Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/53

Rh to recur to Sanskrit, there was in the nation at large no general demand for the Tatsama class of words.

§ 9. I must here express my views on the Hindi language in general, and I do so thus early in the dissertation, as it may be that there will be found to be some novelty in them, and perhaps they will not be readily accepted by those who are interested in supporting the claims of other languages of the class. For I should here mention, for the benefit of European readers, that there exists in India a sort of rivalry between the Aryan languages, or rather between the three principal ones, Hindi, Marathi, and Bengali, each considering itself superior to the others, and my Bengali and Marathi friends will probably not agree with me in giving the palm to Hindi until they read my reasons for so doing, and perhaps not even then.

Hindi is that language which is spoken in the valley of the Ganges and its tributaries, from the watershed of the Jamnâ, the largest and most important of them, as far down as Rajmahal, the point where the Ganges takes a sudden turn to the south, and breaks out into the plains of Bengal. This area is the centre and principal portion of Aryan India. It includes the Antarbed or Doab between the Ganges and the Jamnâ, the "inner hearth" of the nation, It is therefore the legitimate heir of the Sanskrit, and fills that place in the modern Indian system which Sanskrit filled in the old. Under the general head of Hindi are included many dialects, some of which differ widely from one another, though not so much so as to give them the right to be considered separate languages. Throughout the whole of this vast region, though the dialects diverge considerably, one common universal form of speech is recognized, and all educated persons use it. This common dialect had its origin apparently in the country round Delhi, the ancient capital, and the form of Hindi spoken in that