Henry George Raverty (1825-1906) was an army officer in British India who, as a self-educated amateur scholar, made important contributions to the study of the languages, history, and cultures of India (present-day India and Pakistan) and Afghanistan. He sailed for India at the age of 15 or 16. After mastering Hindustani, Persian, Gujarati, and Marathi during his service in India, in 1849 he was transferred to Peshawar and the Northwest Frontier, where he turned his attention to Pushto and the language, history, and ethnology of Afghanistan. In 1855 he published volume one of his A Grammar of the Pukhto, Pushto, or Language of the Afgháns, which also includes a 50-page introduction on "the language, literature, and descent of the Afghan tribes." To complete the grammar, Raverty is credited with collecting and systematizing a body of grammatical and lexical material never previously assembled. Volume two of the grammar was published in 1856. The book was produced by subscription, and the first pages of volume one list the names of the subscribers, the chief of which was the government of India, which reserved 150 copies. The beginning of volume two contains a slip reminding subscribers to pay for their copies of the book, along with the necessary postage. Presented here are both tomes, which were printed at the Baptist Mission Press in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata). The second volume is still in its original binding; the first was rebound by the Library of Congress. Raverty issued a revised second edition of the grammar in 1860, and a third edition in 1867. His other major works include a monumental Dictionary of the Pushto or Afghan Language (1860; second edition 1867), an anthology of Pushto prose and poetry in English translation entitled Gulshan i Roh (1860); another book of translations, Poetry of the Afghans from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century (1862); and Notes on Afghanistan and Baluchistan, issued in four installments between 1881 and 1888.

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ A Grammar Of The Pukhto, Pushto, Or Language Of The Afghans; In Which The Rules Are Illustrated By Examples From The Best Writers, Both Poetical And Prose; Together With Translations From The Articles Of War, &c. And Remarks On The Language, Litterature And Descent Of The Afghan Tribes, Volume 2; A Grammar Of The Pukhto, Pushto, Or Language Of The Afghans; In Which The Rules Are Illustrated By Examples From The Best Writers, Both Poetical And Prose; Together With Translations From The Articles Of War, &c. And Remarks On The Language, Litterature And Descent Of The Afghan Tribes; Henry George Raverty Henry George Raverty Thomas, 1856

Excerpt from A Grammar of the Pukhto, Pushto, or Language of the Afghans: In Which the Rules Are Illustrated by Examples From the Best Writers, Both Poetical and Prose; Together With Translations From the Articles of War, and Remarks on the Language, Literature, and Descent of the Afghan Tribes In offering this Grammar of the Pushto to the Orientalist and the Student, as well as to those who may take an interest in the hardy, warlike, and independent race who speak the Afghan language, I deem it necessary to state, that the idea of the following pages originated in my being under the necessity of making a Grammar for my own convenience, during the years 1849 and 1850, when stationed at Peshawer with my Regiment, which formed part of the Bombay Division of the Army of the Panjab in the late campaign. Having a deal of leisure time on my hands, and imagining that by studying the peculiar and little known language of the Afghans, an Officer mi(ht be considered in some measure qualified for employment where the Pushto is spoken, I determined to try to acquire some knowledge of this dialect, the mastery of which had never been attempted, except by the late Major Leech, of the Bombay Engineers, and (as I have since found) Professor Bernhard Dorn, of St. Petersburgh. Unable to obtain or discover anything like a guide to the grammatical rules of the language, a matter to which the Afghans of the present day appear to have paid no attention, I commenced my studies with the poems of Mulla Æabdur-Rahman. I did not find them very difficult, or even so much so as I had expected; for I had the advantage - if such there be in knowing Oriental languages - of possessing some proficiency in Persian, and some acquaintance with Arabic and other tongues. Still there were difficulties to contend with; and I was obliged to make a sort of outline Grammar, which was filled in as I advanced, and examples compared and selected. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.