John Beames - Role in The Survival of The Oriya Language

Role in The Survival of The Oriya Language

The Oriya – Bengali language conflict had basically an economic origin. Language hegemony was deployed by sections of the Bengali colonial administration for the exercise of power by cornering government jobs. One of the earlier manifestations by resistance to the colonial administration in Orissa was the assertion of linguistic and cultural identity. .

In 1867, for instance, Deputy Magistrate Rangalal Bandhopadhyaya spoke in public meeting of the primacy of Bengali over Oriya. Like wise, well-known Bengali scholar Rajendralal Mitra who came to study the temples of Cuttack declared that there was no need to have a separate language for a mere 20 lakh Oriya population. In fact, Mitra argued that Orissa was doomed to remain backward so long as it had a separate language. Pandit Kanti Chandra Bhattacharya, a teacher of Balasore Zilla School, published a little pamphlet named ‘Udiya Ekti Swatantray Bhasha Noi (Oriya not an independent language) where Mr. Bhattacharya claimed that Oriya was not a separate and original form of language and was a mere corruption of Bengali. He suggested British Government to abolish all Oriya Vernacular Schools from Orissa and to alter into Bengali Vernacular Schools. Beames examines both the languages from close quarters and suggests that as a separate language “Uriya extends along the sea coast from Subarnarekha to near Ganjam.’ Landwards, its boundary is uncertain, it melts gradually into the Boud and other rude hill dialects and co-exists with them.” Beames wrote three notes that remain supremely important in this regard. ‘On the relation of the Oriya to the other modern Aryan language,’ ‘On Oriya language, script and literature’ and ‘Urya.’ These refuted the claim that Oriya was a dialect of Bengali, specifically the conspiracy of Bengali intellectuals to abolish Oriya Language got dimmed Beames’s exposition of the origin of Oriya language and study of its evolution brought him closer to the Oriya people who were battling then for the survival of their language.

John Beames represents perhaps the best face of British colonialism in Orissa. Educated, enlightened and well-meaning, he adapted to the land and its culture. While his contributions in the field of administration would be forgotten, his linguistic and cultural legacy remains historic. Beames empathized with the local culture and aspirations and made decisive interventions in the comparative study of languages. His support of the cause of Oriya was timely. It contributed vitally to community formation in Orissa during the 19th century.

Beames, who stayed for a considerable time in Orissa and worked for the survival of Oriya language quotes:

At a period when Oriya was already a fixed and settled language, Bengali did not exist. The Bengalis spoke a vast variety of corrupt forms of Eastern Hindi. It is till quite recent times that we find anything that can with proprietary to be called a bengali language.

We may place the Hindi with its subsidiary forms Gujurati and Punjabi first fixing their rise and establishment as a modern languages distinct from their previous existence as Prakrut till the 12th or m13th century. Oriya must have quite completed its transformation by the end of the 14th century. Bengali was no separate independent language but a maze of dialects without a distinct national or provincial type till the 17th or beginning of the 18th century. It was not till the gradual decay of the central Mohamedan power of Delhi enabled the provincial governors to assume an independent position that Bengali severed itself from Hindi and assumed characteristics which now vindicate for its right to be called a separate language.