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Rh in the history of the science of language, the establishment of the Malay and Polynesian family of speech... was made by Hervas long before it was worked out, and announced to the world by Humboldt."

Great are also the merits of Jesuits in regard to the study of Sanskrit. "The first European Sanskrit scholar was the Jesuit Robert de Nobili," a nephew of the famous Cardinal Robert Bellarmine. According to the words of Max Müller, he must have been far advanced in the knowledge of the sacred language and literature of the Brahmans. The first Sanskrit grammar written by a European is commonly said to be that of the German Jesuit Hanxleden († 1732). However, this honor belongs to another German Jesuit, Heinrich Roth († 1668), who wrote a Sanskrit grammar almost a century before Hanxleden. Father Du Pons, in 1740, published a comprehensive and, in general, a very accurate description of the various branches of Sanskrit literature. Of Father Coeurdoux Max Müller writes that he anticipated the most important results of comparative philology by at least fifty years; at the same time the Oxford Professor expresses his astonishment that the work of this humble missionary has attracted so little attention, and only very lately received the credit that belongs to it. Father Calmette wrote a poetical work in excellent