سنڌي ورچوئل لائبرري

In commencing this work, my first thought was in what character I should write the native words.

My choice lay among the Sindhi (or rather any of its numerous signs), the Roman, the Persian, the Gurmukhi, and the Devanagari.

The first I saw at once would not do. Its scanty use of vowels(1) made it quite impossible to delineate single words through it, so as to be at all intelligible.

The Roman, too,  I soon decided against. I never could understand the advantage of framing out of the Roman characters symbols to express sounds in Eastern tongues. Such sounds cannot be particularized without adding to the Roman letters so many marks and signs, as to render the learning of these, quite as difficult as committing to memory a new character, and even still they would not possess the distinctive trait of a new set of letters, which from being entirely strange become in some degree better signs for strange sounds, than familiar characters with a new nomenclature. Moreover, I have always thought that they who would not take the trouble of learning a new alphabet, which after all is but the work of a few hours, were not likely to make much progress in any language; so there could be little gain in trying to please them.

The Persian was not decided against without some consideration. I had as regards it the precedent of Wathen’s Grammar, and also of some Sindhi books extant in that character. But in this, too, many additional marks were required to represent sounds foreign to the Persian. I saw it would be almost as troublesome as the Roman character, with the additional disadvantage of being strange to Europeans.

My choice then lay between the Gurmukhi and the Devanagari. The former had the advantage of assimilating with the Sindhi somewhat more than the Devanagari did, and of being also more known to Hindoos in Sindh: but I have preferred the Devanagari_1^st, as being a character with which Europeans are more acquainted; and 2ndly, as from being the foundation of the Sindhi itself, it seemed more appropriate where a different character was required, to write in it than in any other, although cognate and generally similar.

To some of the Devanagari letters it will be seen, I have added signs to complete the sounds used in Sindhi: but these are not many, nor is the distinction in pronunciation so great as to make these signs absolutely necessary.

If in some parts of the country individuals be met with who use different forms of speech, from those I have pointed out in these pages, I would entreat that what I have given may not at once be condemned as incorrect. A dialect in which there is no literature, and but few books of any kind, must necessarily be spoken with some slight diversity in different neighborhoods, and by different classes. Some of these distinctions I have pointed out in notes, and I believe that the forms and rules I have given, will be found the most correct, and to apply generally throughout the country. Should an occasional inaccuracy or omission be discovered, I trust it will be excused on the consideration that I have had little aid of any kind from native works, and that the rules I have given, have been fixed solely from watching the conversation of those around me, and noting and comparing all striking points. I have not met a single native of Sindh, who until taught by myself, had any, even the most remote, knowledge of the Grammar of the language he was talking. The study of it has been always despised_the most by those who had pretensions to education. Learned Musalmans read Arabic and Persian; Hindoos the latter, or Punjabi and Hindi. The speech they learned at their mothers’ breasts, was thought only fit for clowns. Yet I am confident the Sindhi will to the philologist, prove a more interesting study than that of many of the other Indian dialects. The habit of affixing signs to words in lieu of the Pronouns and the Prepositions governing them_the regular form of the Passive Voice–the use of Impersonals_the reduplicated Causal Verbs–and other points which the learner will mark as he proceeds, give to it beauties distinct from most Indian tongues. The advantages, too, to be gained by its study to those employed in administering our affairs on the Indus are so manifest, that I need not here dilate on them.

I would only add that in preparing this work, I have examined and compared several Grammars on Oriental languages, and have not hesitated to borrow from them where I considered their remarks useful and applicable.

1. B. Nearly three years have gone by since this Grammar was first prepared, but various causes have till now delayed its publication. Meanwhile further knowledge and experience have enabled the writer to make some emendations and additions, chiefly in notes. Lieut. R. F. Burton, late of the Sindh Survey, has lent an able hand in this. It was intended to append also some pages of Idiomatical Sentences for the aid of students, but sickness, which has obliged the Author to leave the country, has prevented this: and has moreover constrained him to postpone the publication of a Sindhi and English Dictionary nearly ready for the press.

(1) See para: 2 of Grammar.