Indian Antiquary Vol 60

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 339

JUNE, 1931 ]
GENERAL VIEW
[8 31-33
peasantry, oppressed for centuries, is illiterate and unenterprising. Bhojpuris, on the con. trary, are a long-boned stalwart fighting race, whose members have spread all over India as mercenary troops or in similar pursuits. They are the fighting men of eastern India, and their dialect is a handy, if rough, article, made for ourrent use, and not hampered by grammatical subtleties.
1 Pischel (Pr. Gr., p. 25) considered that there is no connexion between Mg, and Mg. Pr. With all respect for this great scholar, I am unable to agree with him on this point.
The dialect is named from the ancient town of Bhojapura, on the southern bank of the Ganges, in the District of Shahabad. For the history of Bhojpur, and its traditional connexion with the famous Bhờio of Malwa, see Shahabad Gazetteer (1906), 132. For an account of the character of the Bhojpuris. see ib., 21.
31. Three written characters are in use in Bihār. Kaithi is in universal employment by everyone except Maithil Brāhmaṇs. Its use closely corresponds to that of our soript hand, while Nāgari is used for printed books. Maithil Brähmans have a special character of their own, closely allied to that of the neighbouring Bengali.
32. Orivă (0.). Odri, or Utali is the language of Orissa, or, as natives of India call it. Odra or Utkala. It is bounded on the east by the sea, and in other directions somewhat extends beyond the borders of that province. It varies slightly from place to place, but has no recognized dialectic forms, exoept that in the south-west there is a mixture of Oriya, Marāthi, and Dravidian forms of speech that is called Bhatri, through which Oriyā merges into Marathi, Oriya has a fairly large literature, mainly devoted to the worship of Krana. It has a written character of its own, described in the chapter on alphabete.
33. Bengalii (Bg.) is the language of Bengal proper, i.e., of the Gangetie Delta and of the country immediately to its north and east. It has a large literature dating from the fourteenth century A.D., which has been spoilt, since the commencement of the nineteenth century, by a fashion of borrowing Sanskrit words in order to enrich its vocabulary, to an extent that can hardly be conceived by one not familiar with the language. A page of a Bengali book of the early nineteenth century is, so far as its vocabulary is conoerned, almost pure Sanskrit, disguised to a certain extent by modern terminations and also by an alphabet differing from the familiar Nāgari. In this way the literary tongue is quite different from the ordinary speech of general conversation. There are three main forms, of the colloquial language, & western, a northern, and an eastern, each with numerous local varieties. As the literary language can scarcely be said to be founded on the colloquial, there is no literary form of the colloquial to give a steadying impulse, and prevent the fission into numerous sub-dialects. The standard form of the western dialect is that spoken round Hügli (Hooghly). The northern-dialect is spoken in the country north of the Ganges, and has no special standard. It is a curious fact that it agrees in some respects with the cognate Oriya, which is separated from it by the whole width of western Bengal. The standard of the eastera dialect is the form of Bengali spoken in the neighbourhood of Dhākā (Dacca), but it varies very widely from place to place. One well-marked variety is spoken in the west end of the Assam valley and in the adjoining parts of northern Bengal, and is commonly known as Rangpuri, from the town and district of Rangpur. Another variety, spoken in the neighbourhood of Chittagong, has developed so many peculiarities of pronunciation that it is almost a new language. Bengali agrees with Māgadhi Prakrit in changing every 8 to 8. Old Bg.: