questions in direct connection with history as well as comparative philology, many valuable contributions may be derived from Geographical terminology, in the elements of which may frequently be discovered the remains of languages now lost, as also of forms' now given up ; the general interest excited in India during the last few years in behalf of a popular, simple, and correct method of transcription must be considered a most fortunate and important assistance to science. From such materials will arise, àt no distant period, most valuable instances of the gradual change undergone by vowels and consonants, and grammatical development will thus be furthered in that high and scientific sense which has been connected with it by modern philology, and to which Bopp, 2 in his " Vocalismus," has given such accurate expression. "The grammar of a language," he says," "is to be its history and physical description; it has to find out historically, as far as that may be possible, the road which it followed in its rise and decay ; and at the same time to physically define the laws of its development, destruction, or secondary regeneration."
In the following explanatory notes connected with the alphabet used by us, I found it occasionally unavoidable to mention details which are no novelty to philologists, but which may perhaps contribute to create a more general interest among the various classes of European residents in India for the "study of words."
The gradual simplification in linguistic forms may be a subject for regret, though not for reproach; for the defect is so general among all nations, that we must undoubtedly recognise in it one of the many laws of nature for which we know no final interpretation.
2 Vocalismus oder sprachvergleichende Kritiken von FRANZ BOPP. Berlin, 1836, p. 3.
IIIFカラー高解像度
