Indian Antiquary Vol 18

Author(s): John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 76

64
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[FEBRUARY, 1889.
text is itself good, and errors are to be looked for Andamanese in any dialect. Mr. Portman is in the copy rather than in the original.
however apparently ignorant of all this. We can Dr. Burgess has recently prepared a facsimile see how he views them. "The Andamanese freof the Khálsi text of the edicts, and the world is quently une particles which are without meaning, already indebted to him for a trustworthy repro- and appear principally to serve the purpose of duction of the Girnår version. Before long we euphony !" Of course, they really serve the purmay expect to see the text of all the versions pose of grammar, as Mr. Portman would have authoritatively settled.
known, had he really made grammar a study. 25th August 1888.
V. A. SMITH. As a specimen of the thoroughly superficial
treatment that Mr. Portman's subject has received
at his hands, we would commend his six paraA MANUAL OF THE ANDAMANESE LANGUAGE. By M. V.
PORTMAN, M.R.H.S., etc., Extra Assistant Superin- graphs on the Pronoun. It is all the more aggratendent, Andamans and Nicobars.
vating that he should have been guilty of these, as This is one of those works full of pretentious
this point has been so well illustrated by the rubbish which deserves plain language. It has
predecessors he has ignored. been compiled at the request of Colonel T. Cadell,
The author seems to have had a notion that his V.O., Chief Commissioner of the Andaman and
grammar would not teach much, and pinned his Nicobar Islands." Colonel Cadell has been unfor.
faith to his dictionary and dialogues, by the use of tunate in choosing, as the exponent of the lan
which he "ventures to think that any person guages of the islands over which he has been
brought into contact with the Andamanese in any placed, an officer whose ignorance of language and
part of the Islands will be able to make himself grammar in general and of the Andamanese lan
understood on all ordinary subjects." Will he ? guage and grammar in particular, is only equalled
Let us see. by his extraordinary presumption. He com- The first sentence given is "How hot it is tomences by saying that there is "no work extant on
day,"-in Åka Biada (sic), Badiká, wye, káwai. the various dialects of the Andamanege." Well,
Query : what does bad (kd mean P What wye P there is the Report of Researches into the Language
and what kárai P The Dictionary is Englishof the South Andaman Island, 1882, by no less a
Andamanese without reverse. So we must try personage than Mr. A. J. Ellis, F. R. S., then Pre
the English. How is pichi kácha, hot is uya-da : sident of the Philological Society. As a matter of
to-day is not given, so let us try day which is also fact Mr. Portman must have known of this very
not given, but daylight is bódo-len, and this is valuable Report and the work on which it was based, for the simple reason that he has adopted
|- ká-da and it is is also káda!! Really an examinathe same spelling, so far as his general ignorance
tion of the first sentence makes us wonder at the of his subject would let him.
impudence of the author. The grammar is given in five duodecimo pages,
"The sun is very hot" is the next sentence.
Perhaps we shall be more fortunate. In Aka spaced long primer type !! Of course there is no
Biada it is given as ká bódó uye dogada. It is is grammar worthy of the name. The vowel system
ká-da"; sun is bódóda; hot is wya-da : very is not is hopelessly incomplete,--the most interesting sounds being altogether omitted, and others given
given, but is dógada. It is given as the equivalent
of much in the dictionary. The sentence is really, wrongly. There is something charming in the naïveté that allows the author to say that his
“This sun hot much."
Let us take another sentence at random. "I system is Hunterian, and then to go on to say "o has the sound of o in hot" (sic) and" au has the
'will go if it is fine," is given as dodonga bedig
bodo lédá. Four words are given in the Dictionary sound of aw in awful" (sic) as specimens of it.
for "to go" but none in the least like any of the The description of an agglutinative language in
above, viz., katik ké, on ké, mócho ké, jud ke; if the following words is quite sublime :-“The roots
is not given at all; fine is our old friend bódo-da, of the Andamanese speech receive additions by
which seems to do duty for a good deal. So out of means of prefixes and suffixes, but the roots them
the four Andamanese words we can only even selves have also an independent existence as words."
guess at one. Like the Christy Minstrel. we He then gives three prefixes-all quite wrong
"give it up.' as are all his examples, oblivious of Mr. Ellis's fine
Mr. Portman has had a very fine opportunity of explanation of this very difficult point in the
adding to the world's knowledge, rendered all the Andamanese language. The prefixes in Anda- better from having been carefully shown the way manege as a matter of fact are found in almost be should travel by Mr. A. J. Ellis. He might every word, and grammatically affect, every sen- have produced something unique in its lasting tence. They have been elaborately and accurately value. Instead, he has exhibited an amonnt of explained by Mr. E. H. Man, and without a com- self-assurance which can hardly result from prehension of them no man can ever hope to talk anything but inordinate conceit.
1 This is really a word + postposition, and means Ka-dá here would really be 'this' or to-day.' properly "in the sun"; vide Mr. Portman's own book!