Elements of the Science of Language (An Old and Rare Book)

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Foreword It is well over a decade since I began to write this book and in fact the first three chapters have been in print quite a long while. For one reason or other the various chapters were written with long intervals in between. Hence the work might seem a bit patchy here and there and in places self-contradictory. My plan of the chapters has not varied much, but as I got more and more experience in teaching the subject, I was obliged to vary the details considerably. A discerning reader will easily perceive the difference of treatment between the first four chapters and the succeeding ones. If I had been able to finish off the whole book within six months or a year after beginning it, I think it would have been much smaller and also more full of mistakes. I do not regret that it has taken so long in writing and finishing. For I have found more time for study and teaching and learning by experience.

Preface I have intended this book primarily for Indian students. Comparative Philology is still a vague subject to most in this country and I have heard the wildest ideas about it even from otherwise learned and well-informed people. I will be perfectly satisfied if this book arouses the interest of our students in a subject universally regarded as 'dry', and consequently extremely uninteresting. I well remember how I myself had to struggle through books dealing with the subject but containing illustrations from modem and ancient languages of Europe-most of which were utterly beyond me at that time. I thought (and I think even now) that a great deal of the repulsion this subject evokes is due to the fact that the examples do not come home to us Indians. This I have tried to remedy and this has been my main object in writing this book.

I have had the privilege to sit at the feet of many great teachers. I .only hope I am not disgracing them in the following pages. And I have had the great joy of teaching hundreds of young men and women of my country in three great centers of learning-Benares, Calcutta and Bombay. I have had the rare good fortune of being rewarded by their genuine esteem and affection. Many of them have now achieved greatness on their own account. To both these-teachers as well as pupils of mine-I owe far more than I can ever hope to repay. And to both with deep reverence and affection I offer this, slight tribute.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages