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Description:
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This 1874 work by Sir George Campbell, a British government official whose
Scheme for the Government of India is also reissued in this series, presents a
survey of the diverse languages of India, using material obtained usually by
British army officers trained by Campbell to collect 'specimens' in the course of
their normal work. The tabular material is presented with the English words or
phrases in one column and their equivalent in the Indian language under
discussion in another: most of the languages are represented by more than one
dialect, such as the 'Punjabee of Lahore' and the 'Punjabee of Mooltan'. In his
introduction to the work, Campbell emphasises that the survey is not scientific,
and his main conclusion is that in addition to the broad division of Aryan and
Dravidian language types, India contains a huge number of 'aboriginal'
languages which will require further study.
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