Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/23



I should state at the outset, that my inquiry regarding the origin and development of the Bengali Language will necessarily lead me to consider and discuss some facts relating to the ancient and modern inhabitants of Bengal; for, in my opinion, a discussion which is merely philological and does not take into account the people or peoples, whose language is the subject-matter of inquiry, is bound to prove abortive. The philologists, for example, may establish, by a comparative grammatical study of the modern vernaculars of Northern India, that the inhabitants of different provinces speak one form or another of some common ancient speech. So far so good. The linguistic taxonomists, again, may classify the modern vernaculars in different groups by looking into their essential structural peculiarities, and may also, with reference to the phonetic peculiarities of each speech, set down some rules to indicate what sound or peculiarity of one speech should be equated with what other sound or peculiarity of another. No one can belittle the usefulness of this work,