Robert N. Cust - A Sketch of the Modern Languages of the East Indies

In 14 Volumes

A SKETCH OF THE MODERN LANGUAGES OF THE EAST INDIES

ROBERT N CUST

First published in 1878 by
Trbner & Co Ltd

Reprinted in 2000 by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OXl4 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

1878 Robert N Cust

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

A Sketch of the Modern Languages of the East Indies
ISBN 0-415-24501-X
India: Language and Literature: 14 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-24289-4
Trbner's Oriental Series
ISBN 0-415-23188-4

A SKETCH

OF THE

MODERN LANGUAGES OF THE EAST INDIES.

Accompanied by Two Language Maps

BY

ROBBERT N. CUST,

LATE OF HER MAJESTY'S INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE,
AND
HONORARY LIBRARIAN OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY.

Amicus Plato, Amicus Socrates;
Major Amicus Veritas

LONDON:
TRBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL.
1878.
[All rights reserved.]

EDWARD LYALL BRANDRETH,

THE OLDEST OF MY FRIENDS,

IN LINGUISTIC AND ORIENTAL STUDIES,

This Volume

DEDICATED.

LONDON, July 1878.

__________

I LEFT India abruptly in 1867 under the pressure of heavy domestic affliction, a few months before my term of service was completed, and I had done my day's work. When, after a year of darkness, I found myself restored to my usual physical and intellectual vigour, my first thought was, What can I do for India?

I was commissioned to draft a Land-Revenue-Code for the North-West Provinces, and, when that work was done, I applied for employment, as Assistant Secretary in the Revenue and Judicial Department of the India Office, which happened to fall vacant. There were, however, so many gentlemen to be provided for, who had never seen India, nor knew the difference between a Jjr and a Jhagr a fusul and a faisala, that I had to fold up in a napkin my experience of a quarter of a century from the lowest to the highest grade in both Departments, and look about me for something else to do. The prospect was not encouraging. Some of my contemporaries had taken to brewing beer ; another had patented a machine for blacking shoes with a rotatory brush ; a third was out in Egypt managing the private estates of the Khedive; a fourth was Director of a Bank and Treasurer to a Hospital; a fifth was being yelled at in the House of Commons ; a sixth was trying petty cases as a Justice of the Peace. All old Indians must do something. So I turned back to my old love, before I went to India, and took up the skein, where I dropped it in 1842, of Language.

My stock-in-trade was a good knowledge of twelve Languages, six European, six Asiatic, a good memory, and a great passion for the study, I began by making a general and superficial survey of the whole subject of our existing knowledge, from Chinese to Anglo-Saxon, from Assyrian and Accadian to Finnic and Basque, and was astonished at the progress, that had been made, the number of subjects, the number of workers, the number of books published, the extraordinary energy, interest, and acumen displayed, the number of controversies, which were raging, and the bitterness displayed by scholars towards each other.

This survey, summary as it was, occupied me three years, and I then desired to find some more particular and specific study in one corner of the subject ; and again the old feeling rose within meWhat can I do for India?

In no department of the great Science of Language had greater progress been made than in that of the Languages of the East Indies. I feel ashamed now at my gross ignorance of the subject, when I left India. In fact, as a highly-paid public officer, I had been for twenty-five years foolishly devoting all my energies and leisure to the discharge of the duties, for which I was paid, and had thought of nothing beyond advancing the public service. As it proved, it would have been more prudent to have dabbled in linguistic and archaeological studies, served out my time, and secured the pension, which from ill-health and overtaxed energies I had forfeited. However, I found, that the information with regard to the Languages of the East Indies was scattered in a great many volumes and serials, so I first consolidated it for my own use, and now publish it, under the idea, that I am still doing something for India.

E. K C.

__________

__________

APPENDICES.

I HAVE attempted in all humility to fill up a vacuum, the inconvenience of which pressed itself on my notice. Much had been written about the Languages of the East Indies, but the extent of our present knowledge had not ever been brought to a focus. Information on particular subjects was only to be obtained, or looked for, by consulting a specialist, and then hunting down the numbers of a serial or the chapters of a volume not always to be found. It occurred to me, that it might be of use to others to publish in an arranged form the notes, which I had collected for my own edification. Thus the work grew upon me.