History of Bengali Language and Literature c5.44

c5.44

We now confidently presume that the above proofs will be held sufficient to support the view, that the patronage and favour of the Mahammadan Emperors and chiefs gave the first start towards recognition of Bengali in the courts of the Hindu Rājās and to establish its claims on the attention of scholars. It is curious to observe that, more than once in history, we have owed the development of our language to the influence of foreign people from whom such help was the least expected. Mr. Nathanial Prassy Halhed, a European member of the Indian Civil Service, wrote the earliest Bengali grammar for us in the eighteenth century; and Bengali prose, in our own days, owes a good deal to the impetus given to it by the European missionaries.