English
Its value is seldom if ever thought of; in part because word-division is so Avholly a matter of course, and in part because no one would think of proposing to deprive us of it. A newspaper that should do away with the spacing of words would speedily go into bankruptcy. For fifty years I have had better opportunities for learning English than for learning any other tongue. I am sure that I could divide most (but not all) of the words of an unspaced English book or newspaper, but I am abso¬ lutely unwilling to take the useless trouble. I want spacing, just as I want short lines, for convenience, comfort to the eyes, and saving of time. Oculist and psychologist give more technical reasons, but no better ones. As I said, I could not divide and understand all the unspaced words, even in English, with certainty. Take the combination godisnowhere. It may mean ‘God is now here', or just the opposite, 'God is nowhere.’ The ambiguity is absolute. The ambiguity of manslaughter furnished the point for Lord Macaulay’s amusing riddle (man’s laughter: man¬ slaughter). A story widely current, and told (with much aptness and probably little truth) of my friend Professor A. V. W. Jackson, narrates ' It is indeed possible, by careful construction of sentences, so to frame a long and elaborate document that it shall be wholly unambiguous without punctuation. Thus the Bishop of London issued the Decree (of April 12, 1897) of the Consistorial Court of his See, authorizing the transfer of the Bradford MS. to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, without one single comma or semicolon, and without a single period save one at the end. See Bradford’s History ‘ Of Plimouth Plantation Boston, 1901, pp. xxi-xxviii. By the Editor of this Series XXIX that he telegraphed from New York to Mrs. JacksoD, ‘ Have gotten theatre tickets. Meet me at Grand Central Station/ and that she met him, not alone, as he expected, but with eight friends, since the operator had divided gotten as got ten. A pupil of mine, son of a German lawyer, used as a child to suppose that the Erh-lasser of the legal notices of his father’s office was an Er-blas$er, and connected it with dtr Verhlichene. I remember misdividing Weber’s Erh-uhel (Ind. Stud., xvii. 208) as Er-huhei and pausing to wonder what it might mean. Some one may say that these ambiguities are sporadic, and are more amusing than convincing. I reply: Even if we grant that there are few or no difficult cases, the settling of five hundred easy cases of word-division on each page of unspaoed English would be a process, and, what is more, a process requiring much ill-spent effort of eye-muscles and mind.^ The work would be pure loss with no countervailing gain. Ancient Greek manuscripts did not space the words; and yet I suspect that an editor who should print a text of Plato to-day without spacing (and perhaps with a host of mediaeval ligatures) would be adjudged to be of not quite sound mind. It is not clear that Greek studies have suffered by this departure from the usage of the MSS. Objections to word-division in Sanskrit.—Bohtlingk’s protest.— Dr. Hertel, speaking of a friend of both of us, a German professor, and liis opinion on word-division in this text, said: ‘ Er straubt sich mit Handen und Fiissen dagegen.’ The reason for that disapproval was not given; nor do I remember to have seen in print any decided protest against word- division save one. That was from Bohtlingk. In a note to his critical remarks on the Katha-sarit-sagara, in speaking of Brockhaus’s edition, which is printed partly in Nagari and partly in Roman letters, and every¬ where with a free use of word-division, he says: ^ ‘ Man verwohne nicht den Anfanger, schone das Augo des Geiibteren und greife dem selbststiindigen Urtheil desselben nicht vor. Mit anderen Worten: Man fiihre zum Bogenannten leichteren Verstandniss des Textes koine neuen, dem indischen Alphabet unbekannten, Werthzoichen ein, also auch keine Interpunction.’ And 60 on. ' It may be remarked that, since the introduction of typesetting machines, mis- divisione of words in our daily newspapers have become much more common and arc noticeably disturbing. With the modern key-board machines, alterations and proof- corrections are difficult and expensive. Misdivisions which used to be corrected easily in movable type, are allowed in linotype work to pass unrectified. On the proofs of Whitney’s Atharva-Veda appeared ‘ 0 thou sand-eyed one ’ for ‘ thousand-eyed ’ (iv. 20.5), and ‘make yet his libation’ for ‘make ye this libation’ (vi. 32.1). * Melanges Asiatiques, vii. 539, St. Petersburg Acad., 1875. XXX Notes on the Externals of Indian Boohs As to ‘ forestalling the reader’s judgment—It would have been an entirely proper consideration for some extremely j^outhful editor of a hard text about whose meaning he was not certain, that, in a case of doubt as to the right way of dividing an ambiguous combination, he should not prejudice the decision of a scholar so much his superior as Bohtlingk. But this text is not solely for the most mature scholars. The, attempt has here been made to kill two birds with one stone: first, to give to advanced scholars a really critical edition of a specific and identifiable recension of a famous work of literature; and secondly, to present it in such a way that, as a reading-book for beginners, it would be suitable in respect of form, as it is certainly most suitable in respect of contents. ‘ To prejudice the judgment of the reader —that is precisely what the legitimate duty of a competent editor is. It is his business to study the text until he finds out what it means, and then to print it so that others may comprehend it with much less trouble than he. As to 'spoiling the beginner' with too much help,—(Man verwbhne nicht den Anfanger.) The strange alphabet, the variety of forms, the peculiarities of word and of sentence combination, the acquiring of a new vocabulary, all these difficulties confront the student at the very outset and simultaneously. The gravest of them is the quick division of the words. The two chief means of making that division are an ability to recognize the stems, and a ready familiarity with the inflexional endings that mark the points of division. Neither of these means is as yet at the begmner’s command. Is it ‘spoiling’ him to distribute the initial diffi¬ culties over the first few weeks of his coui’se 'S My own practice is to make the beginner spend some eight or ten lessons in memorizing the principal paradigms and sandhi-rules, and then plunge at once into actual reading. To learn to swim one must plunge into the water. This text should help him to become more quickly familiar with the form and sound of very many separate vocables; and such familiarity is the best equipment for attacking books printed in the usual Hindu manner. Word-division useful to men taking only one year of Sanskrit.—It may be granted that a man who has decided to give his life to the study and teaching of Sanskrit ought not to be frightened out of it by the hard beginning. But, except for men of inherited wealth, the opportunities for such a Ufe are extremely few, so few that this class may be disregarded. On the other hand, there ai*e very considerable classes of students— Hellemsts, Latinists, Germanists, to mention no others—for whom it is highly desirable that they should pursue the study of Sanskrit for one By the Editor of this Series XXXI single year, without even an intention of continuing it further. It is pitiful to think how small is the amount of Sanskrit text usually read in a first- year course. With proper text-books and a judicious presentation of the initial difficulties, such students could easily and certainly read a very considerable amount of Sanskrit text in that single year, and quit the subject feeling that they had got a great deal out of it besides a little raw material for future studies in comparative grammar and the like. I have an increasingly high opinion of the value of Sanskrit as a disciplinary study. Quite a number of present or prospective lawyers have studied it under my instruction, and, as I hope, not without profit. Under the tremendous pressure of the ‘ new studies ’ (such as electrical engineering, experimental psychology, economics, and the like), the study of the ancient languages can never hold its own if we persist in making no concessions. It is folly here to say tout ou rien. Word-division offends Hindu taste.—The objectors to word-division say that it spoils the edition for general circulation in India. That is true. It is strange that the Hindu should care so much about this item of the externals of a book, and be so regai’dless of many of the others. It seems like straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. About four-fifths of Brockhaus’s Katha-sarit-sagara is in Roman letters, and Jibananda published the work with Somadeva s verses turned into prose. In speaking of these two performances, Durgaprasad and Parab, on page 3 of their edition, say that they have undertaken to print the work once more, because, although it had twice been printed, they felt that its characteristic form had been completely ruined; ft ^•1 I They doubtless had Brockhaus’s no less than his ‘ 0*i^f^ft ’ in mind. Be that as it may, the Hindu taste is for us no cogent argument against word-division. Hesults of misdivision iu spoken Bnglisli, &c.—I can best pave the way for an effective presentation of the results of misdivision in Sanskidt by giving examples in English of misdivision,^ the results of which have become part and parcel of our language.