Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/36

14 brought up by Indians utter with perfect ease, when grown up, those words which the English people say it is impossible for them to pronounce. Bengalis who have settled in Orissa, but have not mixed their blood with the Oriās, pronounce Bengali words in Oriā fashion with Oriā pronunciation and Oriā intonation. Not to speak of the higher caste people of Bengal, there is overwhelming evidence that the very people whose environment has changed the pronunciation of even the Brahmans in East Bengal, do change their pronunciation when they settle in the district of Hooghly.

The racial peculiarities in the matter of uttering vocal sounds are no doubt very marked but my personal examination of various Indian tribes in the matter of their capacity to utter certain sounds has strengthened my view that there is no difference between man and man as far as the inhabitants of this country are concerned as to the construction of the organ or organs of speech. I have found the ears of some practically isolated tribes so trained that they fail to catch certain sounds uttered to them and accordingly they imitate them very badly; but when they are for some time with us, they do not betray any organic defect in uttering new sounds. The Muṇḍās and the Orāons are well known for their very settled phonetic peculiarities, but when employed in our houses as domestic servants they learn to speak Bengali very faultlessly, though when speaking their own tongue they do not deviate from their own path in the matter of pronouncing their own words.

The hilly accent of Manbhum, the nasal twang of Bankura and Burdwan, the drawl of Central Bengal, which becomes very much marked in the slow and lazy utterance of words by women, and the rapid wavy swing with which the words are uttered in quick succession in