A History of the Hindi Grammatical Tradition: Hindi-Hindustani Grammar, Grammarians, History and Problems.

• Author: Riccardi, Jr., T.

This book is a detailed discussion of what its author calls the Hindi grammatical tradition. Beginning with the unpublished manuscript of Ketelaar (1698), now thought to be the earliest attempt at a grammatical description, Bhatia discusses in chronological order what he considers to be the most important grammars written over the last three centuries. Each chapter contains discussions of the historical background, the prevailing linguistic situation, and a general evaluation of the unique contribution of each grammarian to the tradition.

In his brief introduction, the author makes it clear that the Sanskrit grammatical tradition has had little effect on the Hindi tradition, that indeed the Hindi tradition is in large part an alien tradition and not a native one. It would be impossible in a short review such as this one even to list the grammarians that Bhatia then goes on to discuss. I can only mention the major figures: Beligatti (1761), Hadley (1772), Gilchrist (1796), Adam (1827), Etherington (1871), Kellogg (1876), Sitar-e-Hind (1875), Guru (1920), Vajpeyi (1958), and Sharma (1958). The work ends with a general discussion of modern grammars. Here Bhatia prudently refrains from lavish discussion.

Professor Bhatia is to be highly commended for this work, for in addition to being very useful, it does some novel things. First, it says something of interest about well over fifty grammarians and puts their work in chronological sequence. This includes grammars in English, Indian grammars, and grammars in a variety of other languages, including German, Italian, French, Russian, and Portuguese. Not even the most intrepid bibliophile would have access to all of these works, many of which are out of print, extremely rare, or even unpublished. Second, it elucidates the very earliest stages of grammar done by Westerners and raises some new questions about the influence of language models, including the roles of Latin and English. Third, it marks off crucial changes in the development of grammar: the move from second to first language grammars; the entry of native speakers into an arena that had been largely the preserve of foreigners; the dominance and influence of major figures such as Kellogg; the controversies between Indian grammarians; and finally, the enormous spurt of interest in the last thirty years in grammatical analysis. There is certainly no other work that attempts to do so much in so small a space.

Questions of a general nature...