The writing character of the ancient Romans is now used by most of tho people of Europe, and by the British and their colonies. It is ono of great value, and should bo everywhere introdue,ed. With much in common, in several of the Indian tongues it at first aeems an easy matter to become acquainted with them. But at the first step there is this difficulty, that every language has ita separate alphabet, and every province tuts aix. .or eight alphabets in use. The various nationalities cannot use each other's books, nor write to each other. Even were it possible, out of the fourteen current alphabets of Iudia, to sdect one for universal use, there is not one of them which it is not extremely difficult to read, difficult to 'Mite, and difficult to print. The natives themselves cannot read them fluently. Even pandits and moonshis are continually obliged to pause for the purpose of spelling the words. A fluent reader of any of the native characters is almost unheard of ; but a mere boy who is taught the Roman charaaers, will, in the course of a few months, read without stopping anything that is given to him. As a general rule, it is impossible to write fast in any of the native alphabets with out making so many blunders and omissions that the manuscript becomes an unintelligible scrawl.
The greatest difficulty of all, however, occurs in printing. For one language a fount of type is required consisting of not less than 700 letters, simple and. compound ; another requires 900 letters ; a third, 1000, and so on ; the cost of preparing such a fount, and the difficulty which a compositor has .to contend with in having a case ' before him with this prodigious collection of characters, are great. With one character in common use, it would be comparatively easy to frame two dictionaries,—one with words common to the Aryan family, the other with Dravidian words ; but the many written characters has rendered that impossible, and before the end of the 19th century, if no unexpected change occur, the English language will have become the chief medium of intercourse between the various races in British India.—Muller's Lectures, p. 163 ; Ouseley's Travels, i. p. 287 ; Ed. Jour., July 1867 ; Elphinstone's India, p. 179 ; Kennedy on the Origin of Languages, p. 16.