Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/873

 ViILJ °° BENGALI LANGUAGE. & LITERATURE. 831 medans did not.recognise it in their courts, and the people had no power to assert their own tongue in.the field of business. As long as Mahomedans held the supreme power, Arabic and Persian were recognised by all as the chief languages of the _ Court, and in the mixed dialects, which grew up, an admixture of these two languages was held to be a point of “glory. Says Mr. Halhed in the preface to his grammar published in 1778 ;— ‘“At present those persons are thought to speak the compound idiom (Bengali) with the most. ele- gance, who mix with pure Indian verbs the greatest number of Persian and Arabic nouns.’’ What this prose was like may be seen from the documentary writings still prevalent in courts. The court language still favours a preponderence of Persian and Arabic elements in Bengali, as in 'টাল মাটালে আদায় না করায় ' oor in “ware কাণ্তিক মাসে Biel ateta tff4. Curiously enough remnants also of Sanskrit elements still persist in the language of the courts, reminding us of the ancient days of Hindu supremacy, when all court transactions were carried on in Sanskrit. The form ‘ @Rj $& Afar: SYf7e1TA” has preserved, though in a ridicu- lously corrupt style, some of the legal terms of the Hindu age. In ordinary letters written by the gentle folk of Bengal there was a large admixture of Persian words. Mr. Beveridge published some letters of the Maharaja Nanda Kumara in the National Magazine of September, 1872, written to Radha Krisna Ray and Dinanatha Samantaji -in August, 1756. We quote an extract from one of these letters.