WHAT surprises one is the fact that many of the British colonial officers carried out exhaustive research on the languages and literatures of the subcontinent. In those days when neither travelling nor communication was as easy as it is today, they travelled far and wide across the subcontinent and even the far-flung and treacherous terrains such as Himalayas and Karakoram were not left out.
The most outstanding of such research works on subcontinent’s languages and dialects is the one known as The Linguistic Survey of India. Beginning in 1898, it took about 30 years to finish and the 19-volume survey was finally completed in 1928. It has data on more or less 175 languages and 500 dialects spoken in the subcontinent. It also gives the geographical locations of the areas where these languages and dialects are spoken and mentions the families of languages as well. The moving spirit behind the huge and long-term project was George Abraham Grierson (1851-1941), the linguist who proposed, planned and supervised it. This unique work was a result of innumerable data-recording field workers and surveyors backed and funded by the British India government.
But some British officers did some extraordinary linguistic and literary research individually and single-handedly, too. Among them was Thomas Grahame Bailey. Some of his works on Urdu have been very popular and their scores of editions have been published.
The most popular of works by T.G. Bailey is Urdu, a self-help book published under ‘Teach Yourself’ series. Between 1950 — when it was first published — and 1974, at least 65 editions had been published. As mentioned in the preface written by J.R. Firth, a notable name in linguistics who edited it and who had also served at the University of Punjab, “the book is based on material left by the late Dr Grahame Bailey”. Firth says that “among the posthumous papers there were at least two versions of what he intended should become a grammar and language course in Urdu”. Firth published with additions and changes what seemed to be the final version. The book gives Urdu words and sentences in International Phonetic Alphabet. Aside from other things, such as phonetic charts explaining Urdu’s vowels and consonants, an interesting feature of the book is the use of Urdu script in many lessons, along with English translations.
One of his other popular books is A History of Urdu Literature. First published in 1932 simultaneously from Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne, the book became very popular and at least 25 editions were published till the year 2000. In 2008, Oxford (Pakistan) also published an edition. In the preface, Bailey has briefly introduced some Urdu genres and literary terms used in Urdu, quite useful for the students.
In this book Bailey has emphasised three aspects of Urdu literature: firstly, Urdu’s origin lies in Punjabi and he tried to define the word ‘Urdu’ and ‘Khari Boli’ differently. Secondly, he thinks that Deccan’s Urdu literature has not been understood well so he tried to make the portion dealing with Deccan more comprehensive. Lastly, he thought he was giving some new information on Bagh-o-Bahar, which he said was not written by Ameer Khusrau, apparently a surprising assumption and contrary to the long-held ideas, but the latter-day research proved Bailey was correct.
But Moulvi Abdul Haq was furious over Bailey’s history of Urdu literature. In his review published in Urdu, a magazine published in his editorship, he not only pointed out “errors” and “mistakes” committed by Bailey but even said that Bailey was a plagiarist and had not properly referred to the works he had benefitted from. But Bailey in the bibliography given at the back of the book has mentioned all the sources including Sherani. The fact is Bailey has done a wonderful job, comprehensively covering the long history in a slim volume of little over 100 pages, albeit some of Abdul Haq’s other objections are valid. Though Bailey’s premise on Urdu’s origin was proved incorrect by latter-day scholars, the compactness of the book is simply amazing. The book was translated into Urdu by Syed Muhammad Aseem and the Urdu translation was published from Delhi in 1993.
T.G. Bailey’s other books include A Punjabi Phonetic Reader, Grammar of the Shina Language, Punjabi Manual and Grammar, The Languages of the Northern Himalayas, Linguistic Studies from the Himalayas and A Grammar of Hindi.
Thomas Grahame Bailey was born on Sept 8, 1872, in Ambala, India. His father was a missionary. Sent to Scotland for schooling, Bailey returned to India in 1895. Having obtained a doctorate in literature, he worked on the languages and literatures of the subcontinent. Around 1920, Bailey went back home and joined London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies where he served as reader at the department of Urdu and Hindi till 1940. His long stay in India had made him quite well-versed in Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi and some other local languages.
Thomas Grahame Bailey died on April 5, 1942.
Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2020
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