हिन्दी / Hindi Bible History (3)

**List: Hindi Ministry

Bible ( बाइबिल, Dharm Shastra {Religious Scripture} )
Hindi...
HINDUWEE.

"I.--GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENT AND STATISTICS.

HINDUWEE, with its various dialects, is spoken in all the upper provinces of India.   The population
of these provinces is little short of 25,000,000.   In these provinces the Moh_mm_dans, as before stated,
speak Hindustani; but the Hindoos, properly so called, who profess Brahminism, speak Hinduwee, or

one of its numerous dialects.   The knowledge of Hinduwee seems to extend beyond the provinces to
which it is vernacular, and the Rev. Mr. Buyers of Benares mentions, as the result of his own experience
and observation, that the Hinduwee, such as is used at Benares, is understood by the Rajpoots of
Central India, and even by the Sikhs, the Nepalese, the Guzerattees, and the Mahrattas, who have
distinct dialects of their own.

II.--CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LANGUAGE.

   Hinduwee was the language of the ancient and extensive empire of the Canyacubjas in Upper
India, of which Canyacubja, or Canoj, was the capital.   Its affinity to the Sanscrit is very remarkable,
and about nine-tenths of its words may be traced to that language; but that Sanscrit is the root, says
Col. Colebrooke, "from which the Hinduwee has sprung, not Hinduwee the dialect upon which Sans-
crit has refined, may be proved from etymology, the analogy of which has been lost in Hinduwee but
preserved in the Sanscrit."   Many Hinduwee words are pure and unaltered Sanscrit, and others differ
only from Sanscrit vocables by the regular permutation of certain letters.   There is a small proportion
of words in this language, however, of which the origin is not Sanscrit, and all attempts to trace these
words to some other language have hitherto proved unsatisfactory.   In idiom and construction Hinduwee
resembles Hindustani, of which, as before mentioned, it in fact forms the groundwork; the chief
difference between the two dialects consisting in the predominance of Persian and Arabic words and
phrases in Hindustani, and the almost total exclusion of foreign admixture in Hinduwee.   There is a
difference, likewise, between the written characters belonging to these dialects; the Persian or Arabic
characters appertain properly to the Hindustani, while the Devanagari are the proper characters of
the Hinduwee.   The Kyt’hee or writers’ character, which is an imperfect imitation, and in some
respects an alteration, of the Devanagari, is also used in writing and printing Hinduwee, particularly
by the trading community; and it is said, that of the lower class of natives there are ten who read and
write in the Kyt’hee for one who transacts business in the Devanagari.

III.--VERSIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES IN THIS LANGUAGE.

   At the period when a translation of the Scriptures into this language was first attempted, some
little confusion existed in respect to the right application of the terms Hinduwee and Hindustani.
The Serampore mies., in their First Memoir, speak of a Hindustani which draws principally on
the Persian and Arabic for its supplies; and of another which has recourse in the same manner to the
Sanscrit: of the one, as quite unintelligible to Sanscrit pundits born and brought up in Hindustan;
and of the other, as equally unintelligible to their Muss_lm_n moonshees.   By the latter of these dialects
they evidently meant the Hinduwee: and to their translation of the Scriptures into this dialect they
afterwards correctly applied the name Hindee.   This version was commenced in 1802; and in 1807 the
whole of the New, and portions of the Old, Testaments were completed and ready for revision.   It is one
of the versions which the Rev. Dr. Carey translated with his own hand, and of which the New Testament
was rendered immediately from the Greek.   The Gospels were printed in 1809, and in 1811 an edition
of 1000 copies of the entire New Testament was published at Serampore.   This edition was received
with so much avidity by the people, that in 1812, almost every copy had been distributed, and it was
found requisite to issue another edition, consisting of 4000 copies, which was completed at press in
1813.   These copies were speedily exhausted, and on a third edition being urgently demanded, the
Serampore mies. determined to publish a version executed by the Rev. John Chamberlain, in
preference to their own; assigning as a reason for this measure that a comparison of independent
versions, made by persons long and intimately acquainted with the language, is the means most likely
to tend to the ultimate formation of an idiomatic and standard version.   The publication of Mr.
Chamberlain’s version was commenced with an edition of 4000 copies of the Gospels in 1819.   This
edition was printed in the Devanagari character; and in the following year another edition of the
Gospels, consisting of 3000 copies, appeared in the Kyt’hee character.   The further publication of this

version was interrupted by the lamented decease of Mr. Chamberlain.   The Rev. J. T. Thompson, a
Baptist my. long resident at Delhi, then undertook the revision of the entire version of the New
Testament and of the Psalms, and an edition of 3000 copies of the Gospels was printed in 1824 under
his superintendence.   Of the Old Testament, the only version printed at Serampore appears to have
been that of Dr. Carey.   It was published in successive portions; the Pentateuch appeared in 1813, and
1000 copies of the entire Old Testament were completed in 1818.   More recently, another edition of
the Hindee gospels in the Kyt’hee character has been carried through the press, by the joint labours
of Mr. Leslie and Mr. Parsons of Monghir.   A revision of the Gospels in the Devanagari character, by
Mr. Parsons, has also been for some time past in progress, and editions of St. Matthew and St. Mark
have issued from the press: the Gospel of St. Luke was reported, in 1858, as being completed in
MS., and ready for the press.
   Another version of the Hinduwee New Testament was published by the Calcutta Bible Society;
the Gospel of St. Matthew in 1819, and the other books at successive intervals, until the completion of
the entire Testament in 1826.   This version is not a new or independent translation, but is through-
out substantially the same as Martyn’s Hindustani version, from which it differs chiefly in the sub-
stitution of Sanscrit for Persian and Arabic terms.   Martyn’s Testament was thus adapted to the use
of persons speaking the Hinduwee dialect by the Rev. W. Bowley, agent of the Church My.
Society at Chunar.   Being unacquainted with the original languages of Scripture, he consulted the
English authorised version in all passages where the Hinduwee idiom required him to alter Martyn’s
admirable renderings, referring at the same time to the best commentators on Scripture.   Mr. Corrie
revised the first edition of the work.   New editions of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark were
published in 1827; and in 1833 a third edition of these Gospels, to the extent of 4000 copies, was
issued.   Mr. Bowley also undertook the transference of the Hindustani version of the Old Testament
into the Hinduwee dialect, and in 1827 the books of Psalms, Proverbs, and Isaiah had been published,
and the whole work was announced as ready for the press as far as the 2nd Book of Kings, at which
point the labours of Mr. Thomason in the parent version had been arrested.   In 1828 or 29, 4000
copies of Genesis were printed, followed in 1831 by similar editions of Exodus and Leviticus, and a
second edition of 2000 copies of Isaiah.   In 1835 a revision of the New Testament was undertaken
by Dr. Mill of Bishop’s College; and in 1838 an edition of 1000 New Testaments, besides about
4000 extra copies of the Gospels and Acts, was published at the expense of the British and Foreign
Bible Society, in Devanagari characters.   Another edition of the Gospels and Acts, of similar extent,
and printed in the Kyt’hee character, was published during the same year by the same society.   In
1847 an edition consisting of 2500 copies of the New Testament, and of 1000 extra copies of the
Gospels and Acts, was published in the Kyt’hee character at the American Mission press at All_habad;
and about the same period 2500 copies of the Psalms, printed in the Devanagari character, were issued
from the Bible Society’s press at Agra.
   According to late accounts received from India, two separate revisions of the Hinduwee versions
were then in progress: the one conducted by a sub-committee appointed for the purpose by the
Auxiliary Bible Society at Agra; and the other by Mr. Leslie, a Baptist my. at Calcutta.
Subsequent editions of the Hindee New Testament--both in the Hindee- Kyt’hee, and Devanagari
(or Deva-Nagri) characters--have since issued; the former from the press of the Bible Society’s
Auxiliary at Calcutta, and the latter from the Agra press.   The destruction of the Depository at Agra,
during the mutiny of 1857, involved the loss of the entire stock of Hindee and other Scriptures then
on hand, as well as the demolition of the press actively at work there.   It was felt necessary to make
immediate provision for replacing the loss by a fresh edition of the New Testament in Hindee, which
the Committee of the Parent Society accordingly undertook to print in London.   Editions of 20,000
Hindee New Testaments, with 30,000 single Gospels and Acts, have been completed during the present
year (1860), having been printed under the editorial care of the Rev. Mr. Ullmann.   An edition of
Genesis, with twenty chapters of Exodus, in Hindee-Kyt’hee, issued from the press in 1855."--1860   S. Bagster   [Info only]

HINDUWEE--1860   S. Bagster   [Info only: Devanagari Character   n.d. John 1:1-14 unknown.]

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