by
(ISBN:81-7167-784-3 ~ Pub Year: 2002 ~ Pages:1300 ~ Binding: Paperback ~ Publisher: Rupa)
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“The admirable work”, says Sir George Grierson in his Foreword, “which is a fine example of wide knowledge and of scholarly research, is the result of a happy combination of proficiency in facts and familiarity with theory, and exhibits a mastery of detail, controlled and ordered by the sobriety of true scholarship.” In its manuscript from the work was read by and obtained highest approval of some of the most distinguished scholars in the field of Indian linguistics in Europe, and it may be considered a landmark in the history of philological researches into Indian languages.
It is the first systematic and detailed history of Bengali—a modern Indo-Aryan language-by an Indian scholar, and incidentally, as it is comparative in its treatment, taking into consideration the philology of other Indo-Aryan languages, it is an invaluable contribution to the scientific study of the modern Indo-Aryan Languages as a whole.
REVIEWS:
One of the principal languages of India, which is rich with a fine literature which preserves a certain unsophisticated character, which is spoken in one of the largest towns of the world, and which is special problems because of its position in the extreme East of the Aryan world, has now been acquired by science . . . One finds with pleasure that the motherland of Yaska and of Panini to whom the European linguists owes its birth, produces at last a true linguist, it can only be hoped that he will not remain the only one.
—Prof. Jules Bloch, Journal Asiatique
It is a work of extremely high importance and value establishing on a firm basis the principles of the history of the Bengali language, and serving as a model for future researchers in other languages of India.
—Prof. L D Barnett, British Museum and the University of London
It is a very find achievement, and marks the beginning of a new chapter in the study of the Indo-Aryan languages.
—Prof. R L Turner, Professor of Sanskrit, University of London
I have read with great interest the learned introduction which forms almost one-fourth of the work, and which treats, in a masterly manner, not only the history of Bengali, but also the history of Indo-Aryan speech from the earliest times down to the present day. The author is thoroughly familiar with the Western methods of philological investigation, and at the same time has a knowledge of linguistic facts which no European scholar could ever hope to acquire.
—Prof. M Winternitz, University of Prague, Czechoslovakia
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