কিস্তি ১ ।। কিস্তি ২ ।।

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পুরাটা একটাই লেখা। সো, কিস্তি ১ থিকা পড়া শুরু করাটা বেটার। আর আগের দুইটা কিস্তি পড়া থাকলে এইটা থিকাই শুরু করতে পারেন।

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The points discussed, and the results arrived at, may here be summarized. The  grammar of written Bengali differs considerably from the grammar of current Bengali. For familiar words understood by all, everyone who learns to read has to learn Sanskrit substitutes, and in many cases old Bengali substitutes likewise, which, having dropped out of colloquial speech, still retain their place in the language of books. The Sanskrit words in use in Bengali books are for the most part Sanskrit only to the eye, but none to the ear; for, though written just as they are in Sanskrit, they are pronounced in such a way is to make the almost unintelligible to those unfamiliar with the corrupt pronunciation of Sanskrit that prevails in Bengal.[pullquote][AWD_comments][/pullquote]

All this of course has not been the work of a day. It has been the slow growth of ages. It has grown out of the mental characteristics, and the historical antecedents of the race. The question now is, whether the present is a state of things likely to last. The conviction of the present writer is that a change of a radical character is inevitable. The desirableness of a change is indeed so patent, that it is really matter for wonder that the attachment to the established order of things is still so strong that Sir George Campbell’s now historically famous language minutes evoke all but universal denunciations from Bengalis.

Bengali, in common with the other Indian vernaculars, derived from Sanskrit, has borrowed most freely from the latter, under influences similar to those which have caused Arabic to be so largely drawn upon by Persians and Turks, and Latin and Greek by the nations of Western Europe. Sanskrit has been in India the language of literary culture and of religion. The Brahman priesthood has always affected a Sanskrit phraseology. Reverence for Sanskrit as a sacred language, however, will be a factor of continually decreasing importance as time rolls on. The Hindu religion will inevitably breakup before the onset of western science, and with the Hindu religion a large part of the reverence inspired by Sanskrit will disappear. It will ever command, however, another kind of reverence. Its absolute importance as a language, and its rich literature, serving particularly as a key to the past history of the Aryan race, will ever make it a valued branch of learning. National feeling, too, will impel towards Sanskrit. To continuing to reverence Sanskrit, however, it is by no means necessary that we should, as at present, hold Bengali, Hindi &c.,in contempt. The tendency will certainly be to avail ourselves as largely as possible of the living stores of our vernacular tongue, and not to unreasonably prescribe them as vulgar, because they are in use among all classes of the people. The entire Pandit class in Bengal at one time largely employed, in colloquial speech, numerous Sanskrit words, in lieu of their Bengali equivalents. This is now going out of fashion. The language in which eminent Pandits like lswar Chandra Vidyasagar and Taranath Tarkavacbaspati converse differs in no wise from that of Bengali gentlemen possessing no knowledge of Sanskrit. Among Brahmans of the priestly class alone, does a Sanskrit phraseology yet linger in some measure, and the priests, as before remarked, are a gradually decaying class. The indications are quite clear, therefore, that the purely Sanskrit element in Bengali is destined to be greatly curtailed in future.

The arguments of the advocates of the present system of Sanskrit borrowing demand an examination in detail. The main argument are the following: –

1. The dialectic varieties of Bengali are so many, and so conflicting, that without Sanskrit there would be no common standard of purity, no bond of union.

This argument, unfortunately, proves too much. It proves that without the purely Sanskrit element in Bengali there would be no common language for Bengal. If this be the fact, then Bengal by all means should have several written languages instead of one. Convenience-human happiness-must be the plea for cultivating the Bengali language at all. If, by ceasing to borrow from Sanskrit words of the commonest kind, we are to dissolve the linguistic unity of the people of Bengal, by all means let such factitious unity be dissolved at once. Popular education would spread better, and so human happiness would be better promoted; if the different sections of Bengal set up each its own dialect as the language of writing. The fact, however, is that there is a general grammatical correspondence among the different dialects of Bengal, and the vocables in common use too, are in general the same all over the country. The language of the Maldah, Dacca and Barisal Districts are quite intelligible to people in Calcutta, as the present writer can say from his own experience. Besides, the people of Bengal generally now look upon the metropolis and the districts lying along the Bhagirathi as the parts where Bengali is spoken in its greatest purity. Continue reading →