Page:A Grammar Of The Bengal Language.djvu/8

PREFACE ...and we may reasonably presume, that one of its most important desideratum is the cultivation of a right understanding and of a general medium of intercourse between the Government and its Subjects ; between the Natives of Europe who are to rule, and the Inhabitants of India who are to obey. The Romans, a people of little learning and less taste, had no sooner conquered Greece than they applied themselves to the study of Greek: They adopted its Laws even before they could read them, and civilized themselves in subduing their enemies. The English, who have made the capital a progress in the Polite Arts, and who are masters of Bengal may, with more care and greater propriety, add its Language to their acquisitions : that they may explain the benevolent principles of that legislation whose decrees they inforce ; that they may convince while they command; and be at once the dispensers of Laws and of science to an extensive nation. This subject has hitherto been utterly disregarded in Europe; and it is scarcely believed that Bengal ever published a native and peculiar dialect of its own, distinct from that idiom which, under the name of Moor's, has been supposed to prevails over all India. To remove these prejudices, and to contribute my flender mite to the public service, I have attempted the following grammatical explanation of the vernacular language of...