This article, through the use of several surveys, grammar books and articles on language written by colonial officials, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has explored how language became an instrument in the exercise of colonial power in Bihar in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Taking the case of a particular language Maithili, spoken in the Mithila region of Bihar, the paper has engaged with the suggestion by Bernard S. Cohn that the history of language can help us understand the mechanism of power in a colonial context. The aspirations of the rulers, as well as the intended and unintended implications caused by such experiments, are worth examining. They would help us answer many general questions about colonial policies and power – not just on the theme of language – such as the following: How does one situate the understanding of the rulers while writing a history of colonialism? How do different debates among the colonial administrators shape the policies of the government, and what does that tell us about the nature of colonial rule? How does one see the role of the ‘native’, both as an informant as well as the subject of study? How does one read the native agency?

中文翻译：

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为混乱带来秩序：殖民地国家对迈蒂利的侵占，约 1870 年代至 1940 年代

本文通过使用 19 世纪末和 20 世纪初殖民官员撰写的关于语言的若干调查、语法书和文章，探讨了语言如何成为 19 世纪末和 19 世纪末在比哈尔邦行使殖民权力的工具。二十世纪初。以比哈尔邦 Mithila 地区使用的特定语言 Maithili 为例，本文采纳了 Bernard S. Cohn 的建议，即语言史可以帮助我们理解殖民背景下的权力机制。统治者的愿望，以及这些实验所造成的有意和无意的影响，都值得研究。它们将帮助我们回答许多关于殖民政策和权力的一般性问题——不仅仅是关于语言的主题——例如：在撰写殖民主义史时，如何定位统治者的理解？殖民管理者之间的不同辩论如何影响政府的政策，这告诉我们殖民统治的本质是什么？人们如何看待“本地人”的角色，既是线人又是研究对象？如何阅读本地机构？