Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/124

 100 BENGALI LITERATURE indigo factories at Madnabati, 30 miles north of Maldah, the scene of John Ellerton’s labours. All these years, however, the idea of translating the Six years in North Paget Bible and preaching in the language of the people was ever present in his mind. As soon as he could settle down, he applied himself to the study of Bengali, which, his biographer tells us, the indefatigable scholar had already begun during the voyage, and of which the first indication is given by an entry in his journal two months after he had landed. “This 2 day” he writes “finished the correction study Bengali. of the first chapter of Genesis, which Munshi says is rendered into very good Bengali.”! The Munsi or Bengali teacher referred to was one Ram Basu who not only taught the language to Carey but also had been of much help to the poor missionary during the years of uncertainty and struggle at the outset of his eareer. The greatest difficulty, however, which puzzled him, as a foreigner, in learning the language relates to the unsettled state of its forms and expressions, of its grammar and orthography : and a vast difference seemed to him to exist between the literary language and _ its corrupt colloquial and dialectal forms. Thus he speaks with a naivete characteristic of himself in a_ letter, dated October 2, 1795: ‘The language spoken by the natives of this part, though Bengali, is so different from the language itself (?) that I can preach an hour with tolerable freedom so as that all who speak the language or can read or write, understand me perfectly: yet the poor labouring people can understand me little.’’? 1 Smith, op, cit. p. 61; Eustace Carey, Memoirs of William Carey, p. 119. 2 B. Carey, op. cit. p. 242; Smith, op, cit. p. 72.