Page:A Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Description of the District, or Zila, of Dinajpur.djvu/94

82 rather to narrow the mind, to confine its attention to sordid gain, and low cunning, than to improve the heart, and enlarge the understanding. Indeed no fit books, so far as I can learn, exist in the language commonly spoken in Bengal; neither does it possess any grammar or dictionary. I cannot indeed learn, that any composition in the proper language of Bengal has ever been committed to writing, except some love songs, common accounts, and letters. The same may, I believe, be extended to all the spoken languages (opodhashas) of India, and is to be lamented as a great cause of ignorance and error.

The Prakrito, or polite language of Bengal, like those of other Indian nations, may be considered as a dead language, or in the same light as Latin was in Europe about 200 years ago. All persons of a liberal education are acquainted with it, and among them it is the usual means of correspondence, and the language of ordinary composition. According to the best information, which I can obtain, the Prakrito of Bengal, like those of other Indian nations, is composed almost entirely of Songskrito words, with the inflexion and syntax of the vulgar language. Indeed the best informed Brahmins of the south, with whom I conversed, considered the Prakrito rather as one of the styles of writing in the sacred language, than as a distinct tongue. It is however commonly called the language of women and children; but this can only be taken in the sense of the Brahmins of the south, namely, that in books written in the sacred tongue this style is used by the women and children, that are introduced; for in no part of India is the Prakrito the common language of the country. In every part however, all well educated men can speak it, and in some parts of Bengal, even the women of Pandits and other high personages are instructed in its oral use, for in these parts writing is a very rare female accomplishment. Indeed, its practice is severely reprobated in the sex. This language is not taught in schools, not so far as I can learn, does it possess a written grammar nor a dictionary, except those composed by Europeans; but people of a certain rank and education acquire it by conversation and reading. Of course it is both written and spoken with little exactitude, especially by those who have had no instruction in Songskrito grammar, such as merchants, religious mendicants, and the officers of revenue and police. It is to be much regretted, that even in this dialect there are scarcely any books that can communicate valuable instruction to youth. The usual compositions in Prakrito, are songs, hymns, and translations of some of the more celebrated poems;—the whole, especially the latter, although probably possessing considerable poetical merit, so filled with monstrous fables and marvellous stories, that those who read nothing else are disposed to believe every thing that is contrary to the usual laws by which the world is governed, and lose all taste for the plain dictates of common sense. There are however in the Prakrito of Bengal, as well as in that of other Indian nations, some few histories of the families of chiefs that have lived of late years, strongly however disfigured by the taste for the marvellous, which the usual reading of the people inspires. A system of arithmetic also, better than the common, and which facilitates the more difficult calculations in revenue accounts, has long ago been compiled in the Prakrito language of Bengal, by Subhongkor, a Kayostho of Podiya. This book is called the Arya, or Arjya, of Subhongkor, and is no doubt of great utility; but its tendency, like that of the common instruction given in the lower schools, is certainly not of a liberal nature. The knowledge however communicated through the medium of the Prakrito is better than none, and it is therefore to be lamented, that it has made little way into the district of Dinajpúr, and is chiefly confined to those who have been born in Maldeh or its vicinity, to the