Page:Proposals for a missionary alphabet; submitted to the Alphabetical Conferences held at the residence of Chevalier Bunsen in January 1854 (IA cu31924100210388).pdf/61

 The philologist and the archeologist must, indeed, acquire a knowledge of these alphabets, as in the case when their study is a language extinct, and existing, perhaps, in the form of inscriptions alone. But where there is no important national literature clinging to a national alphabet, where there are but incipient traces of a reviving civilisation, the multiplicity of alphabets-the worthless remnant of a bygone civilisation bequeathed, for instance, to the natives of India should be attacked as zealously by the Missionary as the multiplicity of castes and of divinities. In the Dekhan alone, with hardly any literature of either national or general importance, we have six different alphabets -the Telugu, Tamil, Canarese, Malabar, Tuluva, and Singhalese—all extreniely difficult and inconvenient for practical purposes. Likewise, in the northern dialects of India almost every one has its own corruption of the Sanskrit alphabet, sufficiently distinct to make it impossible for a Bengalese to read Guzerati, and for a Mahratta to read Kashmirian letters. Why has no attempt been made to interfere, and recognise at least but one Sanskritic alphabet for all the northern, and one Tamulian alphabet for all the southern, languages of India? In the present state of the country, it would he bold and wise to go even beyond this; for there is very little that deserves the name of a national literature in the modern dialects of the Hindus. The sacred, legal, and poetical literature of India is either Arabic, Persian, or Sanskrit. Little has grown up since, in the spoken languages of the day. Now it would be hopeless, should it ever be attempted, to eradicate the spoken dialects of India, and to supplant them by Persian or English. In a country so little concentrated, so thinly governed, so slightly educated, we cannot even touch at present what we wish to eradicate. If India were laid open by highroads, reduced by railways, and colonised by officials, the attempt might be conceivable, though, as to anything like success, a trip through Wales, and a glance at the history of England, would be a sufficient answer. But what might be done in India, perhaps even now, is to supplant the various native alphabets by Roman letters. The people in India who can write are just the men most open to Government influence. If the Roman alphabet were taught in the village schools of late much encouraged by the Government, particularly in the north-western provinces- if all official documents, in