Specimens Of The Languages Of India Including Those Of The Aboriginal Tribes Of Bengal The Central Provinces And The Eastern Frontier By Sir G Campbell

This 1874 work by Sir George Campbell, a British government official whose Scheme for the Government of India is also reissued in this series, presents a survey of the diverse languages of India, using material obtained usually by British army officers trained by Campbell to collect 'specimens' in the course of their normal work. The tabular material is presented with the English words or phrases in one column and their equivalent in the Indian language under discussion in another: most of the languages are represented by more than one dialect, such as the 'Punjabee of Lahore' and the 'Punjabee of Mooltan'. In his introduction to the work, Campbell emphasises that the survey is not scientific, and his main conclusion is that in addition to the broad division of Aryan and Dravidian language types, India contains a huge number of 'aboriginal' languages which will require further study.

From the introductory remarks. I do not purpose to attempt here any comparisons of the languages shown. I have neither the time nor the ability to do so. Fortunately the language-specimens were obtained before famine came upon us, and now that the printing is completed, I issue them with the briefest possible note. I will only mention one or two salient features in the classification of the non-Aryan tribes of these territories, which the specimens render self-evident. It is very clear that most of the aboriginal tribes of the Central Provinces and several of those of Western Bengal (including in these latter the Dangars, Oraons of Chota Nagpore, Paharies of Rajmehal, and Khonds of Orissa) are radically allied to the Dravidians. Intermixed with these tribes, but speaking a language quite without affinity to the Dravdian tongues, are the tribes which I call Kolarian, forming a minority among the aborigines of the Central Provinces, but a great majority among those of Western Bengal. Throughout the western borders of Bengal, and all over the Chota Nagpore country, these people are very numerous and prolific, and form large, settled, and civilised communities among the best of her Majesty's Indian subjects. Strange as it may seem, I believe that their very fully developed language has not yet been found to have any affinity with any other groups of language whatever, except with one now rapidly dying-out tongue, far away on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal, the Mon or Talain of Pegu, with which some affinities are, I think, apparent. The specimens numbered 9 and 10 make it clear that all the non-Aryan languages of the Darjeeling, Bhootan, and Nepalese Hills are of the Thibetan type....

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