scholar in Europe could do the work, because the written productions in the modern vernaculars and the few dictionaries and grammars procurable are not only frequently quite wrong and utterly misleading, but are also very defective, so that no one could merely from books get a firm and certain grasp of all these languages. It is necessary to be able to speak all or most of them, and to live among the people and hear them talking daily. When, therefore, I turned to scholars in India, it did not appear that any of them contemplated undertaking such a task. Then I thought that it would be well for me to try; if I could not make a perfect book, I could at any rate gather together and set forth in order the main rules, and could give copious examples and illustrations, so that, while waiting for some Bopp or Grimm to arise, students might have a handbook of some sort to guide them, and might no longer be misled by the astoundingly false etymologies which occur in the ordinary grammars and dictionaries. I have, therefore, not called this book by any mock-modest title, such as "an introduction," or "contributions to," or "notes on," or anything of the kind, because I have done my best to cover the whole ground of the subject; and whether I have done well or ill, the book was meant to be a Comparative Grammar, and I have called it so accordingly.

A residence of upwards of twelve years in India, during which I have held official posts in the Panjab, Bihar, Bengal, and Orissa, and have made long visits to