A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages c2.2

c2.2

The first edition—chiefly on account of the novelty of the undertaking—was received with a larger amount of favour than it appeared to me to deserve. I trust that this second edition, revised and enlarged, will be found more really deserving of favour. Though reluctant to commence the work, no sooner had I entered upon it than my old interest in it revived, and I laboured at it *con amore*. I have endeavoured to be accurate and thorough throughout, and to leave no difficulty unsolved, or at least uninvestigated; and yet, notwithstanding all my endeavours, I am conscious of many deficiencies, and feel sure that I must have fallen into many errors. Of the various expressions of approval the first edition received, the one which gratified me most, because I felt it to be best deserved, was that it was evident I had treated the Dravidian languages "lovingly." I trust it will be apparent that I have given no smaller amount of loving care and labour to the preparation of this second edition. The reader must be prepared, however, to find that many of the particulars on which I have laboured most "lovingly," though exceedingly interesting to persons who have made the Dravidian languages their special study, possess but little interest for persons whose special studies lie in the direction of some other family of languages, or who are interested, not in the study of any one language or family of languages in particular, but only in philological studies in general, or in discussions respecting the origin of language in general.