Page:Simplified grammar of Hindustani, Persian and Arabic.pdf/10



object of this collection of Grammars is to provide the learner with a concise but practical introduction to the various languages, and at the same time to furnish students of comparative philology with a clear and comprehensive view of their structure. The attempt to adapt the somewhat cumbrous grammatical system of the Greek and Latin to every other tongue has introduced a great deal of unnecessary difficulty into the study of languages. Instead of analyzing existing locutions and endeavouring to discover the principles which regulate them, writers of grammars have for the most part constructed a framework of rules on the old lines and tried to make the language of which they were treating fit into it. Where this proves impossible the difficulty is met by lists of exceptions and irregular forms, thus burdening the pupil's mind with a mass of details of which he can make no practical use.

In these grammars the subject is viewed from a different standpoint: the structure of each language is