|
>*** About the 'Sankaradeva' spelling for example, could it have been
that when the first British colonial masters >transliterated the name, were
also people who were Xongskrit learners, and could not separate the
Assamese from its Sanskrit connections? Thus they chose to Sanskritize an
Assamese name, when they transliterated them in English.
Chandan:
You donot know what truth you are
speaking. As a matter of fact, the British Missionaries tried to write the
English transliteration as well as the Assamese spelling the way the
Assamese spoke the language. But since 'Yandabu Xondhi', with the opening of the
pan-Indian flood-gate to Assam, the Assamese were so much overwhelmed
under Pan Indian Sanskrit influence, that the Assamese of those
days were completely baffled and confused about the unique position and
originality of the of the Assamese language. Many learned Assamese in fact
thought that Assamese was a direct descendent of Sanskrit and it should better
conform to Sanskrit. (Read Kaliram Medhi and Dimbeswar Neog to know that it is
not). With this thought in mind, many learned Assamese fought against the
Baptist missionaries and were able to bend the Assamese language too
much towards Sanskrit standard.
On this important
battle within the Assamese language, please read the following summary
excerpts from an article by Dr Maheswar Neog which appeared as the Introduction
to a print of the dictionary "Hemkwx".
"The Baptist Mission in Sibsagar published the monthly
magazine 'Orundoi' in 1846. It wanted the written form of words
strictly to 'correspond with the actual pronunciation of the people.' The
biggest advocate of this system was Rev. Nathan Brown, who argued in its favor
in the journal against criticism of Assamese writers like Hemchandra Barua. In
"Grammatical Notices of the Assamese Language", (1848) Brown upheld the same
principal. Then in 1867 Miles Bronson published the first Assamese
"Dictionary in Assamese and English". from the Baptist Mission at Sibsagar. "
Bronson's system of orthography in his dictionary was framed and dictated by the
Baptist' monthly journal 'Orundoi'. However, Hemchandra Barua, who was presented
by Bronson personally with a copy of the dictionary was absolutely revolted by
the system. He expressed himself against Bronson's work in strongest
terms: "Its orthography is absolutely wrong and .... will be of no use to
the learners of Assamese." Thus Barua fought and won the battle against the
Baptists. Hemchandra Barua then proceeded to publish his own dictionary which
was based on several Sanskrit-English, Bengali-English, Hindi-Urdu-English
dictionaries. ....Hemchandra was not very scientific in his etymological
notes and he did not exploit Old Assamese literature for sources of his
words or their history.... "
"Bronson adheres to the form
actually conforming with the speaker while very often Hemchandra Barua
neglects it and tries to make the words conform to the original
Sanskrit to the extent of utter disregard of later development of the
word. The Assamese language therefore did not take the course the Baptists
writers like Brown and Bronson wanted it to take, and was soon reclaimed
to Sanskrit standards even though not always on a sound basis."
- Dr Maheswar Neog.
Hemchandra's dictionary was
published in 1900 which took the Assamese language too much towards the Sanskrit
language. While many writers realized this but nobody actually tried to do
anything about it. By early nineteenth century Assamese writers were so much
under Sanskrit influence in Assamese transliteration can be seen from the
following quote from a writing of Dr Birinch Kumar Barua in his "History of
Assamese Literature". Instead of trying to support the Baptist Mission, he was
already under the influence of Sanskrit through "Hemkwx".
About Bronson's dictionary he
wrote:
"Bronson's spelling was based on
spoken language which does always conform to the written style. Hence his
dictionary doesn't have much practical utility today."
I also noticed that Dr Barua
changed the Roman spelling of 'Orundoi' as 'Arunday' in the above
book.
Thus starting with Hemchandra Barua
down to Dr Birinchi Kumar Barua and after, all were under the influence of
Sanskrit standrd at the sacrice of the Assamese standard. Today, there is
hardly any original thinking from any Assamese scholars. The Assamese
nation is bankrupt and is simply running on its past inretia. The English
transliteration that were made to corresponding Sanskrit spellings
continues unabated and followed religiously by educated people like
BK-da.
Sanakaradeva-Ramayana-Kamrupa-Asom-Sahitya-Sabha Zindabad.
I wonder how much of this Assamese
mental bankruptcy has actually contributed to the formation of insurgent groups
like ULFA.
RB.
|
_______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
