Career and Scholarly Contribution
Beames’s scholarly contributions began early in his career. While at the district of Champaran, Bihar, he published essays in the Bengal Asiatic Society. These dealt with the question of retaining Arabic element in the official form of Hindustani. Treating Bishop Caldwell’s Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages as a model, he commenced work on the counterpart of Aryan languages. To The Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society, Beames contributed essays on Chand Bardoi and other old Hindi authors and studies on the antiquities and history of Orissa (1870-1883). In 1891, he published a pioneering volume Bengali Grammar, and after his retirement, he wrote for Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review. His reputation rightly rests on the Comparative Grammar of the Aryan Language of India, published in volumes in 1872, 1895 and 1879. John Beames (1837-1902) who served as the Collector of Balasore and Cuttack, became an important interlocutor of local linguistic and cultural aspirations. Little known even in Orissa, his evocative “Memoirs of a Bengal Civilian” is generally confined to antiquarian circles. The classicists remember his celebrated “Comparative Grammar of the Aryan Languages of India” and essays in Indian Antiquary and Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society. And yet, Beames remains foremost in his interventions for the survival of the Oriya language. He made outstanding contributions for regional formations in Eastern India.
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