Transactions of the second session held at London, in September, 1874 / edited by R.K. Douglas.

  • International Congress of Orientalists
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Transactions of the second session held at London, in September, 1874 / edited by R.K. Douglas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    72/514 (page 62)
    The language continued to he cultivated by the missionaries of the Christian Knowledge Society, and in 1728 the Scriptures, translated by Ziegenbalg, were printed in Tamil type at Tranquebar. A copy of this edition, now of extreme rarity, is also before us. The names of Bottler, Bhenius, and other Danish scholars in the same mission, are conspicuous for useful works. Still later, Dr. Caldwell, by his Comparative Grammar of Dravidian Languages, of which a second and improved edition is about to appear, has thrown a flood of light on this class of tongues; and more recently Dr. G. Pope has appended a grammar of the Toda dialect to Col. Marshall’s account of that tribe [1873], in which he traces analogies between the Tamilian and Celtic tongues. Mr. Burnell, of the Civil Service, besides making catalogues of the Sanscrit libraries of Tanjore and other places, has also paid considerable attention to the vernacular litera- ture. Nor must I omit to mention the German scholars connected with the Basle mission. Dr. Moegling has edited lithographed editions of the most remarkable Canarese classics under the title of JBibliotheca Cwrnatica, and his fellow-labourer, Dr. Gundert, has pro- duced a Malayalim Dictionary, published in 1872, admirable for its fullness and arrangement—a model of lexicography. Mr. Brigel has contributed a grammar of Tulu; and Mr. Metz, who has long laboured among the inhabitants of the Nilagiri mountains, has collected ample vocabularies of the aboriginal castes found there. I may add that within the last few months Mr. H. W. Bcllew, C.S.I., of the Bengal Medical Service, has published a grammar and vocabulary of the Brahoe language, in a Narrative of a Journey from the Indus to the Tigris (1873). No papers have been sent to this division of the Section; but Baron Textor dc Bavisi, lately Governor of the French Settlement of Karical in the Carnatic, will address the Section in commendation of the study of Tamil literature, and the importance of its more critical cultivation in this country. The languages of China and Japan, especially the latter, were largely discussed at the first Congress. In this department the French Sinologists, from the time of Abel Bemusat and Stanislas Julien, have held a foremost place. Nor have our own countrymen been behindhand. We can boast of worthy successors to the veteran Morrison, two of whom, Mr. Beal, translator of the travels of the earliest Chinese pilgrims, and Mr. Edkins, who has done much to