The adventures of the Gooroo Paramartan: a tale in the Tamul language: accompanied by a translation and vocabulary, together with an analysis of the first story / By Benjamin Babington.

  • Beschi, Costantino Giuseppe, 1680-1747.
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The adventures of the Gooroo Paramartan: a tale in the Tamul language: accompanied by a translation and vocabulary, together with an analysis of the first story / By Benjamin Babington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/272
    • • 11 compositions than in the ordinary dialect of conversation, and which adopt the arrangement of the Sanskrit alphabet with scarcely any variation. The higher dialect of the Tamul, on the contrary, is almost entirely free from Sanskrit words and idioms, and the language retains an alphabet which tradition affirms to have heretofore consisted of but sixteen letters, and which, so far from resembling the very perfect alphabet of the Sanskrit, wants nearly half its characters, and has several letters of peculiar powers. Since, therefore, as might have been expected from its geographical situation, the Tamul language has stronger traces of originality than any of the cognate dialects of Southern India, it is, with propriety, taken first in the order of study, and he who adds a knowledge of this Southern tongue to the more ])olished language of the North,^ has more than half accom- plished the acquisition of all the Hindoo languages of India. it is unnecessary to enlarge upon the utility of the Oriental languages to those who are destined to the conduct of public affairs in India; since the advantage of an immediate intercourse between the mass of the people and those who are intrusted with their government, is now not only generally acknowledged, but also earnestly sought, in the measures which have been adopted, both at home and abroad, for the education of the Honourable Company’s Servants. It is the object of the following pages, to furnish materials for commencing, in this country, the study of the Tamul lan- guage, and for this purpose a Tamul Tale has been selected, of which a Translation, Vocabulary and Analysis have been furnished. ^ The Sanskrit - is thus designated in the Tamul countries.