Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/31

Rh scholars have devoted themselves of late to the ingenious but wasteful work of digging out Sanskrit roots and stems for such Bengali words and inflections as are entirely of other origin. This work is conducted on the flimsy basis of feeble sound suggestions. It may interest you to know that this very unscientific method was once resorted to in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, and many scholars attempted to reduce all languages to Hebrew and in some cases to an original Gothic on the strength of some remote or imagined sound similarity.

If our work is not to be barren of good results, we must direct our inquiry to the solution of the following questions, as preparatory to the analysis of our language, with a view to detect and unravel all the influences which were at work in building it up: (1) We have to consider carefully the geographical limits of ancient Vanga or Bengal which has given our language its distinctive name and the character of the tribe or tribes which inhabited the area previous to the settlement of the people who brought in what may be termed a form of Aryan speech. Along with these must also be considered the ancient political or ethnical character of other tracts which, together with the ancient Vanga, constitute now the province of Bengal in which Bengali is the dominant language. (2) As far as it can be traced, we must determine what form of Aryan speech was first brought into or superimposed upon the country roughly defined above. (3) The Aryan or Aryanised and the non-Aryan hordes which made inroads into Bengal, from the earliest known time to the end of the 12th century A.D., i.e., up to the time of the Muhammadan influence in Bengal, and secured settlements in different parts of the country, must also be taken into account to explain some factors which generally appear anomalous in our language. 2