Notes on Indian Affairs/Volume II/XXXV
NOTES ON INDIAN AFFAIRS.
No. XXXV.
on the injustice of compelling the people of india to adopt a foreign language and character.
Is a rational attempt to educate the people of this great country to be made? Or are they to be allowed to remain in their present state of ignorance? i. e., as far as relates to the assistance of their English masters.
Is one great impediment to the due administration of justice to be removed? Or is it still to remain, to the discredit of the British system of legislation?
These, I grieve to say, are the two real questions into which this subject may be resolved. What has been, and what ought to have been, the course pursued by the British rulers? Certainly it was their duty, first, to have ordained, that the language and character of the country should be that of the courts of justice; secondly, to have established schools, or at least to have encouraged those that already existed for the education of the people, in their own language and character; thirdly, to have promoted the translation of books of knowledge into the vernacular tongue; and, fourthly, to have afforded to all who had leisure or inclination, the means of acquiring that language, in which the most general information is concentrated,—the English.
What has been the course hitherto pursued? We have actually imitated the example of a nation whom we affect to consider barbarians, and centuries behind us in civilization, and have attempted to inflict a foreign language on a hundred millions of people! We have even gone beyond our model. On the first conquest of India, by the Muhammedans, one party at least—the conquerors—understood the language of the courts of justice; but it has been the pleasure of the English to carry on business and administer justice in a language alike foreign to themselves, and to their subjects.
But there is reason to hope that some more liberal and enlightened plan will, ere long, be devised for the improvement of the people of India, that the road to knowledge and illumination will at length be thrown open to them, and that those who are willing to follow it, will be at full liberty to take their own course, without being compelled to mount on stilts of our construction, or to measure their steps by the footmarks which we have implanted. No country, and no people, have ever yet risen to eminence, or emancipated themselves from superstition, but by the exertion of native intellect, and the cultivation of indigenous literature; and all schemes of education that have not this object in view, will be found ineffectual as to any general benefit to the people upon whom it is to operate.
With regard to the language in which the affairs of the country ought to be administered, and in which the education of the people can be promoted with any hope of success, common sense seems at length to have asserted her dominion over the arguments of learning, and the visions of enthusiasm. Sanscrit, Arabic, and Persian, will, it is hoped, no longer be permitted to retard the progress of moral and intellectual improvement, which their exclusive study has hitherto effected, while the claims which have been advanced, on the other hand, for the universal establishment of English, to the prejudice of the living language and dialects of the country, must yield to the voice of reason, and matter-of-fact experience.
But common sense has yet another struggle before she can completely attain her end. The visionary schemes which formerly projected the imposition of a foreign tongue upon this mighty population, are not yet quite overthrown; a new position is now to be taken up, or rather a deserted one re-occupied. Old prejudice is again at work, and individual vanity in busy agitation. The question of language being set at rest, a new experiment is now proposed,—the substitution of our written character for that which is now in use among the natives, and by which the intercourse of the country has been carried on for ages; its perfect adaptation to the language which it is intended to express being universally allowed.
To what purpose is this innovation to be made? The reply resolves itself into its possibility, practicability, and expediency.
As to the possibility: this does not admit of doubt. The Roman alphabet, with the invention of new letters, and the application of dots and other marks to supply its deficiencies, may be rendered capable of representing any sound in the oriental, or, indeed, any language. This was demonstrated many years ago by Gilchrist and Sir William Jones. Letters are but mere arbitrary signs, or pictures, to denote certain sounds. What one set of letters can be made to express, can be equally well conveyed by another, provided we have an interpreter to explain their signification. An entirely new character, or several, may be invented for the same purpose.
The practicability of the plan may also be admitted, if sufficient means be employed to enforce it; for it will never be adopted voluntarily by the mass of the people. I have already alluded to the causes which favoured the adoption of the Roman character, in the countries which became subject to that power. Its introduction among the Gauls, and many other nations whom they subdued, was the natural consequence of knowledge and civilisation, over barbarism and ignorance. The existence of letters among the far greater proportion of their foreign subjects, is, of itself, a matter of doubt; and the little learning they possessed was confined to an inconceivable few. The Romans established schools, and favoured the study of their own language. They taught their own letters naturally in their own character; and these, having among the mass of the people nothing to supplant, were adopted by all who hoped for promotion or advancement at their hands. Every instance of a change of the written character of a people, has taken place from one or other of these powerful causes[1]. The Erse language is now instanced as an example of the triumph of the Roman over the Gaelic character, though the language itself still remains in use. It seems to be exactly a case in point, for this dialect of the Celtic language is one in which an original character has been doubted to exist. The opinion of Johnson, who took no little pains to investigate the subject, was decidedly against it[2]; and as, in the establishment of schools in the Highlands, the Roman character was the only means of education afforded, no choice was left to those who were desirous to learn, but to adopt it.
I by no means assert the impracticability of the project in India, provided sufficient means are brought into action. This, like many other extraordinary measures, may doubtless be enforced; but we should take a fair view of the difficulty. Suppose the African government, so often alluded to, in England, were to make the attempt to induce us to abandon our written character, and adopt that of Timbuctoo; would the English readily accede to such a proposal? Yet there is little doubt that it might be carried into effect by the strong arm of power. If such an overwhelming military force were established that resistance was hopeless; if all the existing professors of learning in the colleges, tutors, and school-masters were discharged, and African teachers appointed in their stead, if the English were compelled to send their children to these schools, and severe punishment were inflicted on all who should presume to teach the Engtish character, even extending it to the case of a parent instructing his own child; such measures as these, in the course of time, could scarcely fail to succeed. Those who were candidates for employment, would of course learn any language, or any character, which might be pointed out by their masters; but nothing short of such a plan would ever establish the general use of the Timbuctoo characters in English. Men are much the same in most countries, and are influenced by the same feelings, passions, and prejudices. Why should we imagine that the natives of India will give up their character for ours? They are not illiterate savages; hundreds of thousands among them are able to read and write, and carry on their public and private concerns through this medium, like all other civilised people[3]. We have, unfortunately, regulated our conduct towards them, both officially and as individuals, so as to have excited the strongest prejudices against us, and to have rendered our authority odious to them; but still, as long as it prevails, it will be their interest to submit to our will, and accommodate themselves to our whims and wishes. All those who aspire to official employment will, therefore, learn whatever we choose to dictate; but, with respect to the mass of the people, the very attempt to introduce the proposed change even in the mildest manner, will only still further exasperate their feelings against us; and, as to success, it may undoubtedly be attained by such means as are above described, but certainly not by any less decisive[4].
But, with regard to the expediency of the measure, what object is to be gained? What benefit will result? The four classes into which those who, in this country, can read and write may be divided, are described in No. XXX.
The Roman character, as it at present exists, has been found so deficient in proper symbols to express the sounds of the oriental letters, that all sorts of diacritical marks, points, and dots, are to he adopted, and attached to different letters in order to denote the sounds required. After the labours of Davy, Williams, Halhed, Sir William Jones, Forster, Carey, Shakspeare, Haughton, Arnot, and Forbes, we are still so far from the desideratum, that a system different from any of these is now proposed[5]. To acquire an accurate knowledge of the sounds conveyed by the various letters of any one of the alphabets which have been devised, marked as they are respectively with double, treble, and even quadruple dots, is just as difficult as to learn the Deva Nagree, or any other entirely new character; of the truth of which we may be in some measure convinced, when we reflect that, of all those who have professed to study any one of the above systems, some of which have been in vogue full fifty years, hardly any two of them adopted entirely the same orthography[6]. To write oriental languages in the Roman character may be useful to students in Europe, who have no native tutors at hand to teach them the pronounciation; but it certainly will be no advantage whatever to the people of India. The three first classes above-named will never adopt the new mode, which will be confined to the fourth, and the people in general will be as much excluded from all hope of official employment, or of acquiring any share in the administration of the affairs of their country, as they are at this moment.
But enough has been said, and it is time to act. Government ought, without further delay, to declare its intentions, and these should be guided, not by any visionary views, but by the rule of common sense and expediency. I will even take higher ground, and assert that the people have a right, as a mere measure of justice, to demand that the business of the courts and of the country generally should be administered in the vernacular language and character[7]. Such a proceeding as this would tend, in a great degree, to restore confidence, and promote a kindly feeling among our native subjects towards their British-Indian rulers.
June 1, 1834.
- ↑ Further evidence of the truth of this explanation of the causes which favoured the introduction of the Roman character into barbarous countries, may be gathered from the fact ot its non-establishment in Greece, although that country was reduced to a Roman province, and the seat of empire brought into its immediate vicinity. Why was this? Because the Greeks were well versed in their own character, and had a literature of their own.
- ↑ See Boswell’s Life of Johnson, vol i., p. 456, 477, 497. See, also, his Preface to Shaw’s Grammar of the Erse language, vol ii., p. 109.
- ↑ We know so little of the people that the majority are, perhaps, unacquainted with the fact, that for one school or college, in any way supported by the English, there are at least a hundred, including village-schools, supported entirely by the people without any connexion with us, to say nothing of the immense number of children who are taught privately in their parents‘ houses.
- ↑ By such measures as these, we might even contrive to make them change their language. We have only to station a tutor and a police-officer in every family,—the one to teach English, the other to punish any who presumed to speak any other tongue. But “Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle.”
- ↑ It is astonishing how great a share vanity has had in producing these repeated schemes for expressiog the oriental languages in the Roman character; each successive speculator, as he toils in his study, surrounded by a halo of dots and dashes, which he mistakes for one of glory, indulges the pleasing vision of being handed down to posterity as the inventor of an universal “Hindee-Roman-Orthoepigraphical ultimatum,”—one of Gilchrist’s long words. He rivalled Jeremy Bentham in this respect, of whom it was said,
And I'm writing a word three pages long.
The Quarterly dogs to rout.It would not be very difficult to invent half-a-dozen,—but cui bono? no civilized nation, who has possessod the use of letters for centuries, will ever voluntarily change them. When I was at school, it was a common amusement of some of the boys to invent new characters, and even languages. I recollect two or three who manufactured a language by pronouncing English words backwards; by practice they became so well versed in it as to be able to converse together fluently; but they could not succeed in bringing it into general use: the rest of the boys preferred speaking in the usual mode, and pronouncing the words straightforward. India has Babel enough of different sounds and characters, without this new infliction.
- ↑ It is probable that this Hindee-Roman-Orthoepigraphical alphabet is more difficult to learn than an entirely new alphabet. We are bewildered between the old sound which we have been accustomed to attach to particular letters, and their new significations; the double, treble, and quadruple dots and dashes are extremely puzzling to recollect; and most undoubtedly in writing, mistakes are much more likely to occur in using the halo-dotted letters than those of the Nagree.
- ↑ Some people have called upon the advocates of this system to prove that it would succeed. This is reversing the order of things. To carry on the concerns of any country in its own vernacular language and character, is so prima facie consonant to common sense, that those who support a different mode, ought first to be obliged to prove that the common-sense-one would not succeed. This never can be done, until the experiment shall have been fairly tried.