A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India/Volume 1/Chapter 1
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COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR
OF THE
MODERN ARYAN LANGUAGES
OF INDIA.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
§ 1. On analyzing the vocabulary of the seven languages which form the subject of this work, we observe at the outset that a large number of words are common to them all. In all, with slight modifications, ho means be; kar, do; â, come; jâ, go; khâ, eat; pî, drink; mar, die; mâr, strike; sun, hear; dekh, see; and among nouns a still greater number is found with but minor differences in each member of the group. Inasmuch as it is also clear that all of these numerous words are found in Sanskrit, we are justified in accepting so far the native opinion that Sanskrit is the parent of the whole family. By the term Sanskrit is meant that language in which the whole of the religious, legendary, and philosophical literature of the Aryan Indians is written, from the ancient hymns of the Vedas down to the latest treatises on ceremonies or metaphysics. That this language was once the living mother-tongue of the Aryan tribes may safely be conceded; that it was ever spoken in the form in which it has been handed down by Brahmanical authors may as safely be denied. If then the word Sanskrit be, as in strictness it should be, applied only to the written language, the statement that Sanskrit is the parent of the modern vernaculars must be greatly modified, and we should have to substitute the term Middle-Aryan to indicate the spoken language of the contemporaries of Vâlmîki and Vyâsa, the reputed authors of the two great Indian epics, Râmâyana and Mahâbhârata. To do this would, however, be to draw too fine a distinction, and might lead to confusion. We shall, therefore, use the word Sanskrit; but in order to make perfectly clear the sense in which it is used, and the exact relation which Sanskrit, both written and spoken, bears to the other languages, whether contemporaneous or subsequent to it, some further explanation is necessary.
Let it then be granted as a fact sufficiently proved in the following pages that the spoken Sanskrit is the fountain from which the languages of Aryan India originally sprung; the principal portion of their vocabulary and the whole of their inflectional system being derived from this source. Whatever may be the opinions held as to the subsequent influences which they underwent, no doubt can fairly be cast on this fundamental proposition. Sanskrit is to the Hindi and its brethren, what Latin is to Italian and Spanish.
The next point, however, is that, even to a casual observer, it is clear that the seven languages as they stand at present contain materials not derived from Sanskrit, just as Italian and French, without ceasing to be modern dialects of Latin, contain many words of Teutonic origin. These materials may be classed under two heads. First, those which are Aryan, though not Sanskritic. Secondly, those which are neither Sanskritic nor Aryan, but something else. What this something else is, remains to be seen; it is, in fact, the great puzzle of the whole inquiry: it is the mathematician’s x, an unknown quantity.
§ 2. First, then, we have to explain what is meant by the term, “Aryan, though not Sanskritic.” It may be accepted as a well-established fact, that the Aryan race entered India not all at once, nor in one body, but in successive waves of immigration. The tribes of which the nation was composed must therefore have spoken many dialects of the common speech. I say “must,” because it is contrary to all experience, and to all the discoveries hitherto made in the science of language, to suppose otherwise. All the races of the great Indo-European family, whether they migrated into India, Persia, or Europe, have been found, however far back they can be traced, to have spoken numerous dialects of a common language; but this common language itself only existed as one homogeneous speech, spoken without any differences of pronunciation or accent by the whole race, at a time far anterior to the earliest date to which they can be followed. Indeed, so much is this the case, that writers of high repute have not hesitated to declare that no such homogeneous speech ever existed at all; that, in fact, there never was one original Iranian, or one original Celtic or German language. I am inclined to give in my adhesion to this view, holding that the idea of one common language is the creation of modern times, and the effect of the spread of literature.[1] But leaving this on one side, the most probable hypothesis is, that the Aryans from the earliest times spoke many dialects, all closely akin, all having the same family likeness and tendencies common to all, perhaps in every case mutually intelligible, but still distinct and co-existent. One only of these dialects, however, became at an early period the vehicle of religious sentiment, and the hymns called the Vedas were transmitted orally for centuries, in all probability with the strictest accuracy. After a time the Brahmans consciously and intentionally set themselves to the task of constructing a sacred language, by preserving and reducing to rule the grammatical elements of this Vedic tongue. We cannot tell whether in carrying out this task they availed themselves of the stores of one dialect alone: probably they did not; but with that rare power of analysis for which they have ever been distinguished, they seized on the salient features of Aryan speech as contained in all the dialects, and moulded them into one harmonious whole; thus, for the first time in their history, giving to the Aryan tribes one common language, designed to be used as the instrument for expressing thoughts of such a nature as should be deemed worthy of preservation to all time.[2]
All this was anterior to the introduction of the art of writing; but when that art was introduced, it was largely used by the Brahmans for the reproduction of works in the sacred Sanskrit, that is, the purified quintessence and fullest development of the principles of Aryan speech.
But though Sanskrit had, by the labours of Pânini and others, become an historical fact, so that now at length there existed a standard, and purists might condemn, as in fact they did, all departures from it as vulgar errors and corruptions, it is beyond a doubt that the local dialects continued to live on. Sanskrit was not intended for the people; it was not to be endured that the holy language, offspring of the gods, should be defiled by issuing from plebeian lips; it kept its place apart, as the appropriate speech of pure Brahmans and mighty kings. But the local dialects held their own; they were anterior to Sanskrit, contemporary with it, and they finally survived it. Nevertheless, Sanskrit is older than the dialects. This sounds like a paradox, but it is true in two senses: first, that as the ages rolled on the vulgar dialects developed into new forms (“corrupted” is the common way of putting it), whereas Sanskrit remained fixed and fossilized for ever, so that now, if we wish to find the earliest extant form of any Aryan word, we must, in the great majority of instances, look for it not in the writings in the popular dialects which have come down to us, but in Sanskrit; and secondly, that although Pânini lived in an age when the early Aryan dialects had already undergone much change from their pristine condition, yet among the Brahmans for whom alone he laboured there existed a traditional memory of the ancient, and then obsolete, form of many words. They would remember these archaic forms, because their religious and professional duties required them constantly to recite formulæ of great antiquity, and of such sacredness that every letter in them was supposed to be a divinity in itself, and which had consequently been handed down from primeval times absolutely unchanged. In teaching his pupils the true principles of speech, Pànini would naturally use these archaic words in preference to the corruptions current around him, and thus the language which he to a certain extent created was in great part a resuscitation of antiquated terms, and thus literally older than the popular dialects which in point of time preceded its creation.[3]
Still there are words, and those not a few, which can be traced back to the Prakrits, as these popular forms of speech are called, though no signs of them exist in Sanskrit, and this is especially the case where two words of like meaning were current in the mouths of the people; one of which, from the accident of its being a popular form of some word in use in the Vedas, or from some other cause, was selected for refined and scholarly use, while the other was branded as vulgar, rejected, and left for the service of the masses. This class of words it is which I have classed as Aryan, though not Sanskritic.
To complete this branch of the subject, it is next necessary to describe briefly the position and relations of the Prakrits.
The Prakrit dialects are theoretically supposed to be those forms of the speech of the Aryans which were commonly used by the masses. In the earliest records we have, they are grouped under five heads, representing the local peculiarities of five provinces. First is the “lingua precipua,” or Mahârâshtrî, spoken in the country round the ancient city of Ujjayini, or Avanti, in Malwa. How far this language extended is not clear, but it may be assumed roughly to have included the south of Rajputana, and a considerable portion of the present northern Maratha country. Next the Saurasenî, spoken in Surasena, in modern times the country round Mathura. Thirdly, the Mâgadhi, the vernacular of Behar. Fourthly, the Paiśâchî or dialect of the Piśâchas, whose exact locality is not defined. And fifthly, the Apabhranśa, or “corrupt” dialect, which is perhaps to be found in Sindh and western Rajputana. That this division is artificial, and a mere grouping together of a mass of local dialects, is apparent from the fact that no two writers agree in their arrangement, and the total number of Prakrits is by some authors put as high as twenty or twenty-two. Be this as it may, it is sufficient for our present purpose to note that these dialects were numerous, and that they were in most cases designated by the name of the province where they were spoken. In the Sanskrit dramas, however, a still more artificial distinction prevails, a different dialect being attributed to each class of characters. Thus kings and Brahmans speak Sanskrit, ladies of high rank Maharashtri, servants, soldiers, buffoons, and the like use one or other of the inferior dialects. That this custom represents any state of things that ever existed is highly improbable. The ordinary business of life could not have been carried on amidst such a Babel of conflicting tongues. Perhaps the best solution of the difficulty is to suppose that the play-writers mimicked the local peculiarities of the various provinces, and as in India in the present day great men fill their palaces with servants drawn from all parts of the country, so it may have been then. A Bengali Zemindar employs men from the Panjab and Hindustan as guards and doorkeepers; his palanqueen-bearers come from Orissa, his coachmen and water-carriers from Northern Bengal, and so on. Similarly an ancient Indian king drew, we may suppose, his soldiers from one province, his porters and attendants from another, his dancers and buffoons from a third. These all when assembled at the capital would doubtless strike out some common language by which they could communicate with each other, just as in the present day Urdu is used all over India.[4] But just as this Urdu is spoken incorrectly by those whose mother-tongue it is not, so that the Bengali corrupts it by an admixture of Bengali words and forms, and speaks it with a strong Bengali accent; so in ancient times these servants and artificers, collected from all corners of a vast empire, would speak the common lingua franca each with his own country twang; and the Prakrit of the plays would appear to be an exaggerated representation, or caricature, of these provincial brogues.
But there are works of a more serious character to which we can refer for a solution of the problem of the real nature of the Prakrits. In the sixth century before Christ there arose in Behar the great reformer Sakyamuni, surnamed Buddha, or “the wise,” who founded a religion which for ten centuries drove Brahmanism into obscurity, and was the prevailing creed of almost all India. The religious works of the Buddhist faith, which are extremely numerous and voluminous, have been the means of preserving to us the Magadhi Prakrit of those days. Buddhism was imported into Ceylon in 307 b.c., and the Magadhi dialect under the name of Pali has become the sacred language of that island.[5]
Similarly another religious sect, the Jains, have used the Maharashtri Prakrit as the medium for expressing the tenets of their belief. There are also some poems in other Prakrit dialects.
Without going into details, which would be out of place here, it may be stated in a general way that the scenic Prakrit and that of the poems differ from Sanskrit more particularly in the omission of single consonants, and that this omission is carried to such an extent as to render one half or more of the words used unintelligible and unrecognizable; whereas in the religious works this practice, although it exists, is not allowed to run to such an extreme. As this subject will be reverted to further on, it need not be more than touched on here. It may be added that all the Prakrits are, like the Sanskrit, synthetical or inflectional languages.[6]
§ 3. Next comes the class of words described as neither Sanskritic nor Aryan, but x. It is known that on entering India the Aryans found that country occupied by races of a different family from their own. With these races they waged a long and chequered warfare, gradually pushing on after each fresh victory, till at the end of many centuries they obtained possession of the greater part of the territories they now enjoy. Through these long ages, periods of peace alternated with those of war, and the contact between the two races may have been as often friendly as hostile. The Aryans exercised a powerful influence upon their opponents, and we cannot doubt but that they themselves were also, but in a less degree, subject to some influence from them. There are consequently to be found even in Sanskrit some words which have a very un-Aryan look, and the number of such words is much greater still in the modern languages, and there exists therefore a temptation to attribute to non-Aryan sources any words whose origin it is difficult to trace from Aryan beginnings.
It may be as well here to point out certain simple and almost obvious limitations to the application of the theory that the Aryans borrowed from their alien predecessors. Verbal resemblance is, unless supported by other arguments, the most unsafe of all grounds on which to base an induction in philology. Too many writers, in other respects meritorious, seem to proceed on Fluellen's process, "There is a river in Macedon, and there is also moreover a river in Monmouth, and there is salmons in both." A certain Tamil word contains a P, so does a certain Sanskrit word, and ergo, the latter is derived from the former! Now, I would urge that, in the first place, the Aryans were superior morally as well as physically to the aborigines, and probably therefore imparted to them more than they received from them. Moreover, the Aryans were in possession of a copious language before they came into India; they would therefore not be likely to borrow words of an ordinary usual description, such as names for their clothing, weapons, and utensils, or for their cattle and tools, or for the parts of their bodies, or for the various relations in which they stood to each other. The words they would be likely to borrow would be names for the new plants, animals, and natural objects which they had not seen in their former abodes, and even this necessity would be reduced by the tendency inherent in all races to invent descriptive names for new objects. Thus they called the elephant hastin, or the "beast with a hand," and gaja, or the "roarer"; the monkey kapi, or the "restless beast," and vânara, or the "forest-man"; the peacock mayûra, in imitation of its cry. A third limitation is afforded by geographical considerations. Which were the tribes whom the Aryans mixed with, either as friends or foes? Could the bulk of them have come into frequent and close contact with the Dravidians, and if so, when and how? These are questions which it is almost impossible to answer in the present state of our knowledge, but they are too important to be altogether set aside, and it may be therefore pointed out merely as a contribution to the subject, that the tribes driven out of the valley of the Ganges by the Aryans were almost certainly Kols to the south, and semi-Tibetans to the north. It is fair to look with suspicion on an etymology which takes us from Sanskrit to Tamil without exhibiting a connecting series of links through the intervening Kol tribes.
If the above limitations are rigidly applied, they will narrow very much the area within which non-Aryan forms are possible in Sanskrit and its descendants, and will force us to have recourse to a far more extensive and careful research within the domain of Sanskrit itself than has hitherto been made, with a view to finding in that language the origin of modern words.
§ 4. Having thus noticed the three classes of materials which have entered into the composition of the seven languages, I now proceed to examine the question as it were from the interior, in order to attain to a certain amount of precision in estimating the relative proportions of each of these three elements. For this purpose it will be convenient to use the familiar native divisions, which go to the root of the matter as far as their lights enable them. Words in any of these seven languages are divided into three classes.
- Tatsama तत्सम, or "the same as it" (i.e. Sanskrit).
- Tadbhava तद्भव, or "of the nature of it."
- Deśaja देशज, or "country-born."
This division will be used throughout the following pages, and may be thus explained.
Tatsamas are those words which are used in the modern languages in exactly the same form as they wear in Sanskrit, such as दर्शन, राजा, कवि. The only change which these words have undergone is that in pronunciation; the final ah, am, of the Sanskrit masculine and neuter are rejected, and we hear darshan, nimantran, for darśanam, nimantraṇam.
Tadbhavas are those words which, though evidently derived from Sanskrit, have been considerably changed in the process, though not so much so as to obscure their origin. Such are H. आंख "eye," from Skr. अक्षि; कोइल a "cuckoo," Skr. कोकिल; गद्धा an "ass," Skr. गर्दभ.
Desajas are those words which cannot be derived from any Sanskrit word, and are therefore considered to have been borrowed from the aborigines of the country, or invented by the Aryans in post-Sanskritic times; such as पगडी a "turban," डाब an "unripe cocoa-nut," डोंगा a "canoe," and the like.
This classification supplies an additional method of arriving at a determination as to the proportion of these various elements in the seven languages. Tatsamas are all Sanskrit; even if the Sanskrit word were originally borrowed from non-Aryan sources, it has become, as far as the modern Aryans are concerned, pure and classical. Tadbhavas too are all Aryan, either Sanskritic or not; but there is so much to be said about these Tadbhavas later, that they may be passed over for the present as Aryan. We have then only Desajas left; and in considering them, it must be borne in mind that these seven languages have never been subjected to close scientific scrutiny: it is not yet known what are their laws and principles of derivation. A long string of writers, from Vararuchi downwards, have enunciated certain general rules which guide the transition of words from Sanskrit into Prakrit, but no step has been taken beyond this. Indian Pandits will not often waste their time on the vernaculars, and, if they do, are content to note such words as afford examples of any of the rules of Vararuchi or his successors, and to set down all words which cannot by the operation of these rules be at once transformed into Sanskrit as Deśaja. European scholars also have got no further than Prakrit, and seem to believe that the modern dialects are merely corruptions of Prakrit forms. It is therefore not presumptuous to say that further research, and a better acquaintance with the laws of development of these languages, will probably enable us ere long very much to diminish the number of these Desajas by tracing them back through newly discovered processes either to Sanskrit or Prakrit. Even as matters stand at present, if all the Tatsamas and all the Tadbhavas be Aryan, there is only a very small proportion left which can be non-Aryan.
§ 5. Of the three classes into which all the languages have been divided in the preceding section, Tatsamas are the least interesting to the student. This class consists of pure Sanskrit words which had long been dead and buried, so to speak, when in comparatively recent times they were resuscitated and brought into use by learned men, partly to supply real wants, but still more to show off their own learning. They have not been current in the mouths of the people long enough since their new birth to have undergone any of those processes of change to which all really living words in every language are constantly subjected; and a great many of them, especially in Bengali and Oriya, are not likely ever to be used colloquially. They ought certainly to be excluded from dictionaries.
It is to the Tadbhavas that we must turn if we would become acquainted with the secrets of the phonetic machinery of the Aryan Indians. Of these there are two sorts, so distinguished from one another that it is impossible to mistake them. The one class consists of those words which were in use in Prakrit, and in which the Prakrit processes have been carried one step further. The other contains words which apparently have not come through Prakrit, as they exhibit a more perfect form, and a nearer approach to the Sanskrit than the Prakrit form does. The problem which has to be explained is this, whence comes it that words in the modern languages preserve a greater degree of resemblance to Sanskrit or old Aryan, than the Prakrits do? How is it, for instance, that Hindi has rât, râg, nâgarî, gaj, for Sanskrit râtri, râga, nâgari, gaja, where Prakrit has only râï, râä, nâari, gaä? If these modern languages were regularly descended, in respect of such words as these, from Sanskrit through Prakrit, the letters which had been lost in the latter could never have been restored. The masses speak by ear, and by habit. Even in India, where people perhaps think more about the languages they speak than we do in Europe, the majority of speakers, after râï had been in use for several generations, would not be aware that the letters tr had dropped out; and even if they became aware of this fact, no one would go about to restore them. How many Englishmen know that a g has dropped out of such words as say, day, nail, sail, rain[7], and how many, if they knew it, would care to make the innovation of putting them back again? In the Spanish of Cervantes, when Don Quixote, in one of his lofty flights, used the then rapidly obsolescent forms fermosa, fazañas, facienda, amabades, and the like, for the more usual hermosa, hazañas, hacienda, amabais, he is held up to ridicule, even though some of his hearers were educated men, and must have known the Latin formosa, facinus, facienda, amabatis.
There is, it appears to me, only one way of accounting for the presence of words like rât and the rest in the modern languages, and that is, deliberate purpose on the part of some person or set of persons who had sufficient influence to effect what they desired. This set of persons can be no other than the Brahmans. In this instance history, usually so silent in ancient India, steps in to help us. We know that the Buddhists were finally extirpated by the Brahmans about the ninth or tenth century of our era, just before the dawn of modern Indian literature. Brahmanism then resumed its sway, and gradually crushed out the hostile sect, though they still lingered on in some parts of India for a long time. Sârang Dev, son of Bisal Dev, King of Ajmer, in the ninth century,[8] embraced Buddhism, but was argued back into the orthodox faith by the contemptuous remonstrances of his father, who urged that this नष्ट ग्यान, nashṭa gyân, or, as we should say, "exploded theory," was not a becoming religion for a Rajput prince.[9] At this time the Saiva form of Hinduism was being singularly mixed up with the newer and more attractive Vaishnava creed, and the Brahmans were rapidly resuming their long-lost sway over the popular mind. Now Buddhism had specially selected the vernaculars of the day as the vehicle for its teaching, and the Brahmans, in resuscitating their religion, naturally brought back the sacred Sanskrit. In the passage above cited Bisal Dev exhorts his son to have the Ramayan, Mahabharat, and Purans read to him, and in the same poem the bard recites the names and number of verses of the eighteen Purans as a means of purifying the souls of his listeners. The public readings and recitations of Sanskrit works must have familiarized the minds of the masses with the ancient forms of words, and no doubt the Brahmans did their best to foster the use of these ancient forms, as they do at the present day, so that gradually a large class of words in their pure Sanskrit shape got into circulation. These words, when once more current, naturally began to undergo the influences which are always at work upon human speech, and developed by degrees into the forms in which we now have them. This process, once begun, has continued to the present day.
The words resuscitated from Sanskrit in the post-Buddhistic period do not appear to have been changed according to the same general rules as those which prevailed in times when the Prakrits were spoken. In those earlier times the elision of single consonants in the middle of a word seems to have been almost universal, and even initial letters are sometimes rejected. But in the modern words a more manly and vigorous pronunciation obtained, and these elisions are not so frequent. It is unadvisable here to anticipate remarks more properly belonging to Chapter III., and I content myself therefore with noting the fact.
We have, then, a continuous succession of layers or strata of words, from those which have come down through the Prakrits, and which I call, for the sake of distinction, early Tadbhavas, to those which were revived from Sanskrit at the time of the reaction against Buddhism; and after these a constant series of words, to be called modern or late Tadbhavas, less and less removed from the pure Sanskrit form in proportion as the date of their revival is more and more recent; till at last we reach words which have only been dug up by Pandits in the present century, and have not yet had time to become changed in any way. Some of the early Tadbhavas have been exceedingly altered, so much so that all resemblance to Sanskrit has been lost, and the Pandits have therefore classed them together with non-Aryan words as Desaja.
§ 6. It may now be asked, how do we distinguish between early and late Tadbhavas in cases where the word is not found in any Prakrit writer? To answer this, an analogy must be drawn from the Romance languages of Europe, whose relation to the Latin is so strikingly parallel to that which our seven languages bear to Sanskrit. It is not intended here to carry out the comparison to its fullest extent. Deeply interesting and fascinating as the task would be, this is not the place for it, nor are sufficient materials available. But it may be stated as a general proposition, that in the whole realm of linguistic science there exists no more remarkable similarity than that between the history of the development down to its minutest particulars of the Romance group of languages, the Provençal, Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and the indications, we cannot call it history, of the origin and growth of the Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, and Sindhi.[10]
It is observable in French that there are often two forms of the same word—one ancient, the other modern. The ancient word, though often very much corrupted, invariably retains the accent on the same syllable as in the Latin. And the reason of this is plain: in the days when those words were adopted into common use by the inhabitants of Gaul, they were taken, as it were, from the lips of the Romans themselves and accentuated naturally just as the Romans accentuated them. They became current colloquially long before they were written in many instances, and could not fail to be pronounced correctly. But the modern forms of these words were resuscitated by learned men from Latin authors where they occurred, just as the Pandits do and have done with Sanskrit words. In borrowing these words the savants of later times did not know how they were pronounced, and did not care; they merely cut off the Latin termination, and pronounced the word as seemed best to themselves; as the modern and mediæval French accent differ considerably in the place of their incidence from the Latin accent, the result is that in no case does the modern or scientific term bear the accent on the same syllable as in Latin.[11]
Now in Sanskrit there is also a system of accentuation, though not yet, I believe, entirely understood, and consequently an analogous procedure to the above may be traced in the case of the Indian languages also. Acting upon this assumption, if we find a word retaining, in spite of various changes in its form in other respects, the accent on the same syllable as in Sanskrit, it will not be altogether unreasonable to conclude that it was derived from that language, at a time when it was still spoken among learned men, or, at all events, when a knowledge of its true pronunciation had not died out, and we may, therefore, ascribe to it an antiquity of no mean kind. In some cases, however, though the principle is the same, the method of expression of it is slightly varied; in other words, the Sanskrit accent is reproduced and perpetuated by lengthening the vowel on which it fell and by shortening adjacent long vowels, This is especially the case, to take a common example, in oxytone nouns, which always, if early Tadbhavas, end in â—î, or ô—î, as the proclivity of the language may incline; an oxytone noun, when it becomes a late Tadbhava, neglects the accent, and ends with the consonant. Thus, we find from Skr. क्षुर "knife" (oxytone), H. छुरा; while from Skr. क्षेत्र "field" (oxytone), we get H. खेत्, M. शेत्, and a consonantal ending in all the languages. We should therefore set down the first of these words as an early, the second as a late, Tadbhava. So also when we see that Skr. क्षीर "milk" (oxytone), makes, not khîrâ, but खीर khîr, in all the languages, we have grounds for holding that the word has been resuscitated in comparatively modern times; and in the case of this particular word we are supported in this idea by the fact that khîr is not the ordinary word for "milk." In all the languages the common word is दूध, an undoubtedly ancient Tadbhava from Skr. दुग्ध; khîr is rather an affectation of modern times, and in some of the languages has a secondary meaning; while to dûdh is reserved the simple primary signification; khîr is used for a preparation of boiled rice and milk.
Another instance is the causal verb in Sanskrit, which has the accent on the first syllable of the characteristic, as in चोरयति choráyati, The Hindi in all its pure causals is followed by Bengali, Oṛiya, Panjabi, and Gujarati in retaining a long â in the same position, as churânâ, bajânâ, milânâ, karânâ. This long â is not produced by rejecting the y of aya, and contracting the two vowels into one, as is proved by the fact that in old Hindi the last a of the two has gone out, leaving the y changed into u, as karâunâ, dikhâunâ, bujhâunâ, forms still in use in many rustic parts of India. Moreover, though the first syllable of the verb in Sanskrit takes guṇa, yet we find in the moderns that its lack of accent subjects it to be shortened, as in the examples above given. In Marathi the causal verb is formed by the insertion of the syllables अवि, or इव, or ववि, as mârnen, "to kill," mâravinen, "to cause to kill"; khânen, "to eat," khâvavinen, "to cause to eat"; soḍnen, "to loose," soḍavinen, "to cause to loose." In the first of these forms the y of âya is changed to v, just as in Hindi it becomes u, and though both the short vowels remain, yet the influence of the accent operates in retaining the accented vowel as a, while the unaccented vowel is weakened to i. In vavi we have the same form, but with a v prefixed, and the form iva is a mere modern corruption, which is rejected in many cases by good authors.
Although, however, I think sufficient proof is obtainable of the fact of accentual influence, I am far from being in a position to push the theory to its full length. In truth the accent is always a difficult and obscure matter, and it is the more so in the modern languages, because they have passed through a period, a very long period, of their existence without a literature.
§ 7. It is this absence of written memorials by which to trace the current popular speech which constitutes, and probably always will constitute, the main difficulty of the inquiry. The great value to philologists of the Romance group of languages consists in the fact that they originated in historical times, and the various stages of their growth and development lie before our eyes in a long series of documents. "The language of the native population, the changes which took place in their political condition, the races and languages of the invaders and of the other foreign nations with which they came in contact, are all certainly known: and although the early stages of these Latin dialects, when they were merely barbarous and unfixed jargons, formed by the intercourse of natives and strangers, spoken chiefly among illiterate persons, and used neither as the language of the Government, of legal instruments, nor of books, are not only (with the exception of a few words) wholly unknown, but lost beyond hope of recovery; yet the events which accompanied and occasioned their origin are matter of historical record; and, if we cannot always say with certainty to what precise cause the changes which the Latin underwent were owing, our information enables us at least to obtain negative results, and to exclude undoubtingly many hypotheses which might be tenable if we had merely the languages without a contemporary history of the times when they arose.”[12] It is precisely in this respect that the Indian languages are wanting. In early Indian literature we have Sanskrit and the Prakrits only, and though these latter by exhibiting certain phonetic changes help us very much in tracing the origin of modern words, yet in the inflectional department, so to speak, they afford very little real assistance, because they remain still purely synthetical. Moreover, those Prakrits which contain the greatest amount of literature lie under the same suspicion as Sanskrit, namely, that they do not represent the spoken language of their day. It seems, unhappily, to have been the fate of every Indian language, that directly men began to write in it, they ceased to be natural, and adopted a literary style which was handed down from one generation of writers to another, almost, if not entirely, unchanged. Thus not only has the Sanskrit remained fixed and unaltered through all the ages, but the Buddhists have fossilized one dialect of Prakrit, and the Jains another; so that whatever may be the date of any works either in Sanskrit or the Prakrits which have been, or may hereafter be, discovered, we cannot accept even the most recent of them as exhibiting the real contemporary condition of any vernacular. In point of development, we do not get lower down than about the first century of our era; for even if we get a Jain book written in the fifth or sixth century, we shall find it composed in the language of the first or second, just as a Sanskrit work written yesterday is composed in a form of speech which has not been current for twenty-seven centuries. The curtain falls on Indian languages, then, about the first century, and does not rise again till the tenth; and when it rises, the dawn of modern literature and speech-formation is already breaking, and our Indian "morning-star of song," Chand Bardai, is heard chanting the gestes of Prithiraj in a dialect which, though rude and half-formed, is still as purely analytical as the common familiar talk of the Indians of to-day. How are we to throw light on this long night of nine centuries, how fill up the details of the changes that occurred in these languages during the time when
Illachrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotæque longâ
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro?
We may get as near to the brink of this vast gap on either side as we can, but I very much doubt if the intervening space will ever be filled up; the materials seem lost for ever. Buddhism is our only chance, but if the Buddhistic literature which remains to be disinterred prove, as almost certainly it will, to be no more faithful a representative of current speech than those works which have already been made accessible to the public, there seems to be nothing more to hope for, and these nine centuries must remain for ever a sealed book.
In the absence therefore of strict historical data, we are driven to fall back upon the argument derived from analogy, and especially the analogy of the Romance languages. The accent affords one example of the method in which this analogy may be made useful. The Sanskrit accent is not in all cases known, but here again, arguing from the analogy of those words in which it is known, as well as from the great similarity of the Greek accent, which has fortunately been preserved, trustworthy results may be obtained. I now pass on to the mention of another point which it is necessary to bear in mind in taking a survey of the whole subject. A Desaja word may, like an early Tadbhava, be derived from a word which though not Sanskritic is yet Aryan, and such a word may not be found either in Sanskrit or in Prakrit. It would be then necessary to search for it in all the branches of the Indo-Germanic family before giving it up. This undertaking lies beyond the scope of the present work, but the modern Aryan languages will not have been completely investigated till some one works out this portion of the inquiry. Such a word, though not used in Indian literature, may have been in use in the mouths of the people, and may be current under some slight disguise in the mouths of Lithuanian peasants even yet. To refer once more to Latin, it is well known that most of the words forming the present Romance languages are derived from what is called "low Latin," which is merely the speech of the vulgar as distinguished from that of the higher classes and from the literary style. Thus, to take one instance out of many, the word for "horse," cheval, cavallo, caballo, is from the Latin caballus, a word used by the peasantry, and only occasionally admitted into the higher style. The classical equivalent equus has left no direct descendant, though in modern times the words "equipage," "equitation," and so forth, have been coined from it. We are not so much concerned with the general fact as with the reasons of it, and these are so important to our subject that they must be noticed in full. The first reason is this. It is well known that the modern French, Spanish, etc., were originally mere colloquial languages, and took their rise from the corruptions introduced into the Latin spoken by the lower classes in Italy by the barbarous Teutonic tribes, who invaded and overran the countries which owned the Roman sway. The inability of Lombards, Burgundians, Goths, and Franks, to accustom themselves to the correct use of the inflectional terminations of the Latin arose, not, as some have thoughtlessly said, from their newness to the system of synthetical construction in the abstract, because we know that the inflections of the early Teutonic languages were in some respects even more complicated than those of the Latin, but from their rudeness and the as yet undeveloped state of their mental powers. They were too rough and careless to substitute the Roman grammatical system for their own, in spite of the close resemblance between the two. Men in a low state of civilization see distinctions sooner than resemblances. They differentiate more readily than they generalize. The difference between their own language and that of the Romans[13] struck them forcibly, while it has been reserved for a much later generation to discover the fundamental unity of both. They therefore not only made havoc of the inflectional terminations of the Latin language,—in doing which they were doubtless aided by the tendency already beginning to develope itself among the Romans themselves towards an analytical form of speech,—but they also rejected such Latin words as they found any difficulty in pronouncing, substituting for them their own German words. It must also be remembered that for centuries before her fall Rome had been propped by foreign spears. Briton, Spaniard, and Gaul had fought in her legions, and guarded the palaces of her capital. Juvenal’s "barbara quæ pictis venit bascanda Britannis" is only a type of a large class of words familiar to the later Romans, but which were quite unknown to writers of the Augustan age."[14] Just as we English have borrowed loot, punkah, jungle, and the like, from our great dependency of India, so the Roman picked up words from Asia, Egypt, Northern Europe, and far-distant Britain. The language thus composed was undoubtedly, when tested by the standard of classical Latin, very uncouth and barbarous, and was in consequence for many centuries despised by learned men, who continued to write, and even to speak, Latin. It was not till the thirteenth century that some great minds broke through the prejudices of their age, and, influenced by a strong desire of being intelligible to the mass of their countrymen, commenced timidly and half apologetically to write in the vulgar tongue. If then this was the case in Southern Europe, we are justified, by the known analogy between the Romance processes of development and those of the modern Aryans, in believing that the same thing took place in India. The assumption is so much the more reasonable in the latter class of languages, because the Brahmans were animated by an openly avowed and steadily pursued design of keeping their writings sacred from the intrusion of the people, and, believing or professing to believe their language to be of divine origin, were more earnest and careful in preserving it from being polluted by the introduction of "low-caste" words, than the Roman poets and historians, who had no higher motives than a search after grace and euphony. Moreover, works continued to be composed in Sanskrit long after the rise of the modern vernaculars, and it is a singular coincidence in point of time, that Chand, the earliest writer in any modern Indian language, is very nearly contemporaneous with the predecessors of Dante; so that the human mind in India broke itself free from the shackles of a dead language very much about the same time as in Europe. The parallel of course does not hold good as regards the invasion of foreign races, because the Greeks, the only early invaders of India whom we know of, appear to have left little or no traces behind them in respect of language. The astrological terms borrowed by Sanskrit writers were not obtained from Alexander or his soldiers; and the influence of the Muhammadans was not felt till much later in the day. But it holds good in so far that there was evidently a vulgar speech and a polished one. The former has perished, except that much of it which Buddhism has preserved for us; the latter continued to be written long after it had ceased to be intelligible to the masses.
The second reason is a somewhat Darwinian one. There seems to exist among words, even as among living beings, a struggle for existence, terminating in the "survival of the fittest." It is clear from all that has hitherto been discovered in linguistic science that the progress of development of all languages is from the harsh and complicated to the smooth and simple. The words in ancient languages are cumbered with a mass of letters, sounds, and combinations, which in the course of ages wear away by use, leaving short simple words behind. Tenues slide into mediæ, gutturals soften into palatals, compound letters melt into simple ones, single consonants drop out of sight altogether, sometimes carrying with them adjacent vowels.
Now it is evident that a word which at first starting is well provided with plenty of good stout consonants and broad clear vowels has a better chance of surviving through the various processes of clipping, melting, and squeezing, which it is fated to undergo in its passage through the ages, than a word which starts ill provided and weak.
Such words as ovis, avis, we see at once, have no chance; deprived at an early period of their termination, as superfluous, they sink into ove, ave, and then into oë, aë, words too slight and weak for ordinary use. It is this cause which probably led to the survival of the hard, strong words in use among the sturdy peasantry, and of the diminutives in -culus and -cellus, which give a good working basis. Thus, we find from avicellus, Ital. uccello, Fr. oiseau; from auricula, Ital. orecchio, Span. oreja, Fr. oreille; and thus the weak os, oris, has given way to the coarse and strong bucca, Fr. bouche, Ital. bocca, Span. boca.
That the same process took place in Indian languages is proved by the fact that we find in the earlier Hindi poets weak words in a great state of dilapidation, just as we do in the early Provençal Troubadours. These words have now dropped out of use, and are replaced by stronger and more enduring words, which, though in their turn they have been subjected to the usual laws of development, yet retain sufficient stuff and substance to make them practically useful.
§ 8. Hitherto I have been writing as though the proportion of the three classes of words were the same in all the languages. This is, however, so far from being the case that it is necessary to enter on some details to show how the matter really stands. The point is one on which it is very difficult to come to a definite conclusion. It is characteristic, though little to our credit as a nation, that after a century of rule in India we should have produced so few good dictionaries of this group of languages. In Hindi we have Shakespear and Forbes, but
neither of these works is more than a very copious vocabulary, and both are derived almost exclusively from the written language.[15] In Bengali Dr. Carey’s huge quartos are a Sanskrit
dictionary in Bengali characters, and Mendies’s is merely a
vocabulary. Sutton’s Oṛiya dictionary is meagre, incorrect, and full of Bengali and Sanskrit words, instead of pure Oriya. The Ludiana missionaries' Panjabi work is a meritorious and accurate performance, but it can scarcely be called a dictionary, and the same may be said of Captain Stack’s vocabularies of Sindhi. Shahpurji Edalji’s Gujarati dictionary is a very inferior and scanty contribution to our knowledge, and I am driven, by comparison with works written in that language, to doubt its accuracy in more than one instance. By far the best of the whole set is Molesworth’s Marathi dictionary. This is really deserving of the name. The words are classed and distinguished, as literary or colloquial, full examples are given to show the way in which they are used, and meritorious, though sometimes mistaken, attempts at derivation are also supplied.
The materials being thus defective, an opinion can only be given with some hesitation; but in a general way it may be said that the proportion of Tatsama words is greatest in Bengali, Oṛiya, and Marathi; less in Hindi and Gujarati; and least in Panjabi and Sindhi. In the latter language, in fact, a pure Sanskrit word in its original shape is hardly ever met with. This position is easily explained by geographical and historical considerations. The first province of India which was conquered by foreigners was Sindh, the next the Panjab. These provinces, especially the former, adopted the Muhammadan religion at an early date.[16] Brahmans are, and have long been, comparatively scarce in both places. The Prakrits in use in both, especially in Sindh, were always noted for their extreme corruptness. A soil, for the most part sterile, and more suited to a pastoral than to an agricultural people, was left by the main stream of the Aryan immigrants to the cattle-tending Abhiri, or Ahirs, and to the Gujars and other rude tribes, to whom supervened the Jats, a branch of the great Kshatriya or Rajput caste, who had been excluded from fellowship for some reason which has not yet been fathomed. With so rude a population as this it is not wonderful that the language became debased, and that the constant state of warfare and turmoil in which the people lived for ages, the perpetual sieges of their towns, pillagings of their humble dwellings, wholesale slaughter of their cattle, and the other annually recurring horrors with which they were visited, should have left them neither opportunity nor inclination for literary pursuits, by which alone their language could have been polished and continually renewed by resuscitations of pure Sanskrit words.
In the case of Hindi and Gujarati (which is after all little more than a dialect of Hindi) we find considerable similarity to that of Sindhi and Panjabi. In Hindi there are more Tadbhava words than in any other language, and it is in this respect the most useful and instructive of all of them to the philologist. The Hindi area was, as is well known, overrun by Musulmans as much as any part of India; but there and in Gujarat the final settling down of foreigners in the country did not take place till the end of the twelfth century, more than four hundred years later than in Sindh and the Panjab, and the language, starting as it did from a tolerably pure form of Prakrit, had time to carry out a system of regular and legitimate modifications of Sanskrit words, which it would be unfair to call corruptions.[17] Such a large number of Sanskrit words underwent developmental changes, and became thus fit and useful elements of practical daily speech, that the demand for new words to express novel ideas was reduced to a minimum. It must be remembered also that such new ideas came from the Musulman invaders, who, with the idea, also brought in a word of their own to express it; so that, except in the case of the old Hindu poets, who, as their verses turned chiefly upon points of the Brahmanical religion, had occasion frequently to recur to Sanskrit, there was in the nation at large no general demand for the Tatsama class of words.
§ 9. I must here express my views on the Hindi language in general, and I do so thus early in the dissertation, as it may be that there will be found to be some novelty in them, and perhaps they will not be readily accepted by those who are interested in supporting the claims of other languages of the class. For I should here mention, for the benefit of European readers, that there exists in India a sort of rivalry between the Aryan languages, or rather between the three principal ones, Hindi, Marathi, and Bengali, each considering itself superior to the others, and my Bengali and Marathi friends will probably not agree with me in giving the palm to Hindi until they read my reasons for so doing, and perhaps not even then.
Hindi is that language which is spoken in the valley of the Ganges and its tributaries, from the watershed of the Jamnâ, the largest and most important of them, as far down as Rajmahal, the point where the Ganges takes a sudden turn to the south, and breaks out into the plains of Bengal. This area is the centre and principal portion of Aryan India. It includes the Antarbed or Doab between the Ganges and the Jamnâ, the "inner hearth" of the nation, It is therefore the legitimate heir of the Sanskrit, and fills that place in the modern Indian system which Sanskrit filled in the old. Under the general head of Hindi are included many dialects, some of which differ widely from one another, though not so much so as to give them the right to be considered separate languages. Throughout the whole of this vast region, though the dialects diverge considerably, one common universal form of speech is recognized, and all educated persons use it. This common dialect had its origin apparently in the country round Delhi, the ancient capital, and the form of Hindi spoken in that neighbourhood was adopted by degrees as the basis of a new phase of the language, in which, though the inflections of nouns and verbs remained purely and absolutely Hindi, and a vast number of the commonest vocables were retained, a large quantity of Persian and Arabic and even Turkish words found a place, just as Latin and Greek words do in English. Such words, however, in no way altered or influenced the language itself, which, when its inflectional or phonetic elements are considered, remains still a pure Aryan dialect, just as pure in the pages of Wali or Saudâ, as it is in those of Tulsi Dâs or Bihâri Lâl. It betrays therefore a radical misunderstanding of the whole bearings of the question, and of the whole science of philology, to speak of Urdu and Hindi as two distinct languages. When certain agitators cry out that the language of the English courts of law in Hindustan should be Hindi and not Urdu, what they mean is that clerks and native writers should be restrained from importing too many Persian and Arabic words into their writings, and should use instead the honest old Sanskrit Tadbhavas with which the Hindi abounds. By all means let it be so, only let it not be said that the Urdu is a distinct language from Hindi.[18] By means of the introduction of Arabic and Persian words, a very great benefit has been conferred on Hindi, inasmuch as it has thus been prevented from having recourse to Sanskrit fountains again and again for grand and expressive words. This resuscitation of Sanskrit words in their classical form—a process which has been going on in the modern languages for ages, and is still at work as vigorously as ever, just as the resuscitation of Latin words has always been and is still going on in French—has done a serious injury to some languages of the Indian group, inasmuch as it has led them to drop their Tadbhavas, which are the most valuable class of words that a language can possess, not only on account of the light they throw on the philological processes which the language has undergone, but because, having cast away all that was difficult of pronunciation, cumbrous, and superfluous in the ancient language, they possess the perfection of flexibility, neatness, and practical usefulness. In some languages, notably in Bengali, Tatsama words have been borrowed from Sanskrit, and employed in written works, in cases where there already existed good serviceable Tadbhavas. The result has been that the unfortunate peasant who knows no Sanskrit finds it more and more difficult every day to acquire knowledge, and the education of the masses is thus retarded. In respect of Tadbhavas, Hindi stands pre-eminent, whether it be that form of Hindi which relies principally upon indigenous sources for its words, or that other widely employed form which has incorporated the flower and grace of Persian and Arabic nouns, and which is called sometimes Urdu, sometimes Hindustani.
All the other languages of the group were originally dialects of Hindi, in this sense that Hindi represents the oldest and most widely diffused form of Aryan speech in India. Gujarati acknowledges itself to be a dialect of the Sauraseni Prakrit, the parent of Hindi. Panjabi, even at the present day, is little more than an old Hindi dialect. Bengali, three centuries ago, when it first began to be written, very closely resembled the Hindi still spoken in Eastern Behar. Oṛiya is in many respects more like Hindi than Bengali. There remain only the Sindhi and the Marathi. The former of these has always been very distinct from the rest; nevertheless it shades off in some respects imperceptibly into Panjabi on the one hand, and the wilder Hindi dialects of the great Rajputana desert on the other. I am half afraid to speak about Marathi, as some of the Bombay authors who have written on that language proclaim it to be the noblest, most perfect, most eloquent, and so on, of all Indian languages. Molesworth, however, who is remarkable for the sobriety of his judgment in linguistic matters, derives a considerable proportion of the words in his Marathi dictionary from the Hindi; although he guards himself by stating that he only introduces the Hindi word because it is the same as the Marathi, and may therefore be the origin of it. It is rather hasty to assume that modern Marathi is the lineal descendant of the Maharashtri Prakrit. There is quite as much of the Magadhi and Sauraseni type in the modern Marathi as there is of the Maharashtri; and in the long period which intervenes between Vararuchi and the rise of the modern languages, so much confusion took place, and such a jumbling together and general displacement of dialects, that it is absurd now-a-days to attempt to affiliate any modern Indian language as a whole to any Prakrit dialect, Maharashtri and Marathi have little in common except the name.
§ 10, I now return from a long digression to take up the thread of my remarks. In Hindi, as I have said, the number of Desaja and Tadbhava words is much larger than that of Tatsamas. In Bengali and Oṛiya it is not so. These languages delight in Tatsama words, and the learned in those provinces are proud of having such words in their language, being or pretending to be under the impression that they have always been in use and have come down to the present day unaffected by the laws of development to which all languages are subject. This is an obvious error. If the Pandits' idea were true, these languages would be real phenomena, absolute linguistic monstrosities. That a language should have preserved two-fifths of its words entirely free from change or decay, while the remaining three-fifths had undergone very extensive corruption, and that many of the uncorrupted words should be such as are of the commonest daily use, would indeed be marvellous. Such a fact can only be admitted under the following conditions. Either the word in its original Sanskrit form must have been short, strong, and simple, so that it offered no encumbrances to be got rid of, and no difficult combinations to be simplified, such as राजा, जन, कुल, which could not be made easier or simpler than they were: or the Sanskrit word must have embodied some ceremonial, religious, or political idea which has preserved it intact, and apart from the current of general usage, as ब्राह्मण, दर्शन, पूजा; in which case there are often two forms of the same word in existence—the Tatsama form used in a religious or special sense, and the Tadbhava in an ordinary sense; thus, we have दर्शन करना, used to express the act of visiting the shrine of an idol, and देखना, for the general act of seeing. In English the same thing occurs in the case of words derived direct from the Latin, which correspond to the Indian Tatsamas, and the same derived through the medium of the French, which are like Tadbhavas. Thus, we have the Tatsamas legal, regal, hospital, and the Tadbhavas loyal, royal, hotel, both sets of words coming from legalis, regalis, and hospitalis, respectively. In French the instances are still more numerous. A few have been given in § 7.
The excessive number of Tatsamas in Bengali and Oriya, so far from indicating a high standard of preservation, points rather to great poverty in the language. These two forms of speech were in use in the two remotest provinces of the Indian empire. The arts and sciences and the busy movements of the world centred at first in the Antarbed, or country between the Ganges and Jamnâ, and round the great Hindu capitals, such as Dilli, Kanauj, Ayudhya, Kasi, and in later ages round the first-named, by that time corrupted into Delhi, and its twin capital, Agra. In those places, therefore, Sanskrit words expressive of a variety of ideas remained alive, and underwent gradual simplification from constant use. The language spoken in those places, the Hindi, thus became rich in Tadbhavas. In the remote marshes of Bengal and the isolated coast-line of Orissa the Aryan pulse beat but feebly. Life was ruder and less civilized, and non-Aryan tribes mustered in great force in the plains as well as in the hills. The extremities lagged behind the heart, words which had a meaning in the courts and cities of Northern and Western India were not known to or required by the nearly naked Bengali crouching in his reed hut in those outlying regions.[19]
What the colloquial languages of Bengal and Orissa were like previous to the sixteenth century we have no means of knowing. The only literature consisted of a few poetical works, whose authors did not care to keep close to the popular speech. We may, however, assume that in a country where the civilization was defective, the language would be poor. When the English came into India by sea, instead of, as former conquerors had come, by land, they were forced by circumstances to fix their capital in Bengal, thus reversing the whole system of Indian government, whose centre had hitherto always been in the upper provinces. The language of the province adjacent to the new capital naturally attracted the attention of the ruling race. The discovery of the existence of the Sanskrit language, which occurred at a time when the English were imperfectly acquainted with the great Gangetic valley, excited the imaginations of the few learned men who at that time resided in Bengal, and they readily gave credence to the assertion that this glorious and perfect language, which they had recently found to be the sister, if not the mother, of Greek and Latin, was also the mother of Bengali. The science of comparative philology was then in its cradle. Bopp's first work did not appear till 1816, and Jacob Grimm's a little later. Our Indian philologists had no means of testing the relationship between Sanskrit and Bengali; and even if they had possessed any such means, it is doubtful if they would have used them. The early inquirers in Bengal seem to have been very much ruled by their Pandits, and swallowed, with a credulity which amazes us, the most audacious assertions of the Brahmans.
Of course, in the matter of languages, the great Brahmanical theory was, and among the orthodox still to a great extent is, that Sanskrit, a divine invention, is the only true and correct Indian language, and that all deviations from Sanskrit observable in the conversation of the masses are corruptions arising from ignorance; and that to purify and improve the vernaculars—Bengali, for instance—every word should be restored to its original Sanskrit shape, and the stream be made to run upwards to its source. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for the world at large, this could not be done in the spoken language; but it might at least be done in books, especially in the numerous educational works which the English were then causing to be written. So completely did this idea prevail, that the honest old Tadbhavas were entirely banished from books, and a host of Tatsamas dug up from their graves, and resuscitated for daily use. That the Sanskrit, like every other language, was subject to the laws of development, and that Bengali, like every other language, was merely the natural result of those laws, never occurred to Carey, Yates, and their brethren; and if such an idea had crossed their minds, it would have been banished as a heresy by the Pandits. Orissa at a later date followed the lead of Bengal, and from the causes above mentioned it has resulted that in both provinces the national speech has been banished from books, and now lives only in the mouths of the people; and even they, as soon as they get a little learning, begin to ape their betters and come out with the Tatsamas with which both languages are now completely flooded.[20]
In Marathi the preponderance of Tatsama words, though sufficiently marked, is not so much so as in Bengali. The Marathi country was not invaded by the Musulmans till a comparatively late period, and as the Brahmans of that province have always been distinguished for learning, their efforts to retain a high type for their language, originally one of the rudest of the group, took the direction as usual in India of resuscitating Sanskrit words, and the process has not been carried so far as in Bengali only because the vernacular was richer. Marathi is one of those languages which one may call playful—it delights in all sorts of jingling formations, and has struck out a larger quantity of secondary and tertiary words, diminutives, and the like, than any of the cognate tongues.
§ 11. In order to make the statement as to the constituent elements of the seven languages as clear and complete as possible, it is necessary to notice the influence of Arabic and Persian. Although Hindi is a richer language than Bengali or Oṛiya, it would not be just to say that the amount of Tatsama words in the latter is in exact proportion to its poverty as compared with the former. That is to say, Hindi itself was o a certain extent poor also, and the reason that there are less Tatsama words in it than in some other languages is that it has had recourse to Arabic and Persian instead of Sanskrit to supply its wants. By a curious caprice, Hindi, when it uses Arabic words, is assumed to become a new language, and is called by a new name—Urdu; but when Panjabi or Sindhi do the same, they are not so treated. It is not advisable here to stop to examine why this is; it is enough to say that where Bengali, Oriya, and Marathi have recourse to Sanskrit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, and Gujarati in a great measure recur to Arabic and Persian; but as the proportions of the Hindu[21] and Musulman population are more evenly balanced in the area occupied by Hindi than in that of any other language, the tendency to borrow from Arabic has not, as in the case of Sindhi and Panjabi, where the Musulman population is greatly in excess of the Hindu, quite superseded the practice of borrowing from Sanskrit; nor on the other hand has the Hindu population, as in the case of Bengali and Oriya, where the Hindus largely preponderate, forced Sanskrit words into the language, to the exclusion of Arabic.
This is one of those cases, many more of which will occur in the course of this essay, in which we observe a regular gradation from west to east. In the extreme west we have Sindh and the Panjab, with a vast majority of Musulman inhabitants, and a large amount of Arabic words, contrasted with a very scanty allowance of Tatsamas. Going east we come into the great central Hindi area, where the balance between the two races is more even, the numerical superiority of the Hindus being balanced by the greater intelligence of the Muhammadans, and here we find consequently the habit of borrowing from Persian kept up side by side with recurrence to Sanskrit, such recurrence, however, being less frequent in consequence of the already existing abundance of Tadbhava words. Further east again, in Bengal and Orissa, there is an immense majority of Hindus, and as a natural result a maximum of Tatsamas. In this scheme, Gujarati and Marathi stand nearly in the same place as Hindi, the former being rather more Persian, and the latter rather more Sanskritic than it. The whole seven languages may be thus grouped, the left hand indicating the Arabic pole so to speak, and the right hand the Sanskrit, and the position of the languages on the page their degree of proximity to the respective poles.
With regard to the Arabic and Persian element, however, it must be observed that in all the languages it is still an alien. It has not woven itself into the grammar of any of them. All the Arabic words in Hindi or any other language are nouns, or participial forms used as nouns. They conform to their own grammatical rules as strictly in the mouth of a correct speaker, as though the rest of the sentence were pure Arabic. Rarely, and quite exceptionally, occur such words as taḥsîlnâ, ḳabûlnâ, dâg͟hnâ, where Arabic and Persian nouns have been furnished with a Hindi termination, but the usual form is taḥsîl karnâ, where the Hindi verb does all the grammatical work, and the Arabic noun is unaltered and uninflected throughout. When they are used as nouns, they take the usual postpositions indicative of case, but as these postpositions are merely appended to them without causing any internal change in their structure, it cannot be said that they are at all affected. In those changes which indigenous nouns undergo in the preparation of their base or crude form for receiving case appendages, the alien Arabic or Persian word is only affected in very few and exceptional instances. The rules for the preparation of the base are most intricate in Sindhi, Gujarati, and Marathi, in the first of which Arabic words, as I have said, are very numerous.
We cannot therefore take these words into consideration at all in examining the internal structure and constitution of the seven languages, though it may be proper to do so when treating of their external garb, and of the construction of sentences.
§ 12. Passing from the consideration of the constituent elements of this group of languages, to that of their structure and inflections, we are again met by the question of non-Aryan influence. It has been said that contact with the savage races of India had on the Aryans the effect of breaking down their rigid inflectional system, and causing them to substitute, for case-endings in nouns and verbs, distinct particles and auxiliaries, and that under this influence the Sanskrit gradually became modified into the present forms. There are, however, some difficulties in the way of accepting this theory, and in order to explain what they are, it will be better to state the whole argument from the beginning.
Languages, like trees, grow and develope, and their stages of growth are well marked in the abstract, though we cannot point to any language which has gone through all the stages within historical times. The first stage is that in which all words are monosyllables without inflections or power of internal modification; and when strung together to make sentences, the same word is at one time a verb, at another a noun, at a third a particle, according to its place in the sentence. This is the syntactical stage, and is exemplified by Chinese.
The second stage is that in which some words have lost their power of being used as nouns or verbs, and can only be employed as particles, in which capacity they are added to nouns to form case-endings, and to verbs to form tense- and person-endings. This is the agglutinative stage, so called because these particles are agglutinated, or glued on, to the word which they modify. Turkish is such a language.
The third stage is that in which the aforesaid particles are no longer separable, but have become incorporated into the word which they modify, merely producing the result of varying the terminal syllable or syllables. This is the synthetical or inflectional stage, and is seen in Sanskrit.
The fourth stage is that in which the particles are not even recognizable as constituent elements of the word with which they were incorporated, but, from long use, have been worn away, so that the word stands almost bare and without terminations, as in the first stage, and new auxiliary words have to be brought in to express the necessary modifications of sense. This is the analytical stage, the stage in which English and French are at present.
It will be observed that the fourth stage comes round again to the second in some respects, notably in that the words are not altered in any way, but merely have the subsidiary particle placed before or after them, so that position in the sentence becomes once more the guide in many instances to the meaning of the individual word. Thus the English words of, to, in, for, etc., correspond exactly to the Turkish in, lah, dan, and the rest, in that they have no meaning when standing alone, and though perfectly separable from the word which they modify, nevertheless cannot be used without it. The two classes are therefore very much alike, and might by inexperienced persons be easily mistaken one for another. In fact, to settle the question in which of the two stages any given language is, we have to inquire into its past history, and to ascertain what family it belongs to. Moreover, it will always be found that no language is purely analytical. The most advanced languages, such as English, still retain traces of the synthetical phase through which they have formerly passed. Thou goest, he goes or goeth, went, gone, though much altered from their original form, still exhibit the inflectional or synthetic type. On the other hand, agglutinative languages having not yet got so far as the synthetic stage, naturally cannot possess any traces of its system, though, to complicate the matter, there are found some languages of this stage whose agglutinative system, aided by the working of the laws of euphony, has advanced so far as to be almost synthetical,—that is to say, their particles have become so much altered by use, and are so habitually written as parts of the word modified, that they may almost be taken for inflectional terminations. So that while on the one hand we may have agglutinative languages almost entering the synthetical stage, we have analytical ones which have not quite left it.
§ 13. To apply the above remarks to the Indian languages. The Aryan dialects remained purely synthetical for many centuries after the race entered this country. When it first came here, it found the land covered with non-Aryan races, and it is almost certain that it came more into contact with them during those early ages than it did in later times, because these alien races were after a time either driven out altogether, or remained and were absorbed into the conquering body, where they took rank at the bottom of the social system as Sudras, and learnt the speech of their conquerors, which speech in those days was Prakrit in some form or other. Now, all the forms of Prakrit are synthetical, and remained so as long as we have any definite trace of them, that is, till long after the absorption of the majority of the non-Aryans. The Bhars, Cherus, and other tribes, it is true, made a stand, and retained their individuality till a late period, and the Sonthals and Kols do so to the present day. Still the mass of non-Aryans residing in the valley of the Ganges who were absorbed at all, must have been absorbed not only many generations, but many centuries, before the Aryan languages began to show any signs of a tendency to analytical construction. It is my belief that the Indian languages did not begin to be analytical till about the ninth or tenth century, much about the same time that the European languages began to be so. Chand, though his structure is analytical, retains much that is synthetical still, and his particles and auxiliaries are in a very crude and unformed state. For the modern kâ, ke, kî, he chiefly uses an obscure क kă, which does not vary with the governed noun, and is more often left out altogether. है, the ordinary substantive verb, is unknown to him; था is still only हुंतो, three stages earlier than its present form.[23] If then the non-Aryans were the cause of the Sanskrit changing its structure from synthetical to analytical, they must have taken an uncommonly long time about it, and, oddly enough, must have succeeded in effecting the change at a time when they had for centuries adopted the synthetical structure of the Aryans.
But even apart from the improbability of this theory, it is superfluous. We want no non-Aryan influence to account for a natural and regular process in all languages of Indo-Germanic build. When, by lapse of time and the effect of those numerous changes which words necessarily undergo in transmission from generation to generation, the terminations of nouns and verbs have been worn down, so that they no longer afford sufficiently clear indications of time, person, or relation, some other means of marking these necessary distinctions silently grows up. In the case of European languages there were prepositions for the noun and auxiliaries for the verb. In the Indian languages postpositions took the place of the European prepositions; but in other respects the process was precisely identical in both. It is not pretended that the European languages were subjected to non-Aryan or any other external influence to make them undergo these changes; it is admitted that they grew naturally out of the course taken by the human tongue and the human mind. The flower of synthesis budded and opened, and when full blown began, like all other flowers, to fade. Its petals, that is its inflections, dropped off one by one; and in due course the fruit of analytical structure sprung up beneath it, and grew and ripened in its stead. If this was the natural course of development in Europe, may we not suppose it to have also been the course in India? The ancient Indian languages are exact structural parallels to the ancient European languages, the modern are also precisely parallel to the modern of Europe: does it not seem to follow, as a logical consequence, that the method and process of their change, from the one stage to the other, was also parallel, and, in both cases, due to internal rather than external influences?
§ 14. But there are stronger arguments still. The non-Aryan languages could only affect the Aryans by means of some quality which they possessed, not by means of those which they did not possess. If the Kol, Dravidian, or other groups of languages were analytical, it is conceivable, if we put aside for a time the historical and geographical considerations, that they have imparted to the Aryans a tendency to make their speech also analytical. But if they were not themselves analytical, they could not have done so.
Now it is very certain, as certain as anything can well be, that all the non-Aryan languages of India are still in the agglutinative stage. If, then, they exercised any influence on the structure of the Aryan speech, such influence would tend to make that also agglutinative; in other words, the Aryans would have had to go backwards, and try and find out what were the agglutinated particles from which their own inflectional terminations had arisen; and having found them, would have been led to use them, no longer conveniently incorporated into their words, but disintegrated and separate. Thus, a vulgar Aryan who said homi, for "I am," would have had to re-construct out of his inner consciousness the older form bhavâmi, and, not content with that, to further resolve bhavâmi into its component elements of bhû and âmi, and henceforth to use these two words adjacent to each other, but unincorporated. This we see at once is out of the question, and absurd. What our vulgar Aryan really did was in course of time to drop the final i of homi, and to nasalize the m, at the same time imparting a broader and more rustic pronunciation to the vowel, thus producing हौं haun. He also changed hosi, "thou art," and hodi, "he is," both into hoï; and thus having got two words of similar sound, he had to use the pronouns tû and vah to distinguish them: which is precisely the opposite process to that which imitation of the Dravidians or Kols would have led him to follow, and precisely similar to that which his brother the vulgar Roman followed when he changed sum into sono, and sunt also into sono; so that, getting two sonos, he had no means of distinguishing between them except by constantly prefixing the pronouns io, "I," and eglino, "they"; and just that which the Englishman followed when he changed ga, gœth, and gath, all three into go, and then had always to prefix I, he, we, ye, they, to make his meaning clear.
It must, therefore, be always remembered that though the modern Aryan verb presents in its structure certain similarities to the Dravidian or Kol verb, and some analogies also with the Tibetan and Himalayan verb, as well as with the noun of both, yet this very similarity to two such widely sundered groups reduces us to the necessity of admitting that the connexion is not one of family, but of stage. Tibetan and Dravidian alike are in the agglutinative stage; and, as mentioned before, the analytical stage, in which the modern Aryan languages are, resembles in many particulars the agglutinative stage, though the difference is generally to be detected by a close scrutiny.
It is not my intention here to go into the details of the non-Aryan system of inflection, or agglutination. I am very imperfectly acquainted with the non-Aryan languages; and with those which impinge most closely upon the Aryan area, very few persons can pretend to be familiar. But it seems advisable once again to raise a warning voice against the rash speculations which are the bane of philology more than of any other science, and which have so frequently been the cause of the science itself being turned into ridicule. We can only move slowly, slowly, stablishing our feet firmly on one point before we pass to another. Data are scanty, and facts hard to get at. In the above remarks all that has been done is to show how great is the à priori improbability of the theory that the present structure of the modern Aryan tongues is in any great degree due to non-Aryan influence. It has been said languages borrow words but never grammar. The methods of expressing ideas seem to be inborn and ingrained into races, and seem rarely to be varied, whatever be the materials employed, so that even resemblances should be shunned as dangerous, and must, unless supported by historical or other proofs, be set down in the majority of cases as accidental. To take an instance, a great deal has been made, or tried to be made, of the resemblance between the sign of the dative in Tamil, ku (kku), and that of the Hindi, ko, and Dr. Caldwell in particular seems to have gone quite wild on the subject (see pp. 225-227 of his Grammar); but leaving aside all the Dravidian, Scythian, Ostiak, Russian, Malay, and all the rest of the jumble of analogies, it is demonstrable from actual written documents that the modern Hindi ko is a pure accusative or objective, and was in old Hindi kauṉ कौं, which is the usual and regular form of the Sanskrit कं kam, the accusative of nouns in kah; so that there does not appear to be the slightest reason for connecting it with anything but the cognate forms in its own group of languages.
For the reasons above given, I am of opinion that there is nothing in the structural phenomena of the modern Aryan vernaculars which may not, by a fair application of reasonable analogies, be deduced from the elder languages of the same stock; and though not prepared to deny the presence of non-Aryan elements in those languages, I do strenuously deny that they have had any hand in the formation of the analytical system which the Aryan tongues at present exhibit.
§ 15. Looking upon the change from a synthetical to an analytical state as progress and development, not as corruption or decay, it may be interesting to institute a comparison between the several languages in this respect. And here, as might be expected, we find in most instances that those languages which are most prone to the use of Tatsama words are also most backward in development.
The most advanced language is the Hindi, which is closely followed by the Panjabi and Gujarati. In Hindi the noun has lost nearly all traces of inflection; the only vestiges remaining are the modification of the base in the oblique cases of nouns ending in â or ah, as ghoṛâ, oblique base ghoṛe, bandah, oblique base bande, and the terminations of the plural eṉ, âṉ, oṉ; and in common talk the plural is very little used, a paraphrastic construction with sab or log being generally preferred. The pronouns exhibit a slight advance upon the Prakrit forms, but have evidently come down to modern time through Prakrit, and therefore retain more of an inflectional character. In the pronouns, each case must be derived from the corresponding case in Sanskrit, just as in an Italian verb each person of each tense is a distinct corruption of the corresponding Latin person and tense. But with the Hindi noun the case is different. The noun owes to Sanskrit merely its base, or crude form. All its cases are formed out of its own resources, resources perhaps themselves of Sanskrit origin, but put together and employed in a way quite foreign to Sanskrit ideas. Thus when a Sanskrit noun exhibits three base forms, the Anga, Pada, and Bha, all differing from each other, as राजन्, Anga base राजान्, Pada राज, Bha राज्ञ्, the Hindi rejects all these niceties, and takes the simple nominative राजा for its sole base, declining it by means of postpositions राजा को, etc.
In the verb Hindi has still more markedly thrown away the Sanskrit inflectional system. The Hindi verb is an arrangement of participles conjugated by means of the substantive verbs, derived from the roots as and bhû. Only one tense is synthetical, the indefinite present, corrupted from the present indicative of the Sanskrit.
Panjabi follows Hindi as regards its nouns, having the same simplicity of declension and the same absence of inflection; although the particles used to denote cases are different from those used in Hindi, yet the method of their use is precisely the same; only bases ending in â are subject to modification, all others remain unchanged. The verb is identical in structure with Hindi, and the differences of form are hardly more than dialectic. The pronouns are also nearly the same as Hindi. The claim of Panjabi to be considered an independent language rests more upon its phonetic system, and its stores of words not found in Hindi, than upon any radical difference in its structure or inflections.
Gujarati is somewhat less developed than the two preceding languages. It retains the needless and troublesome arrangement of three genders, whereas the Hindi and Panjabi have but two, and in common use wisely ignore to a great extent the existence of even those. The noun retains one inflectional case, the instrumental, only the noun ending in o undergoes any change of termination previous to the application of the postpositions; and these postpositions, though different in form, are used in the same manner as those in Hindi. The pronouns are almost identical with Hindi, especially with those dialectic forms of Hindi spoken in Rajputana, on the northern frontier of Gujrat.
The verb, as expounded by its unphilosophical grammarians, Messrs. Leckey and Eduljee, appears to possess a bewildering variety of forms; but a little examination shows that the five presents, seventeen preterites, and three or four futures, are really nothing more than instances of that subdivision and amplification in which grammarians so much delight. We find here again the present indefinite, an inflectional tense derived from the Sanskrit present indicative. It may be as well to state that this tense, though often most ingeniously disguised by grammar-writers, exists in all the languages of this group, as will be shown in the chapter on verbs. Gujarati has, however, another inflectional tense in the future hoisho from the Sanskrit bhavishyâmi, Prakrit hoïssam, etc. The rest of the tenses of a Gujarati verb are merely neat and varied combinations of participles with each other, and with the substantive verbs.
Sindhi ranks next in the matter of development. It is a rough language, loving thorny paths of its own, but there hangs about it, to my mind, somewhat of the charm of wild flowers in a hedge whose untamed luxuriance pleases more than the regular splendour of the parterre. Even as early as Prakrit times the dialect of the Indus valley shook itself free from trammels, and earned for itself from the pedantic followers of rule and line the contemptuous epithet of Apabhranśa, or vitiated. There is a flavour of wheaten flour and a reek of cottage smoke about Panjabi and Sindhi, which is infinitely more natural and captivating than anything which the hide-bound Pandit-ridden languages of the eastern parts of India can show us. I have not yet been able to procure Dr. Trumpp's Sindhi Grammar,[24] and am obliged to work with Captain Stack's book, the deficiencies of which strike one at every step.
In Sindhi the preparation of the base for reception of the case particles assumes great importance, there being in nearly every case three separate base-forms in the singular, one for the nominative, a second for the oblique, and a third for the vocative; and three in the plural, the plural forms being in addition various and numerous for the oblique and vocative. That these forms result from a partial retention or half-effaced recollection of the Sanskrit inflectional system is apparent, and this fact places Sindhi in an inferior stage of development to that of the fore-named languages. The cases are formed, however, analytically by the addition of particles; that indicative of the possessive relation is so multifariously inflected as to raise that case into a pure adjective agreeing with the governing noun in gender, number, and case, whereas Hindi is satisfied with three forms of the genitive particle, Panjabi with four, Gujarati requires nine, and Sindhi twenty. The subject of postpositions is not properly worked out by Stack, and I labour under some difficulty in putting it clearly to myself, and consequently to the reader. The adjective is also subject to the same multiplied changes of termination as the substantive. The pronouns, as in Hindi, retain more traces of an inflectional system, and closely resemble those of that language. The verb is, as in other languages, composed chiefly of participial forms combined with the three auxiliaries, but, like Gujarati, the future, as well as the indefinite present, shows signs of the synthetical system of Sanskrit, and in some other respects also is less purely analytical than Hindi. The passive in particular exhibits a system of combination in which a tendency to analytical treatment is not fully emancipated from synthetical ideas.
Marathi, which I place next on the list, is, like Gujarati and Sindhi, more complicated in its structure than the other languages. These three languages of the Western Presidency, perhaps from political reasons, and the less frequent intercourse between them and the northern and eastern members of the group, retain a type peculiar to themselves in many respects, notably so in the greater intricacy of their grammatical forms. In Marathi we see the results of the Pandit's file applied to a form of speech originally possessed of much natural wildness and licence. The hedgerows have been pruned, and the wild briars and roses trained into order. It is a copious and beautiful language, second only to Hindi. It has three genders, and the same elaborate system of preparation of the base as in Sindhi, and, owing to the great corruption that has taken place in its terminations, the difficulty of determining the gender of nouns is as great in Marathi as in German. In fact, if we were to institute a parallel in this respect, we might appropriately describe Hindi as the English, Marathi as the German of the Indian group,—Hindi having cast aside whatever could possibly be dispensed with, Marathi having retained whatever has been spared by the action of time. To an Englishman Hindi commends itself by its absence of form, and the positional structure of its sentences resulting therefrom; to our High-German cousins the Marathi, with its fuller array of genders, terminations, and inflections, would probably seem the completer and finer language. The pronoun is very little removed from pure Prakrit, combining inflectional peculiarities of a distinctly Prakrit nature with the postpositions which it possesses in common with its cognate languages. The verb is to a certain extent participial in its formation, but retains the indefinite present, though in modern usage in a preterite sense, and an inflectional future. It has also a partially inflectional subjunctive. Its combinations are fewer and simpler than those of the Gujarati; and in all its tenses the auxiliary verb, especially in the second person singular and third person plural, is so intimately bound up with the participle as to exhibit a pseudo-inflectional appearance. Though suṭatos, "thou dost get loose," and suṭatât, "they get loose," look like inflections, they are really combinations of suṭato asi and suṭatâ santi respectively.
In the Bengali noun we have a purely inflectional genitive, the legitimate descendant of the Sanskrit termination -asya. Bengali and Oṛiya are like overgrown children, always returning to suck the mother’s breast, when they ought to be supporting themselves on other food. Consequently the written Bengali, afraid to enter boldly on the path of development, hugs the ancient Sanskrit forms as closely as it can, and misleads the reader by exhibiting as genuine Bengali what is merely a resuscitation of classical Sanskrit. In the peasant-speech, however, which is the true Bengali, and for which the philologist must always search, putting aside the unreal formations which Pandits would offer him, there is much that is analytical, though in the noun the genitive, dative, locative, ablative, and instrumental are synthetical, as is also the nominative plural. The rest of the plural, and sometimes the nominative also, is formed by the addition of particles expressive of number, as gaṇ, dig, and others, to which the signs of case are appended. There is no preparation of the base in Bengali, or very little. Gender is practically neglected. The verb is simple, and formed as in other languages on the participial system. The indefinite present and the future may, however, be regarded as inflectional, as also the imperfect dekhilâm and the conditional dekhitâm. The pronouns are very little removed from Prakrit.
Oṛiya is the most neglected member of the group, and retains some very archaic forms. The repulsive and difficult character in which it is written, the rugged and mountainous nature of the greater part of Orissa, and its comparative isolation from the world at large, have combined to retard its development. In the noun the genitive and ablative are inflectional, and the locative is probably the same. Its verbal forms still require fuller analysis, but there is much that is inflectional apparent on the surface, though the universal participial system is also in use. In the indefinite present several of the forms retain their pure Prakrit dress, as the third person singular in aï and plural anti.
Both in Bengali and Oriya the singular of the pronoun and verb has been banished from polite society and relegated to the vulgar, and the original plural has been adopted as the polite singular, and been supplied with a new plural. Thus, in Oriya the singular mu, "I," is considered vulgar, and amhe, the old plural, is now used as a singular, and fitted with a new plural, amhemâne. In Bengali they have gone a step further, and made two new plurals,—one morâ, for the now vulgar singular mui, and another, âmarâ for the plural turned singular âmi.
§ 16. Having thus briefly generalized the structural characteristics of the seven languages, the character in which they are written next demands attention. The Hindi and Marathi use the ordinary Nâgarî in printed books, and their written character, as also that of Gujarati, does not vary from it more than is natural under the circumstances; the written character in all these languages being merely a rounder and more flowing variety of the printed. Sindhi has remained till modern times almost unwritten. The rude scrawls in use among the mercantile classes defy analysis, and were so imperfect that it is said no one but the writer himself could read what was written.[25] The abandonment of the mâtrâ or top line of the Devanâgari letters, is a common feature in all these cursive alphabets. It is either dropped entirely, as in the Kayathi character used in Behar, or a series of lines are ruled across the page first, like a schoolboy’s copy-book, and the writing is hung on below as in the Moḍh or "twisted" current hand of the Marathas. Gujarati, for some reason, has taken to printing books in this cursive hand, without the top line, which gives it at first sight the effect of a totally different character. The letters are all, however, pure modern Nâgarî, and on showing a Gujarati book to a native of Tirhut, I found he could read it perfectly, and, what is more, very nearly understand most parts of it; and he was by no means an exceptionally intelligent man, rather the reverse.
The Mahâjani character differs entirely from that used for general purposes of correspondence, and is quite unintelligible to any but commercial men. It is in its origin as irregular and scrawling as the Sindhi, but has been reduced by men of business into a neat-looking system of little round letters, in which, however, the original Devanagari type has become so effaced as hardly to be recognizable, even when pointed out. Perhaps this is intentional. Secresy has always been an important consideration with native merchants, and it is probable that they purposely made their peculiar alphabet as unlike anything else as possible, in order that they alone might have the key to it.
In the mercantile and ordinary current hands, the vowels are only partially indicated, a or i in its full or initial form generally does duty for the whole. This is of no great consequence in ordinary correspondence where the context, as in Persian, supplies the key to the meaning. Sometimes, however, difficulties arise, as in the well-known story of the merchant of Mathura, who was absent from home, and whose agent wrote from Delhi to the family, to say his master had gone to Ajmer and wanted his big ledger. The agent wrote Bâbû Ajmer gayâ baṛî bahî bhej dîjiye. This was unfortunately read Bâbû âj mar gayâ baṛî bahû bhej dîjiye, “The master died to-day, send the chief wife”! (apparently to perform his obsequies).[26]
It would be waste of time to analyze all these current hands, even if the resources of modern European printing-presses permitted us to do so. They are not calculated to throw any light upon the historical development of the art of writing among the Indian races, being the results merely of individual caprice.
§ 17. The three languages which use a peculiar character are the Panjabi, Bengali, and Oriya. Panjabi employs the character called Gurumûkhi, a name probably derived from the fact that the art of writing was at first only employed on sacred subjects, and was practised by pupils who recorded the oral instruction of their Gurus instead of, as had been the case in earlier times, committing his teachings to memory. The alphabet consists of thirty-five letters only, omitting the grammatical abstractions ऋ, ॠ, ऌ, ॡ, as also श and ख; ष is retained, but with a different pronunciation, as will be shown hereafter. स does duty for all the sibilants. There is a special character for that harsh aspirated r-sound which in the other languages is indicated by ढ़; and the Vedic ḷ ळ is expressed by the dental l, with a stroke like a virâma attached to its lower right-hand limb.
In tracing the origin of this alphabet, it appears that initial a, â, u and û, e and ai are almost identical with the Kutila character[27] in use from the ninth to the eleventh century A.D., which is only a development of the still older Gupta character of the fifth century, which again leads us back to the forms used in the inscriptions of Asoka in the third century B.C. The i and î exhibit the same form as the e for their fulcrum or initial form, though they possess the modern forms ਿ and ੀ for medial use. These latter are of later introduction. Originally, as is proved by the older alphabets, i was indicated by three dots, or circlets, forming a triangle with the apex downwards. These three dots being connected by lines represented the derived vowel e, to which a small tail was afterwards added, but, as the Oṛiya still shows, the medial i was originally expressed by a semicircle over the letter it followed, thus, क᳐ ki, This is still retained in the Tibetan ཀི ki. In the Kutila character this semicircle was lengthened downwards on the left hand or before the letter to express the short sound, or on the right hand or after the letter to express the long sound: कि, की. Previous to this, in the earlier inscriptions the long i is distinguished by inverting the semicircle, thus ु. Medial u was expressed in the alphabet of the fifth century B.C. by a small horizontal stroke on the right of the lower portion of a letter, thus ॒, and û by two such strokes. From these have arisen the Panjabi u ੁ and û ੂ. E was at first indicated by a short horizontal stroke attached to a letter at the top and drawn leftwards. This gradually raised itself into the slanting position it now holds, े. Ai was written with the horizontal e-stroke and a vertical one at right angles to it, which gradually came together as ै. O was expressed by two horizontal strokes forming one cross-line, either at the top or through the middle of a letter. In the beginning of a word this stroke used the letter a as its fulcrum. By degrees these two strokes got raised into a sloping position, and from the Gupta inscriptions of the fifth century down to the tenth century they were so written. The form is preserved in a more elegant shape in the Tibetan, which dates from the seventh century, thus ཀོ ko. The Panjabi rejects one of the two strokes and gives that which remains a wavy shape to distinguish it from e, thus ਕੇ ke, ਕੋ ko; while in Nagari the right-hand stroke has been turned downwards like an â ा, thus making ो. The au in the fifth century consisted of three strokes, thus ᳑. Panjabi has contented itself with giving an extra half-stroke to the o, thus ਕੌ kau.
Panjabi consonants are generally of the Kutila type, though many of them are older still. Of the Kutila type are the characters for g, ṭ, ṭh, ḍh, ṇ, d, dh, p, bh, y, l. It will be observed that these letters in Panjabi approach more nearly to the exact form of the Kutila than the corresponding Devanagari letters, which have been subjected to modifications from which the Gurumûkhi letters have escaped.
K preserves something more like the form on the Vallabhi plates found in Gujarat, as does also the Gujarati ક, almost the only letter in that alphabet which would seem strange to one familiar with the ordinary Devanagari.
The sign for kh is the Nagari ष sh, but left open at the top. This character is also used for kh in western Hindi; thus for मुख we find मुष; for आंख, आंष. The Nagari sign for kh ख has unfortunately a close resemblance to रव rav, and by the addition of a small horizontal stroke it may be made into स्व sva. These resemblances have probably led to its disuse, combined as they are with certain phonetic peculiarities noticed in Chapter IV., § 80. The gh is older than the Kutila in so far as it is open at the top, whereas the Kutila is closed. This letter has retained its form more exactly than any other. From Asoka's time downwards it has the form of an English capital E lying on its back, 𑀖. This ancient form is retained by the Panjabi and Kashmiri alone.[28] The Devanagari घ follows the Kutila in being closed at the top, but has deviated from it in making two of the strokes horizontal instead of vertical. The Panjabi form for ङ is omitted from Prinsep's table. It resembles the Kutila, but has added a loop at the foot.
The च and छ are both older than the Kutila, and closely approach the Gupta and Vallabhi types. The earliest form of this letter was a vertical stroke with a loop at the bottom on the left for ch, and two loops one on each side for chh.
The j is more Kutila than anything, though it has become simpler than its prototype. The Kutila itself bears very little resemblance to the more ancient form, which is that of the English E, and is retained in Tibetan ཇ.
Jh is not found in Kutila, nor is palatal n. The Panjabi forms for these sounds bear no resemblance to anything in the ancient alphabets, and are probably local inventions or combinations.
Panjabi ḍ is the Gupta letter with a curl to it, and does not at all approach the Kutila.
Panjabi t, like the Bengali ত, has the form appropriated in the other languages to u. This arises from the older form being 𑀢. In writing this and other letters, the variations of form depend upon the course followed by the pen in making the letter. If you begin at the top, and go down the left limb, and then bringing the pen back up the same limb go down the right one, you will find the tendency to give a curve to all written lines will gradually result in a form similar to the Panjabi letter; whereas, if on the contrary you follow down the right limb first, and then taking the pen off, make the left limb separately, the result will be the Kutila t, from which come the Nagari and others.
The th is apparently a modification of the Kutila, due like the last letter to a different way of writing. In the Kutila the little top loop is first formed, and then, without taking off the pen or graver, the larger loop, and then the upright stroke. The Panjabi scribe, however, formed the large loop first, and taking off his pen, made a stroke across it, separating it into two parts, in order to produce the effect of the two loops, in which attempt he has signally failed, turning out something more like a ष than a थ.
There is a curious similarity between dh and p in Panjabi. The former is written प with the character used in Nagari for p, while the p is indicated by the same character with the top open. In this it adheres closely to the Kutila, which adds a small side stroke to the dh, which in early alphabets is an oval, grape-shaped letter, and thus produces a character closely resembling प; the double semicircle of the Nagari ध is quite modern.
In n again Panjabi preserves an archaic form, and the same remarks apply to this letter as to t. The Panjabi n is that of Asoka’s inscriptions, with the horizontal footstrokes sloped downwards and curved. The Gupta, Vallabhi, and Kutila forms arose from trying to form the letter by one continuous stroke without taking the pen or graver off. The Tibetan exactly reproduces the Kutila in its ན.
In ph we have another piece of antiquity. The form of this letter is identical with the Nagari ढ ḍh. In the Asoka character the ḍh and ph are almost the same; the former having a curved downstroke, the latter a straight one. This is reproduced in Panjabi, and the difference marked by an extra curve in the ḍh, while the ph is indicated by the simple ढ. Kashmiri squares the corners of the ḍh, and exactly follows the Gupta in its ph. Kutila has adopted a very different type in its फ, which has been followed by all the other alphabets. The Tibetan ཕ shows how by a different order of making the strokes the ढ of the earlier alphabets might pass into the Bengali ফ, and thence into Nagari फ; so much depends upon the order followed by the pen in forming the letter. Let any one who doubts this try the experiment of forming the Sanskrit letters backwards, beginning where the pen generally leaves off, and after writing the letter quickly half a dozen times he will be surprised to see how far it has deviated from its original shape.
Bh is the Kutila form rounded and written as though the central curve were a loop; m differs only in having the top open, to distinguish it from स, which in Panjabi is written like the Nagari म, owing to the Gupta character from which it is derived not having the little tail which marks the स.
R also lacks the tail, and thus approaches the Gupta rather than the Kutila type.
The v assimilates more to the Vallabhi form than any other; and the h is Gupta.
In a large number of instances the Kutila differs from the Gupta type only by the addition of a little tail at the right-hand lower corner. This tail being regarded as the continuation of the right-hand line of a letter has resulted in the vertical straight line so characteristic of Devanagari letters, such as प, थ, य, व, in none of which has the Gupta character any tail, or consequently anything to give rise to a straight stroke. The Panjabi character probably took its rise from the Gupta, or it might be more accurate to say that the earlier character of Asoka underwent modifications, the type of which is uniform throughout India, down to the Gupta era, but that after that the various provinces began to make local variations of their own. The Kutila inscriptions date from about 800 a.d. to 1100 a.d., and as far as we know the history of those three centuries there was no one paramount sovereign during that time whose authority extended over all Aryan India, as there had been at various times in the preceding ages. We may suppose the Panjab to have been politically sundered from the Gangetic provinces during a great portion of that time, and to have entered upon a distinct course of linguistic development. This will account for the archaic character of many of its letters.
§ 18. The Bengali is the most elegant and easiest to write of all the Indian alphabets. It is very little changed from the Kutila brought down from Kanauj by the Brahmans whom King Adisur invited to Bengal in the latter part of the eleventh century. Such slight differences as are perceptible arise from an attempt to form a running hand, in which it should not be necessary to lift the pen from the paper in the middle of a word. This attempt has been to a great degree successful, and the modern Bengali character can now be written with greater rapidity and ease than any character derived from the ancient Indian alphabet. Even compound letters of some intricacy have been provided with neat and simple forms, and since the introduction of printing presses into Bengal the type has much increased in elegance. A printed Bengali book is now a very artistic production in typography.
§ 19. The same praise cannot be awarded to the Oṛiya character, which is of all Indian characters the ugliest, clumsiest, and most cumbrous. Some of the letters so closely resemble others that they can with difficulty be distinguished. Such for instance are the following, ଚ cha, ର ra, where only the slanting end-stroke distinguishes the letters, and to make it worse, the medial e େ is often so written as to be precisely like the ch. Then again, ତ ta, and ଢ ḍha, only differ by the size of the lower loop. ଉ u, and ଡ da, are also closely similar; ଗ ga, ଖ kha, ଚା châ, ରା râ, as also ଶ s (श) and ଣ ṇ (ण), puzzle the reader by the slightness of their difference, which if troublesome in print, where all the proportions of loops and strokes are rigidly preserved, is still more so in manuscript, where no attention at all is paid to the subject; and a knowledge of the language is the only guide in determining which letter is meant.
The Oṛiya characters in their present form present a marked similarity to those employed by the neighbouring non-Aryan nations whose alphabets have been borrowed from the Sanskrit. I mean the Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil, Singhalese, and Burmese. The chief peculiarity in the type of all these alphabets consists in their spreading out the ancient Indian letters into elaborate mazes of circular and curling form. This roundness is the prevailing mark of them all, though it is more remarkable in the Burmese than in any other; Burmese letters being entirely globular, and having hardly such a thing as a straight line among them. The straight angular letters which Asoka used are exhibited in the inscriptions found at Seoni on the Narmadâ (Nerbudda) in more than their pristine angularity, but adorned with a great number of additional lines and squares, which renders them almost as complicated as the Glagolitic alphabet of St. Cyril. The next modification of these letters occurs in the inscriptions found at Amrâvatî on the Kistna, where the square boxes have been in many instances rounded off into semicircles. From this alphabet follow all the Dravidian and the Singhalese; probably also we may refer to this type the Burmese and even the Siamese, and the beautiful character in use in Java, which is evidently of Aryan origin, as its system of Pasangans, or separate forms for the second letter of a nexus, and Sandangans, or vowel and diacritical signs, sufficiently testify.
Whether the Oṛiyas received the art of writing from Bengal or from Central India is a question still under dispute. The probabilities are strongly in favour of the latter supposition. In the flourishing times of the monarchy of Orissa, the intercourse with Central and Southern India was frequent and intimate. Raja Chûranga (or Sâranga) Deva, the founder of the Gangavansa dynasty, which ruled from A.D. 1131 to 1451, came from the south, and was said in native legends to be a son of the lesser Ganges (Godâvarî). The princes of that line extended their conquests far to the south, and their dominions at one time stretched from the Ganges to the Godavari. Kapilendra Deva (1451-1478) resided chiefly at Rajamahendri, and died at Condapilly on the banks of the Kistna, having been employed during the greater part of his reign in fighting over various parts of the Telinga and Karnata countries. This monarch also came into collision with the Musulmans of Behar. In fact, the early annals of Orissa are full of allusions to the central and southern Indian states, while Bengal is scarcely ever mentioned. Indeed, the Oṛiya monarchs at one time did not bear sway beyond the Kânsbâns, a river to the south of Baleshwar (Balasore), and there was thus between them and Bengal a wide tract of hill and forest, inhabited in all probability, as much of it is still, by non-Aryan tribes. The changes and developments which have brought Oṛiya into such close connexion with Bengali appear in very many instances to be of comparatively recent origin.
Assuming then that the Oṛiyas got their alphabet from Central, rather than from Northern, India, the reason of its being so round and curling has now to be explained. In all probability in the case of Oṛiya, as in that of the other languages which I have mentioned above, the cause is to be found in the material used for writing. The Oṛiyas and all the populations living on the coasts of the Bay of Bengal write on the Tâlpatra, or leaf of the fan-palm or Palmyra (Borassus flabelliformis). The leaf of this tree is like a gigantic fan, 
PALMYRA LEAF. and is split up into strips about two inches in breadth, or less, according to the size of the leaf; each strip being one naturally formed fold of the fan. On these leaves, when dried and cut into proper lengths, they write with an iron style or Lekhanî, having a very fine sharp point. Now, it is evident that if the long, straight horizontal Mâtrâ, or top line of the Devanagari alphabet, were used, the style in forming it would split the leaf, because, being a palm, it has a longitudinal fibre going from the stalk to the point. Moreover, the style being held in the right hand and the leaf in the left, the thumb of the left hand serves as a fulcrum on which the style moves, and thus naturally imparts a circular form to the letters. Perhaps the above explanation may not seem very convincing to European readers; but no one who has ever seen an Oṛiya working away with both hands at his Lekhanî and Tâlpatra will question the accuracy of the assertion: and though the fact may not be of much value, I may add, that the native explanation of the origin of their alphabet agrees with this. With the greater extension of the use of paper, which has taken place since the establishment of our rule, especially in our courts of justice, the round top line is gradually dying out, and many contractions have been introduced, which it is to be hoped may be by degrees imported into the printed character.
The Oṛiya letters have departed, however, less from the early type than those of their neighbours, the Telingas. The vowels have much of the Kutila type, though the practice of carrying the style on from the bottom of the letter to the Mâtrâ has caused a peculiar lateral curve which disguises the identity of the letter. Let, however, ଉ be compared with उ (i.e., उ without the Mâtrâ), ଡ with ड (ड), and the connexion will be at once visible.
Like the Bengalis, the Oṛiyas have adopted the custom of writing the top stroke of medial e and o before the letter to which it is attached, instead of above it, as Bengali কে ke, কো ko. This practice is, however, found in some Devanagari MSS., and is sometimes used in Gujarati. Being also a high-polite Sanskrit sort of language in the eyes of its expounders, Oṛiya has been duly provided with symbols for the grammarian’s letters ऋ, ॠ, ऌ, and ॡ,[29] and has also some very formidable snake-like coils to express the various forms of nexus. Some of these are as clumsy as Singhalese, and take as long to execute as it would to write a sentence in English. Moreover, the forms used in conjunctions of consonants are not the same as those used when alone. Thus, the character which when single is read o, when subscribed to ण or ष is read ṇ (ण); that which alone is th, when subscribed to ञ is ch.
Without going through the whole alphabet letter by letter, it may suffice to say in general terms that the Oṛiya characters show signs of having arisen from a form of the Kutila character prevalent in Central India, and that its love of circular forms, common to it and the neighbouring nations, is due to the habit of writing on the Tâlpatra, Talipot, or palm-leaf, with an iron style.
§ 20. Next to the alphabets comes the question of the pronunciation of the various sounds. The vowels, with one or two exceptions, appear to retain the same sound as in Sanskrit. I say appear, because although the Devanagari character affords a very accurate vehicle for the representation of sounds, yet we cannot be certain what was the exact pronunciation of the Aryan letters; and in one or two instances, both in consonants and vowels, there is reason to believe that the ancient pronunciation differed considerably from that of to-day.
The short a अ, which in Sanskrit is held to be inherent in every consonant not otherwise vocalized, is pronounced by the western languages and Hindi—in fact, by all except Bengali and Oṛiya—as a short dull sound like the final a in Asia, or that in woman. Bengali, however, is peculiar in respect of this sound, which is only exceptionally used. That is to say, the character অ and its equivalent, the unwritten inherent vowel, is pronounced a only in certain words, such as the word गण "crowd," when used to form the plural of nouns, sounded gan, not gon; at least, so says Shamacharan Sirkar, in his excellent Grammar, and no doubt he is correct to the rule, but in practice one hears gon constantly. In some cases the অ is pronounced as a short o, just as in English not, thus तावत् tâbot, not tâvat; तिरस्कार tirosh (not tiras) kâr. Purists, however, affect to pronounce it as in Sanskrit, and would read अनल anal, not onol.
The same rule holds good in Oṛiya, but not to the same extent as in Bengali. In the former language there is much less fondness for open broad sounds than in the latter. In short syllables, especially when unaccented, the अ is sounded a; thus, कदाच ka (not ko) dâch. Also in syllables where the a is long by position, as मण्डल mandal, चकला chaklâ. Before र or ड, however, it is sounded o, but this o is not such a deep full sound as the Bengali; thus, बड is boṛo, but often it sounds baṛa, the a here being an attempt to represent a sound halfway between the short a in woman and the deep short o of the Bengali.
The sound of a is omitted from consonants in many instances where we should expect, on the analogy of the Sanskrit, to find it. Strictly speaking, the absence of this sound should be indicated by the virâma or by a combination of two consonants. In the more Sanskritizing of the languages, such as Bengali, Marathi, and Oṛiya, the latter method of expression is frequently resorted to; but in the other languages it is practically neglected. It becomes, then, necessary to lay down rules when to pronounce this sound and when to omit it.
In Hindi it is never pronounced at the end of words, as बाल, जान, bâl, jân, not bâla. This rule is absolute and unvarying, and is not violated even when a word ends in a nexus, the difficulty of pronunciation being in such cases solved by inserting a short a between the two consonants; thus रत्न, शब्द would be pronounced ratan, shabad, and be generally so written also, as रतन, शबद.
The root or crude form of a verb being by virtue of the above rule monosyllabic, inflectional additions to it do not render the final a audible; thus, मानता "he obeys," is mântâ, not mânatâ; सुनकर "having heard," sunkar, not sunakar. So also in compounds; thus, मंगलवार mangalwâr, "Tuesday," not mangalawâr.
All the other languages cut off the final a in the case of words in which a single consonant precedes it; but in the case of a nexus, or combination of consonants preceding, the final a is sounded in Bengali, Marathi, Oriya, and occasionally in Gujarati. Marathi, however, does not sound it if the first member of the nexus is स. All three languages agree in giving the a a short sound after य, but this sound is very slightly heard. Marathi does the same after व; thus, जीव, jîva, not jîv; प्रिय priya.
Besides this, in the majority of Tatsamas Bengalis would consider it proper, in reading at least, to sound the final a, though colloquially it would not generally be heard. Bengali, however, in certain of its inflections requires the final a to be heard; as in the second person singular of the present indicative and imperative, कर "thou dost," kara, or koro; चल "go thou," cholo; also in the third person singular of the preterite करिल korilo, "he did," and the conditional करित korito, "if he did." In this latter case the short vowel is a corruption of an older e arising from aï.
In Bengali adjectives the final a is sounded, as बड boro, छोट chhoṭo, where the final a arises from the Sanskrit visarga, through Pr. o, and the word should consequently be written बडो, as in Gujarati. In this, as in some other cases, the Bengali having imparted an o sound to the a, makes it do duty for a long o ओ. Thus, it writes बल, and pronounces bŏlŏ, for बोलो bolo, "speak"; and गम, pronounced gom, for गोहुम, Skr. गोधूम "wheat." In this respect Oṛiya follows the example of Bengali.
Hindi writers often, from carelessness or ignorance, write that which is a combination of consonants in Sanskrit as so many separate letters, thus, दरसन for दर्शन, जुकति for युक्ति; this is merely an irregularity of spelling, and does not affect the pronunciation, which remains the same as in Sanskrit, darśan, jukti.
On a review of the whole matter, the position of the short final a is exactly parallel to that of its linguistic counterpart the final short e of early English, which we have in the modern language everywhere discarded in pronunciation, and in most cases in writing also. We have retained it as an orthographical sign in words such as gate, line, hole, where its presence indicates a shade of pronunciation.
The inherent a in the middle of a word is retained in the modern languages wherever its omission is absolutely impossible, but is omitted wherever it can be slurred over or got rid of.
§ 21. There is little to remark on the pronunciation of any of the other vowels except ऋ. Hindi generally, and Panjabi always, ignore this grammarian's figment, and write it plain and simple रि, which saves a great deal of trouble and confusion. Marathi and Oṛiya, in their desire to be very Sanskritic, introduce this letter; but the vulgar have turned it into ru in pronunciation, and in Oṛiya the character for this sound is used for रु and रू. In Gujarati also रु is substituted for ṛi.
Inasmuch as a in Bengali has become o, so ai ऐ becomes oi, and au becomes ou. It is almost impossible to convey by any written symbols the exact sounds of these vowels to the ear. Oṛiya has the same peculiarity. The two sounds are fairly represented by the accent of an Irishman in speaking of his native country as "Ould Oireland"; that is to say, there is a grasseyant or half-drawling tone in their pronunciation. This, however, is not considered correct by purists, who prefer to sound these vowels as in Sanskrit, and would say baidh, बैध, not, with the vulgar, boidh.
In some instances in Bengali the vowel ए e has a short harsh sound, like that of English a in hat. Thus एक "one," sounds yack or ack.
§ 22. In the pronunciation of the consonants there are a few peculiarities of a local and dialectic sort, which require notice. The palatal letters, as might be expected, display many divergencies of pronunciation. It is strange that those sounds so simple to an English mouth, the plain ch च and j ज, should apparently present such difficulties to other nations. In Europe the Germans, having used their j for य, and their ch for خ, or for a sound not representable by English letters, have had to fall back upon all sorts of combinations to represent ज. They write it dsch and च tsch; and of late they have got to ḱ for च and ǵ for ज, a characteristically logical, but I fear I must add also a characteristically unintelligible, method of expression. The French have turned their j into a half-z or ژ, and to get ज they have to write dj; so also, having turned ch into ش sh, they are obliged to write tch for च. The Italians, to express the palatal media, have prefixed a g to their i, and pronounce gi=ज; for च their c does duty before e and i, but before a, o, u, they are obliged to intercalate an i, and चंद्र would be ciandra. The Spaniards have the true ch=च, but their j is=ح; so for ज they must write either y, which is a fainter sound than the true j, or some other combination of letters.
Similar in degree, though different in the turn which it has taken, is the confusion as to j ज in some of the Indian languages. The Hindi, truest and most central type of all, holds fast the correct pronunciation; but Panjabi rather finds it a stumbling-block. When a Panjabi says मझ majh, "a buffalo-cow," the sound he produces is something very odd. It might be represented by meyh, a very palatal y aspirated; perhaps in German by möch, or rather, if it may be so expressed, with a medial sound corresponding to the tenuis ch.[30] The Bengalis, again, are fond of inverting j and z, especially in words borrowed from the Arabic: thus, they say Ezâra for اِجاره, but hâjir for حاضر.[31] This is the more strange as there is no z in the Sanskrit alphabet; and, consequently, our modern high-pressure improvers (English this time, not Pandits), who are for ever fidgetting and teasing at the unhappy Indian vernaculars, and trying in an irritating, though happily ineffectual, way to twist and bend them according to their own pre-conceived ideas, have adopted the bright device of using a ज with a dot to it for z. All the dots in the world will never made a Hindi peasant say z; our friends may write हाज़िर, ज़ालिम, as much as they like. From the days of Chand, when these words first came into India, till now, the Indians have said hâjir, jâlim, and will probably continue to say so long after our dot-makers are forgotten. But they have never, oddly enough, thought of dotting the Bengali ज, জ, which is really often pronounced z without the help of dots.
Marathi has two methods of pronouncing the palatals. In Tatsamas and modern Tadbhavas and before the palatal vowels इ, ई, ए, and ऐ, च is ch, and ज j; but in early Tadbhavas, Desajas, and before the other vowels, च sounds ts, and ज dz. This peculiarity is not shared by any of the cognate languages, while, on the other hand, the ts and dz sounds, so to speak the unassimilated palatals, are characteristic of the lower state of development of the non-Aryan, Turanian, or what-you-will class of languages. Tibetan on the one side, and Telugu among the Dravidians on the other, retain them. Marathi, from its juxtaposition to Telugu and other non-Aryan forms of speech, might naturally be expected to have undergone somewhat of their influence, and this pronunciation of the palatals is probably an instance in point.
By the expression "unassimilated palatals" I mean that, whereas in the Aryan palatals the dental and sibilant of which they are composed have become so united into one sound that the elements can no longer be separately recognized, in the Turanian class the elements are still distinct. The earlier languages of the Aryan and Semitic families knew no palatals. Even Hebrew has got no further than צ Tsadde; Greek and Latin probably had not these sounds either. They are then of late origin, and though as regards the formations in which they occur they must be considered as sprung from the gutturals, yet they are so derived not directly, but through the often observed change from k into t; so that by adding a sibilant to the guttural we get from k + s into t + s; this change being facilitated by the fact that in Sanskrit at least the sibilant employed is a dental, and naturally, as will be shown in Chapter IV., draws over the guttural into its own organ, thus, वाक + स (= वात + स) = वाच.
The cerebrals are pronounced very much like the English dentals. At the beginning of a word, or when forming part of a nexus, ड and ढ are sounded d and dh respectively; but in other situations they take the sound of hard ṛ and ṛh. This is not the case, however, in Panjabi, which, having invented a new character for the sounds of ṛ and ṛh, retains the d and dh sounds for ड and ढ in all cases. In Hindi, on the contrary, the r-sound predominates, and is often written र, especially in the early poets, so slight is the difference between the sounds. The r sound also prevails in Bengali and Oṛiya: thus, बड is pronounced bar or boro in all three. गाडी is in all three gârî, but in Panjabi gâḍî. Marathi also adopts the r sound, but pronounces it more harshly than in the above-mentioned languages, so as to approach more closely to the ḍ sound. Sindhi has special eccentricities with regard to these letters. The d and r sounds of ड are both used on the same principles as in Hindi. The d sound and the letter ड itself are very much used in Sindhi, etymologically often replacing द. There is besides a sound expressed by this letter which has a very Dravidian look about it. It is a sort of compound of d and r; चंडु "the moon," is said to be pronounced chandru. The letter ट has also the same sound of r mixed up with it; thus, पुटु "a son," is to be pronounced putru. In these cases the Dravidian aspect vanishes, and we see merely a careless method of writing, which makes ट and ड do duty, by custom, for त्र and द्र respectively. As the European has been at work on the Sindhi character, it is a pity he did not write these words with ट्र and ड्र, instead of falling into the favourite maze of dots which always distinguishes artificial and exotic labours in linguistics.
The dentals and labials call for no remark; with regard to the former a detailed examination of their origin and pronunciation will be found in Chapter III.
§ 23. The semivowels य and व have much in common. In the western languages, Sindhi, Gujarati, and Marathi, ज is quite distinct from य. This latter has a more liquid. sound, and is often dropped at the beginning of words. Panjabi and Hindi turn the Sanskrit य into ज in most cases, and express it in writing by the ज.[32] Bengali and Oṛiya use the character य, but sound it ज j in nearly all cases. Thus, the Sanskrit word योजन would be pronounced in M., G., and S. yojan. In P. and H. it would be written जोजन, and pronounced jojan. In O. and B. it would be written योजन, or even योयन, and pronounced jojan. So completely has य acquired the sound of j in these last two languages that when य is intended to retain the sound of y, as in Tatsamas, a dot is placed under it to distinguish it. In Oṛiya ordinary writers even go so far as to write with the य words which have a ज in Sanskrit, as यन्तु for जन्तु.
Similarly with regard to व, we find G., M., S., and in this case also P., keeping it quite distinct from ब. The former sounds v or w, the latter b. Panjabi is rather uncertain on this head, writing the same word indifferently with either ब or व. Hindi writes every व as ब, and pronounces it so also.[33] Bengali and Oṛiya have but one character for both sounds, and people of those nations are unable to pronounce v or w. They might come under the same head as those Neapolitans of whom it was said, "Felices quibus vivere est bibere," were it not that, instead of the generous juice of the vine, the Bengali drinks muddy ditch-water in which his neighbours have been washing themselves, their clothes, and their cattle. In those cases where व is the last member of a nexus, it is not heard, but has the effect merely of doubling the preceding letter: thus द्वार is to the B. and U. ddoâr,[34] pronounced with a dwelling on the d and a slight contraction of the lower lip, as though the speaker would, but could not, effect the contact required to produce the full v sound. Thus also अश्व is ashshoa, बालेश्वर is Balessoar.
These peculiarities may be thrown into a little table, thus:
| MARATHI, GUJARATI, SINDHI. | PANJABI. | HINDI. | BENGALI, ORIYA. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| य | y | y and j | seldom used | j |
| ज | j or dz | j and y | j | seldom used |
| व | v, w | b and v | seldom used | b |
| ब | b | v and b | b | seldom used |
With regard to ल Bengali and Oṛiya again get into difficulties, often confounding this letter with न. Thus, at times they will write l and say n, and at others they will do the reverse. Examples of this confusion will be found in Chapter III.
र exhibits no peculiarities of utterance.
§ 24. The sibilants appear to have altered very much from Sanskrit. Panjabi gives itself no trouble on the subject, but abandons ष and श, and retains merely स for all sibilation. This language, however, is averse from this class of sounds, generally altering them into h.
Sindhi equally rejects ष, and श is used in the mercantile scrawls as an equivalent to स. In other writing it is, where it occurs, pronounced as s, though it is used in transliterating the Arabic sh ش. In Bengali and Eastern Hindi the same phenomena will be noticed.
Hindi varies in its treatment of the three sibilants. In the eastern part of its area, in Tirhût, Purneah, and Bhagalpûr श is the character used in writing by the Kayaths and mercantile classes, and in the extensively employed system of revenue accounts kept by the Paṭwâris and other local revenue and rent-collecting agents. It is written generally as in Gujarati, without the Mâtrâ or top line. The letter श is, however, in those districts looked upon as equivalent to, and pronounced in the same way as, स s. In fact, the people seem unable to pronounce the sound of sh. In Arabic words, which occur frequently, as the population is mostly Musulman, the ش is pronounced s. Thus, we hear sekh for shekh, sâmil for shâmil, and the like. Towards the centre and west of Hindustan,[35] however, this inability disappears, though in Sanskrit words of all classes there is very little to mark the difference between the two letters. ष has long been appropriated to express kh both in Hindi and Panjabi.
Bengali reverses the whole series. It has in use all three sibilants, but pronounces them all as sh. Thus, सकल is to a Bengali, not sakal, but shokol; षष्ठ shashto. To compensate, however, it treats the Arabic ش sh as s, saying, as noticed above, sekh, sâmil, for shekh, shâmil. Arabic س and ص become sh; شائل is shâil; صاحِب shâheb. Purists pronounce श and स as s, when they form the first member of a nexus in which र, ऋ, or न form the second, as श्रवन srobon, शृगाल srigâl; but this refinement is overlooked by the vulgar.
Oṛiya retains in its alphabet the three characters, but except in the so-called high style, श and ष are not much used. Both in Orissa and Bengal the inquirer is met with this difficulty that the learned classes persist in using Sanskrit words in their writings, without regard to the usage of the mass of their countrymen; and even when using words which are commonly current among the people, our Pandits will alter the spelling back again to what it was in classical Sanskrit, thus ignoring the changes made by time; and baffling the endeavours of those who wish to seize the language as it is, by presenting it to them in the guise which the Pandits think it ought to wear. In no part of India is it more necessary to go amongst the people, and try to find out from their own lips what they do really speak. Often, however, when a witness in court has used some strange and instructive Tadbhava, and I have asked him to repeat the word, that I may secure it for my collection, some Munshi or Pandit standing by will at once substitute the Tatsama form, and rebuke the peasant for using a vulgar word; so that all hope of catching the word is gone for that occasion.
Gujarati uses स in preference to श, though there is some confusion in the employment of these two letters, and in many parts of the province the peasantry, as in the Panjab, evince a tendency to reject the sibilants and substitute for them ह.
Marathi employs श and स indifferently, to such an extent that even the learned and careful compilers of Molesworth's Dictionary are often puzzled to decide which to use. Especially is this the case in early Tadbhavas and Desajas, where Molesworth and his Brahmans are often widely wrong in their ideas of derivation. In Marathi श is not quite sh, nor yet quite s; it inclines more to the former than to the latter, inasmuch as the palatal nature of श renders it necessary to pronounce it with somewhat of that clinging of the tongue to the roof of the mouth which is characteristic of the letters of that organ. Of the two principal dialects into which Marathi is divided, the Dakhani, or that spoken on the high table-lands above the Ghats, inclines more to the use of the clear, sharp, dental स, while the Konkani, spoken in the low line of country fringing the coast, prefers the softer and more clinging श. So also Bengali, the language of a low-lying country on the sea-shore, makes स sound as sh. It is an interesting question, whether the influence of climate has been at work, but one which cannot be gone into here.
§ 25. The nasals of the five organs are even in Sanskrit somewhat affected and over-refined letters. ङ and ञ have characters to express them in all the languages except Gujarati, which, not possessing any of the "pruritus Sanskritizandi," so to speak, does not use characters for sounds which it does not require. Nor does Hindi. In all the other languages, except Sindhi, these characters are only used in Tatsama words as the first element of a nexus. Sindhi, however, has two sounds, ng and ny, for which these two characters are used. They stand alone as pure guttural and palatal nasals respectively. Thus, in सिङु sing-u, "a horn"; अङणु ang-anu, "a court-yard"; अङरु ang-aru, "a coal"; we have derivatives from Skr. शृङ्ग, अङ्गण, and अङ्गार. In Hindi and most of the other languages these words are written with the anuswâra सिंग, अंगन, and अंगार. The sound of the Sindhi ङ is that of ng in sing, ring, which is one homogeneous sound, and as such differs from the Hindi न with anuswâra, which is the ng in finger, linger. In dividing the syllables of these words we should write sing-ing, but fin-ger. The latter is really fing-ger.
Similarly ञ in Sindhi is ny, the Spanish ñ in Señor, extraño, which are pronounced Senyor, extranyo, and in which the ñ is, like the Sindhi ञ, a compendium scripturæ, or simpler way of writing ne or ni, as in the Latin senior, extraneus. It is, however, not unfrequently for double n, as in año=annus; or for mn, as in daño=damnum, doña=domna (low Latin for domina); or for ng, as in uña=unguis; or gn, as in seña=signum. Thus, कञा kany-â, "maiden," is Skr. कन्या; धाञु dhâny-u, "grain," Skr. धान्य; वञणु vany-anu, "to go," Skr. वञ्चनं. It is, therefore, less strictly palatal than ङ is guttural, as it embodies only the semivowel of its organ, whereas the ङ embodies the media.
ण is in use in all the languages, and its sound is clearly distinguishable from that of न in most provinces. In many parts of Hindustan and the Panjab, however, I do not think any ordinary observer would notice the difference, particularly in the countries bordering on the Ganges, where contact with Musulmans has softened down, with good effects, many of the asperities of the old Aryan utterance. So much so is this the case, that in ordinary Hindi न does duty for all nasals. In Sindhi ण has a deeper sound than in the other languages, and embodies the semivowel of its organ, producing a sound like nr, or the Pushtu نړ, as stated by Dr. Trumpp. It in this way presents an analogy to ञ, which also embodies the semivowel of its organ.
न and म call for no remarks, being pronounced as in other languages n and m.
§ 26. In the pronunciation of the compound consonants the various languages exhibit greater power than Sanskrit, in so far as, with a few exceptions, the modern Indians are able to pronounce every imaginable combination; while Sanskrit requires that the former of two consonants shall be modified so as to bring it into harmony with the latter. Whether this rule arose from inability to pronounce a nexus of dissimilar consonants, or was deliberately introduced with a view to produce euphony, need not here be discussed,—the result is the same in either case. But Hindi, by rejecting the final short a of all its words, obtains an immense variety of words ending with consonants; and as these words, whether as nouns or verbal bases, have to be followed by inflectional particles which begin with consonants, every conceivable combination of consonants occurs. Thus, we have a media followed by a tenuis in लगता, which is not lagatâ, but lagtâ; वीजका bîjkâ; an aspirate media preceding a tenuis in बूझकर bûjhkar; and many others which would be inadmissible in Sanskrit. Such a process as altering the final consonant of a verbal base to bring it into harmony with the initial consonant of a termination, is quite unknown to the modern languages.
In those combinations which I have in Chapter IV. called the mixed and weak nexus, Bengali betrays some weaknesses. One of these, in which the semivowel व follows a consonant, has been noticed in § 23. Another is seen in compounds whose last letter is म. In this case the m is not distinctly heard, but gives a subdued nasalization to the preceding consonant, which is pronounced as though double. Thus, स्मरण is in Hindi smaran, but in Bengali it sounds shmoron; लक्ष्मी is not Lakshmî, but Lakhkhî; पद्म is not padma, but podda. It is almost impossible to express the exact sound of this nexus—it must be heard to be understood. In the words कृष्ण, विष्णु, the Bengalis and Oṛiyas in speaking substitute ट for ण, and the former add an anuswâra after the final vowel, so that these words sound in Bengali कृष्टं Krishtaṉ, विष्टुं Bishtuṉ, and in Oriya Krushto and Bishtu. Thus, too, the Sanskrit वैष्णव a "Vaishnava," a sect very common in Orissa, is corrupted into Boishnob, Boishtnob, Bastab, and even Bastam.
§ 27. Sindhi has four sounds peculiar to itself, or, to speak more accurately, it has four characters, ग़, ज़, ॾ, ब़, which are not used in any other language. Dr. Trumpp is of opinion that these four characters represent four simple sounds (einfache Laute); it is, however, evident from his own remarks that they are only methods of expressing ग्ग, ज्ज, ड्ड, and ब्ब, respectively, and the analogy of the Bengali pronunciation in the examples of nexus given above helps us to understand how these letters have come to be written with a single character, namely by the stress laid on the first in the effort to give its full value and strength to both. There, however, exist many instances in Sindhi in which ज़ or ग़ do not represent a double letter;
| Thus, we have Sindhi | जग़ु, जग़टु | for Skr. | जगत् world. |
| " " | ज़ंघ | " | जङ्घा leg. |
| " " | ज़उ | " | जतु lac. |
| " " | ज़मूं | " | जम्बू jamun. |
| " " | ज़ौर, ज़रु | " | जलूक leech. |
| " " | ज़ाट़ो | " | जामातृ son-in-law. |
| " " | ज़ारु | " | जाल net. |
| " " | ज़िभ | " | जिह्वा tongue. |
| " " | ग़ेह्वं | " | गोधूम wheat. |
| " " | ग़हिरा | " | गम्भीर deep. |
and many others. It is only fair, however, to explain that Sindhi is one of the languages which I only know from books, and have only once heard spoken, and that I take the above words from Stack, while the theory of the origin of these sounds comes from Trumpp. It is possible that the latter author would not write the above words with the dotted letter, as he generally condemns Stack for inaccuracy. The remark therefore must be taken with this modification. Trumpp's description of the sounds certainly confirms the view he takes. He writes, "You shut your mouth and express a dull sound, then open the mouth, and allow the g (j, d, or b) to sound forth."[36] This is just the way in which the Italians pronounce ebbi, poggio, maremma, with a dwelling on the first of the two letters, ebb-bi, pojj-jo, maremm-ma. He adds in another place, "These four sounds, which are originally doubled, have now, however, established themselves more or less as single independent sounds. They are found consequently in many words in which etymologically no reduplication can be proved to exist, but the hardness of the pronunciation can be explained by adjacent circumstances, e.g. ग़ोठु 'a village,' Pr. गोट्ठ, Skr. गोष्ठ." This is the same remark as has been illustrated above, though, in the absence of properly spelt dictionaries, it is difficult for one not resident in the country to determine in which cases the dotted letter should be used.
It is often found to be the case, especially in unwritten languages, in which consequently there is no universally received standard of spelling, that when any peculiar pronunciation has established itself in the popular speech, it is extended through carelessness to cases where it ought not properly to occur, and it is readily conceivable that this may have taken place in a wild and uncultivated language like Sindhi. At the same time it is to be hoped that those who take this language in hand will not fall into the common error of all Indian linguists, of representing the words, not as they are, but as they think they ought to be, remembering that it is the popular practice and custom, "usus," as Horace says,
"Quem penes arbitrium est, et jus, et norma loquendi,"
and not the Pandits or would-be reformers.
§ 28. Some remarks on the literature of these languages may now be offered, though to give a full and complete review of this subject would occupy many volumes, and would be beyond the limits of my task. All that will here be done is to give such brief general statements as may afford to the reader a tolerably accurate idea of how the various modern languages stand in this respect. Although the majority of the written works in the Indian vernaculars are to the European mind very tame and uninteresting, yet it is by no means accurate to say that there is nothing worth reading in them. Religion has always been the chief incentive to writing in India, whether ancient or modern; and the vehicle chosen has been until quite recent times verse, and not prose. The earliest writings of the modern period, with one notable exception, are religious poems. This exception is the first of all in point of time, the Prithirâja Rasan of Chand Bardâi, in which the ancestry, birth, heroic deeds, and final overthrow of Prithiraj of the Chauhân tribe of Rajputs, the last Hindu King of Delhi, are recited in many thousand lines of doggrel verse by Chand Bardâi, a native of Lahore, who was attached to that monarch's court in the capacity of Bhâṭ or bard, and who was an eye-witness of the historical scenes which he relates. But even in this professedly historical work the influence of tradition is too strong for the poet, and his opening canto, a very long one, is occupied by hymns to the gods, catalogues of the Purans, and legends taken from them; throughout his book the customary intervention of celestial beings occurs; on every joyful occasion the gods assembled in their cars shower down flowers; after every battle Shiva with his necklace of skulls dances frantically among the corpses, drinking the blood of the slain; birds and beasts talk; sacrifices produce magical effects; and penances are rewarded by the appearance of the god to the devotee, and by gifts of superhuman skill or power. So that here again religion, the old deeply rooted Hindu religion, asserts itself, and a legendary and miraculous element comes in side by side with accurate history and geography. The date of the composition of the poem is probably about A.D. 1200. Subsequent Hindi literature consists almost entirely of long, tiresome religious poems, together with some of a lighter type, translations or rather rifaccimenti of older poems, such as the Ramayan of Tulsi Dâs, none of which are particularly worth reading, except for the light they throw on the gradual progress of the language; and even this light is often obscured by the arbitrary changes and corruptions which the authors permit themselves to use to satisfy the exigencies of their rhythm. The reiterated employment by them all of a certain set of stock words and phrases deprives their works of any appearance of individuality or originality, which, added to the extremely dull and uninteresting nature of the subject-matter of the poems themselves, makes them on the whole about the least attractive body of literature in the world. Still, there are, as I have said before, some exceptions: the seven hundred couplets of Bihâri Lâl contain many pretty, though fanciful, conceits, and are composed in extremely correct and elegant verse; and here and there among the religious poems may be found meditations and prayers of some merit. The Ramayan of Tulsi Dâs is probably only admired because the masses are unable to read the original of Valmiki. In modern times a perfect cloud of writers has arisen, amongst whom, however, it is impossible to single out any one deserving of special mention. The introduction of the Persian character, in supersession of the clumsy Nagari, has rendered the mechanical process of writing much easier and more rapid, while many good lithographic presses in all parts of the country pour forth books of all descriptions, the majority of them undoubtedly pernicious trash, but some here and there of a more wholesome tone, which, though probably not destined to live, may pave the way for productions of a higher style.[37]
Bengal, however, has now far distanced all her sister provinces in literary activity. The rise of modern Bengali literature is due to the great reformer Chaitanya in the fifteenth century. The litanies or Kîrtans which, though they had existed before his time, he rendered popular, may still be collected, and I believe some Bengali gentlemen have made collections of them, with a view to publication. One, attributed to Vidyâpati, the most celebrated, and probably the first in point of time, of the old Bengali poets, runs as follows:
जनम अबधि हम रूप निहारनु नयन ना तिरपित भेल॥
सोइ मधूर बोल श्रबणहि शुननु श्रुति पथे परश ना गेल॥
कत मधू यामिनी रभसे गोयाइनु ना बुझिनु कैछन ना केल॥
लाख लाख युग हिये हिये राखनु तबु हिया जुडन ना गेल॥
यत यत रसिक जन रसे अनुगमन अनुभव काहु ना देख॥
विद्यापति कहे प्राण जुडाइते लाखे ना मिलल एक॥०॥
"Since my birth I have gazed on (his) form, (yet) my eyes have not been satiated,
Friend! that sweet voice I have heard with my ears, (their) touch has not left the passage of hearing.
What sweet nights in love have I spent, and knew not what happened.
For millions of ages I have kept heart to heart, still my heart has not cooled.
Many, many lovers pursue (their) love, the true lover no one sees;
Vidyâpati saith, to cool the soul in a lakh not one can be found."[38]
Here तिरपित=तृप्त; गोयाइनु a causal from गम्; कैछन is merely a Bengali way of writing स (see Chapter III., § 58). The language of this poem closely resembles that spoken at the present time in Tirhut. The preterites भेल, गेल, and केल are still in use there, though the first and last are now obsolete in Bengal proper. Such forms as निहारनु for निहारिलाम् are still heard in conversation, though now banished from books.
The language of these poems differs very little from early Hindi, as will be seen from comparing it with the extract from Chand given in § 5 (note). Kabi Kankan, who lived about 1570, and the author of the Chaitanya Charanâmṛita, are also celebrated early Bengali writers. The Bengali poets Kasidâs and Kritibâs wrote modern versions of the Mahabharat and Ramayan. Raja Krishna Chandra of Nadiya collected round him a small circle of poets, whose works are still very much admired, amongst whom Bhârat Chandra Rai holds the foremost place, though it is stated that his popularity is on the wane, in consequence of the rise of a sounder and more wholesome literature. A species of Fescennine verse called Kabi (probably for Kabit) was also highly popular in the last generation; these verses were recited by two companies of performers, who lavished the most pungent abuse and satire on each other, to the great delight of their audience. Following upon the poets of this school comes Iswar Chandra Gupta, a sort of Indian Rabelais, who enjoyed considerable reputation fifty years or even less ago. But Bengal has advanced so fast during the last generation that all these old-world authors are already left far behind in the dimness of a premature antiquity. And it is well that they should be. Bengali literature was not in their hands progressing in any definite or tangible direction, unless it were in that of filth and folly. Modern Bengali writers, all of whom are of the present age, may be divided into two classes, the Sanskritists and the Anglicists. The former are chiefly responsible for the solemn pompous style, overloaded with artificial Tatsamas, which they, and they alone, are able to understand, and which make the literature which they produce more like bad Sanskrit than good Bengali. The frigid conceits, the traditional epithets, the time-honoured phraseology, recur over and over again ad nauseam, and the threadbare legends of the Hindu creed are worked up into fresh forms with a "most damnable iteration." Opposed to these is a school of young writers, who pour forth novels, plays, and poems in considerable abundance, and of very unequal merit. Babu Piâri Chand Mittra, who writes under the nom de plume of Tekchând Thâkur, has produced the best novel in the language, the Allâler gharer Dulâl, or "The Spoilt Child of the House of Allâl." He has had many imitators, and certainly stands high as a novelist; his story might fairly claim to be ranked with some of the best comic novels in our own language for wit, spirit, and clever touches of nature. Michael Madhusûdan Datt, a Christianized Hindu, has also written a great many works, some of them very good. And "Hutam," as he calls himself, or Kali Prasanna Singh, must be mentioned as a vigorous and clever, though occasionally coarse, painter of the manners of his countrymen. There are many more, too many perhaps for a country which has so recently emerged from semi-barbarism; but civilization, or a curious imitation of it, is a plant of fast growth in India, and all we can do is to hope that much that is worthless may die out, while what remains may be strengthened and pruned. That the Bengalis possess the power as well as the will to establish a national literature of a very sound and good character, cannot be denied, and it is to be hoped that the ponderous high-flown Sanskrit style will be laughed out of the field by Tekchând Thâkur and his light-armed troops, so that Bengalis may write as they talk, and improve their language, not by wholesale importations from the dead Sanskrit, but by adopting and adhering to one standard universal system of spelling, and by selecting from the copious stores of their local dialects such vigorous and expressive words as may best serve to express their thoughts. If the style of any one writer were taken as a model by the rest, a standard would soon be set up, and Bengali would become a literary language.
The immense activity of the Calcutta press should also be, if possible, a little slackened. It is impossible that more than one-tenth of the heaps of books which daily appear should be really worth the paper they are printed on. Less works and better ones, more care and thought, and less of the froth of empty heads, are wanted to produce a solid and enduring literature.[39]
Oṛiya literature begins with Upendro Bhanj, who was a brother of the Raja of Gumsar, a petty hill-state in the south of Orissa, which even to the present day is celebrated as the home of the purest form of the language. This voluminous poet composed a great number of religious works, many of which are still highly esteemed. His date is not exactly known, but he is supposed to have lived about three hundred years ago. I have a list of thirty of his productions, two of which are rhyming dictionaries, the Śabdamâlâ and Gîtâbhidâno; the rest are episodes from the ancient Pauranic legends, erotic poems, and panegyrics on various gods. They are stated to be generally disfigured by gross indecency and childish quibblings about words, endless repetitions, and all sorts of far-fetched rhetorical puzzles. Dînkrishno Dâs, a poet of the same age, is the author of the Rasakalloḷa, the most celebrated poem in the language; the versification of which is its chief merit, being fluent and graceful; the subject-matter, however, is obscene, and contains very little that is new or original. There are also numerous paraphrases of well-known Sanskrit works, such as the Bhagavadgita, Ramayana, Padma Purana, and Lachhmi Purana.
A few lines are given from Dinkrishno Dâs's popular poem, the Rasakalloḷa, as a specimen of his style :—
कृष्ण कथारे जार स्नेह नाहिं ।
काळ संघातकु देखइ सेहि ।
काळ दण्डरे से घात होइब ।
कष्ट संघातकु सेहि पाइब ।
कहइ कृष्ण कृष्णकुं कथा ॥
केबेहिं होइब नाहिं अन्यथा ॥ ३४ ॥
“He who takes no pleasure in the story of Krishna, beholds Fate close at hand;[40] he shall be smitten with the punishments of Fate, a dreadful death he shall obtain, (Din)krishna relates the story of Krishna,—never shall it be otherwise.”
In modern times a few prose works have been composed of considerable merit, but no originality, being either translations or adaptations from the English and Bengali. The Oṛiyas are beginning to wake up, but none of them have yet received sufficient cultivation to make them really good authors. Nor is there much demand for vernacular literature—the Oṛiya seldom reads, and not one man in a hundred can write his native language without falling into the grossest errors of spelling and grammar at every turn.
The Marathas have also a copious literature. Namdeva, the first poet, whose date is uncertain, but probably about 1290 A.D., drew his inspiration, as was the case with so many poets of his time, from the writings of Kabir and other reformers. Contemporary with him was the celebrated Dnyanoba or Dnyânadeva (ज्ञानदेव Gyândeb, we should call him in the other provinces), who wrote a religious poem called Dnyâneshwari. Then follows a long string of more or less obscure poets, among whom Sridhar (A.D. 1571) deserves notice on account of his voluminous Pauranic paraphrases. Tukaram, the most celebrated Marathi author, was (A.D. 1609) a contemporary of the illustrious Sivaji. An admirably printed edition of Tukaram’s poems has been produced at Bombay recently by two Pandits, Vishnu Parashuram Shastri and Shankar Pandurang. The poems are called Abhangas, or “unbroken”; probably from their being of indefinite length, and strung together in a loose flowing metre. Tukaram was a half-crazed devotee, such as we see so commonly in India, who began life as a petty shopkeeper, but being unsuccessful, devoted himself to the worship of the idol Viṭhoba or Viṭṭhal, whose chief shrine is at Pandharpûr. At the temple of this idol at Dehu, near Puna, Tukaram spent the greater part of his life improvising these endless Abhangas, which were collected by his disciples. He eventually started off on a pilgrimage, and as he never returned, having probably died on the road, his followers chose to believe he had ascended to heaven. His doctrine is a reflexion of the Vaishnava creed, popularized in Bengal by Chaitanya a little before Tukaram's time; and the name of the idol Viṭhoba is a corruption of विष्णुपति, through the vulgar pronunciation Bishtu or Biṭṭhu, common in Eastern India. There is nothing very original or striking in Tukaram's poems, which are very much like the ordinary run of religious verses in other Indian dialects. The following may be quoted as a specimen of his simplest style :—
दिवट्या छत्री घोडे । हें तों बर्यांत न पडे ॥ १ ॥
॥ ध्रु[41] ॥ आंता येयें पंढरिराया । मब गोविसी कासया ॥ छ ॥
मान दंभ चेष्टा । हे तों गुकराची विष्टा ॥ २ ॥
तुका म्हणे देवा । माझे सोडववणे घांवा ॥ ३ ॥
“Torches, umbrellas, horses,—these are of no value, why now, O lord of Pandhari, dost thou entangle me in them? Honour, pomp, show,—these are mere pig’s dung. Tuka says, O god, hasten to deliver me.”
It is, perhaps, unfair for a foreigner to give a judgment on such works as these, which certainly enjoy immense popularity in their own country, being “household words” to men of all classes.
After Tukoba, as he is familiarly called, the chief author is Mayur Pandit, or Moropant (A.D. 1720), who is by some considered as superior to Tukoba, and whose poems are highly esteemed. The Marathas have also a copious Anacreontic literature, which perhaps might better be called Rabelaisian without the wit, and with twice the amount of impurity. INTRODUCTION. 91 Of prose works this literature has but few and insignificant specimens. The chief are the Bakhars, or Chronicles of Kings, in which, as usual in India, so much that is legendary and impossible is mixed up with actual history as to detract greatly from their value to the student. In modern times the English have introduced into this, as into all the other provinces of India which have fallen under their sway, a new spirit of learning and a new era of develop- ment. It remains to be seen how far this movement will remain an exotic, fostered by the ruling power, and unable to grow alone, and how far it will, as in Bengal, strike roots into the soil and bear fruit. Up to the present date the Marathas have not produced any original works in the new style. Of course the manufacture of endless religious poems goes on as usual, but this is not progress. Prose works of a solid and enduring nature seem as yet to have appeared only rarely and at long intervals. Newspapers, of course, there are, but the people seem to have been rather overdosed with translations and adaptations from English, executed by well-meaning but rather obtrusive officials and missionaries. It may be doubted whether any, or at least more than a small fraction, of these works are really suited to the popular comprehension. We look in vain for spontaneous productions of the native mind, for works which seize hold on the national taste in the way that the old religious poems did, for works which do not betray the guiding and correcting hand of the English school- master on every page. Until we get such works as these there will be no national literature. Gujarati literature begins with Narsingh Mehta, who lived in the fifteenth century; the exact date of his birth is not known, but he was alive in 1457, and is considered the best poet in the language. His poems are chiefly short, something like sonnets, and of course religious. Some sixty poets are mentioned, but of these only ten or twelve are esteemed, as Vishnu Das, Shiv 92 INTRODUCTION. Das, Samal Bhatt, and others. In modern times the Gujaratis, though rather a backward people as times go, have been stimu- lated into activity. There are a good many newspapers in the language, some of which, from the specimens I have seen, possess considerable merit, though others, again, are as bad as they can well be. Under English influence also, translations and original works have been produced, though it is stated that "a shelf of moderate dimensions would accommodate all the published prose works, translations included, which have yet been written by Hindu Gujarati authors." Some societies are at work fostering native literary efforts, but not much is to be expected from them. The literature of a nation to be of any value must be a vigorous spontaneous growth, not a hot-house plant. Translations of goody-goody children's stories, or histories of India, dialogues on agriculture, Robinson Crusoe, and the like, though useful for schoolboys, do not form a national literature; no Tekchând Thâkur appears yet to have arisen in Gujarat. To show how little the language has changed since it was first put upon paper, I give a short piece from Narsingh Mehta, the earliest poet, and an extract from a modern Gujarati newspaper. Narsingh's poem is as follows:- as an era bat atar geta l durat att gê era atâ the art arcu efter at ang at fier caâ Gerg || and and at at cute turg | ma at at Bucet strang te stata un atger and disent rent von era arut catat a ¹ Preface to Leckey's Gujarati Grammar, p. viii. INTRODUCTION. "Recite, O parrot, by leave of Ram, may Sita the virtuous teach thee, Beside thee having built a cage, cause thee to mutter 'Ram' with thy mouth. Parrot, for thee I weave green bamboos; Of them I am making, parrot, a cage-I join jewels and diamonds. Parrot, for thee what food shall I cook? 93 On pieces of sugar I shall sprinkle ghee. Thou of yellow wing, white foot, black neck, 191 Worship the lord of Narsai (Narsingh), trolling a pleasant song." From the Gujarat Shâlâpatra, for March, 1863- war fad at met andar enenâ gei dêtût at a. nata a LAS IN OUR Hi va metâ eâ §. at the at THIỆTÂM ĐIỀU HỈ qua lụa Gra. s are at and accidret vet guitat vendar putat art vê að muu zu are fequat quad aç ufay. "It is less, than three quarters of a century since the Fire-carriage, or railway, began to run. In this interval its use has been so extended that these carriages now run in most parts of England. In this short time these carriages have begun to run in several parts of this country also. In a few years, when the trains run from Calcutta to this place or to Bombay, we shall be able to go to Calcutta in three or four days."" Of the other languages it cannot be said in strictness that they have any literature, if by that word we mean written works. In most Aryan countries in India there has existed from the earliest times a large body of unwritten poetry. These ballads or rhapsodies are still sung by the Bhâts and Chârans, two classes corresponding somewhat to our European bards, and the antiquity of some of the ballads still current is admitted to be great. The poems of Chand, to which I so often refer, are nothing more than a collection of these ballads; ¹ Shapurji Edalji's Gujarati Dictionary, pref., p. xiv. a Ib., p. xix. 94 INTRODUCTION. a collection probably made by the poet himself, when in his old age he bethought him of the gallant master whom he had so long served, and who had died in the flower of his manhood in that last sad battle before Delhi. Throughout all the country of the Rajputs, far down to the mouths of the Indus and the confines of Biluchistan, the Indian bards wandered singing, and a considerable quantity of their poems still lives in the mouths of the people, and has in these latter times been printed. This, as far as I know, is all that Sindh can show of ancient literature. And the case is not far different in the Panjab. In that province the language is still very closely connected with various forms of western Hindi. Though Nanak, the great religious reformer of the Panjab and founder of the Sikh creed, is generally pointed to as the earliest author in the language, yet few writings of his are extant, and in the great collection called the Granth, made by Arjun Mal, one of his disciples, in the sixteenth century, there is nothing distinctly Panjabi. It is stated to be for the most part an anthology culled from the writings of Hindi poets, such as Kabir, Namadev, and others, and consequently the language is pure old Hindi. It is to be observed that in all Western India there is a large number of ballads, snatches of songs, and other unwritten poetry current, which if it could be collected would form a considerable body of curious ancient literature. One circumstance, however, detracts much from the value of collections of this sort, namely, that the genuine old language, with its archaic or provincial expressions, is seldom to be found intact. The reciters of these poems habitually changed the words they recited, substituting for the ancient forms which they no longer understood modern words of similar meaning, so that we are continually being disappointed in our hope of picking up transitional fifteenth century phases of language which undoubtedly did exist in these poems in their original state. Even in written works this has taken place to INTRODUCTION. 95 some extent. I am informed by Babu Rajendralal Mittra, a very high authority in such matters, that the printed editions of the Chaitanya Charanâmrita, and similar early Bengali works now to be procured in Calcutta, have been so altered and modernized as no longer to present any trustworthy picture of the genuine language of the poem. I also notice that in some extracts from a pseudo-Chand printed recently in the Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal, the language is very much more modern than that of the authentic MSS. of the poem which I have seen. Thus, as an example, it may be noted that some twenty or thirty lines end with the word "is." The real Chand never uses; it had apparently not come into existence in his time. With him the substantive verb is almost always left to be inferred, and when expressed is generally indicated by the old Prakrit form from afa, whereas is merely an inversion off from f, through a form ; whence also the Marathi . But the mischief is not confined to the substitution of modern synonyms for archaic words; often the archaic word not being understood, a current word of nearly similar sound has been substituted for it, thus altering the whole meaning of the sentence. Still, in spite of these draw- backs, there is much to be learnt from these rustic songs and plays, and good service has been done by the Rev. J. Robson, of Ajmer, in lithographing four or five of the Khiyâls or plays which are frequently performed in Marwar. The Marwari dialect is faithfully represented in these interesting works, in which many a word of Chand is retained which it would perhaps be impossible to find elsewhere. This rapid and imperfect sketch of the present available literature of our seven languages will show that religious poetry constituted the bulk, if not the whole, of it till the influence ¹ I have not read all through Chand, but I believe I have read as much as, or more of his poem than any living Englishman, and in all that I have read I have never yet come across Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/118 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/119 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/120 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/121 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/122 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/123 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/124 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/125 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/126 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/127 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/128 and till this is done all that can be said is, that very numerous divergences exist, and several striking local peculiarities are known to be current, concerning which we await further information. Even in Calcutta till quite recent times people spoke in twenty different ways, and no one was sure which was the correct way.
On reviewing the whole question of Indian dialects, several important points attract attention. The first is, that as each of the seven languages, except Oṛiya, possesses many dialects, and as none of them until recent times and the rise of literature had any central type or standard, each one of the dialects into which it is divided has as much right as any of the others to be considered a genuine Aryan form of speech, and any one of them might have been chosen, as one of them actually was, as the basis on which to found the central type. Further, as some of the dialects spoken on the frontier between two languages partake almost equally of the characteristics of both, so that the various languages melt gradually one into another, without any of that harshness or confusion which marks those countries where two heterogeneous languages come into contact, we are justified in pointing to a time when there was no such distinct demarcation between the various languages as we see at present. We thus can raise for ourselves a picture of a bygone age, in which all the Aryans of India spoke what may be fairly called one language, though in many diverse forms, πολλῶν ὀνομάτων μορφὴ μία; and can see that the so-called seven languages of modern India have arisen from a process of crystallization, so to speak, the atoms consisting of the various dialects having been attracted to and grouped themselves round seven principal points or heads. The intrinsic and essential unity of the whole Aryan family in India thus becomes a natural result of the researches of philology, as it does of those of history.
Secondly, inasmuch as until the rise of literature no one of these numerous dialects had the pre-eminence over any of the others, we must not be contented with taking for the basis of our researches or arguments merely such words and forms as are to be found in the literary dialect of each language, because every one of the spoken dialects is presumably of equal antiquity and equal authority with the one written dialect. There is thus a most important and most valuable task waiting for hands to perform it. In every part of Aryan India there are now highly-educated English officials, who take a real and earnest interest in the people over whom they rule; it would be an easy and to many, it is hoped, a pleasing task to collect the words and forms current in their neighbourhood. The pages of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal are always open to contributions of this kind, and have already received many such; but many more remain to be done: will not those who can save these rare and curious words from perishing rouse themselves to do so ere it be too late? Before the spread of education local dialects are already beginning to die out, and will doubtless disappear more and more rapidly as time goes on, taking with them into an oblivion whence they cannot be recovered, words which might throw invaluable light upon dark places in the history of the development of the language to which they belong.
§ 30, The whole of these languages, including all their varied dialectic forms, exhibit at every turn marks of a common origin, and the changes and developments—I cannot call them corruptions—which they have undergone are all in the same direction, though in different degrees. There is hardly any special peculiarity in any one of them of which traces may not be found in a greater or less degree in all or most of the others. As regards mutual intelligibility, which has been proposed as the test whereby to distinguish languages from dialects, there is much divergence. An Oṛiya can generally understand what Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/131 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/132 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/133 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/134 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/135 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/136 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/137 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/138 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/139 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/140 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/141 and the relation between it and Hindi is similar to that between Icelandic and Norwegian. Gujarati, separated by political circumstances from the rest of Hindustan proper, has retained archaic words and forms which have died out from the mother-speech, but no violent changes would be required to re-assimilate it. Sindhi on the west, Bengali on the east, will resist absorption much longer: the former owing to its fundamental divergence of type; the latter by virtue of its high cultivation and extensive literature, though it may be mentioned that Hindustani is already much spoken and generally well understood over a great part of Bengal. Oṛiya and Marathi may probably continue to hold their own to a more distant time, though in both provinces the number of persons, even among the lowest classes, who are acquainted with Urdu is already considerable, and is daily increasing. In short, with the barriers of provincial isolation thrown down, and the ever freer and fuller communication between various parts of the country, that clear, simple, graceful, flexible, and all-expressive Urdu speech, which is even now the lingua franca of most parts of India and the special favourite of the ruling race, because closely resembling in its most valuable characteristics their own language, seems undoubtedly destined at some future period to supplant most, if not all, of the provincial dialects, and to give to all Aryan India one homogeneous cultivated form of speech,—to be, in fact, the English of the Indian world. Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/144 Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/145
- ↑ It is strenuously denied by many that Sanskrit ever had any dialects, but it seems to me that their arguments refer only to the written language. In Vedic, or even pre-Vedic, times it is probable that dialects existed, though of course there is nothing that can be called proof of this supposition.
- ↑ I have explained my views more concisely in another place as follows: “It is a highly probable theory that the old Aryan, like all other languages, began to be modified in the mouths of the people as early as the Vedic period, and that the Brahmans at a subsequent date, in order to prevent the further degeneration of their language, polished, elaborated, and stiffened it into the classical Sanskrit. We cannot, however, suppose that they brought any new material into the language, but simply that they reduced to rule what was till then vague and irregular, that they extended to the whole of the language euphonic laws which had previously been only of partial application, and so forth; all the while, however, only working on already existing materials.”—From a paper on the Treatment of the Nexus, Journ. Royal Asiatic Society, vol. v., p. 151.
- ↑ Many words occur in the Vedas in a Prakrit rather than a Sanskrit form. I quote at second-hand a remark of Weber's which summarizes the whole matter neatly: "The principal laws of Prakrit speech, viz., assimilation, hiatus, and a fondness for cerebrals and aspirates, are promiment in the Vedas, of which the following are examples; kuṭa=kṛita; kâṭa=karta; geha=gṛiha; guggulu=gungulu; viviṭṭya=vivishṭyai; kṛikalâsa=kṛikadâśu; purodâśa=purolâśa (comp. daśru=lacryma); paḍbhiḥ=padbhiḥ; kshullaka=kshudraka; etc."—Muir's Sanskrit Texts, vol. ii., p. 139. (1st Edition.)
- ↑ It is a characteristic peculiarity of India, arising from want of means of communication, that trades and professions are still confined to particular localities; one town produces swords, and nothing else; another is entirely devoted to silk-weaving, and no other town but that one presumes to rival it.
- ↑ It must however be stated that there are reasons for doubting whether the Pali of Ceylon is really the same as the Magadhi. Some authors are inclined to doubt this, and state that the Pali corresponds more closely with forms of Prakrit spoken in Western India, It matters little or nothing to the present inquiry whether this be so or not. We are only indirectly concerned with Prakrit in this work. It is sufficient to say that the Pandits of Ceylon use the words Pali and Magadhi as convertible terms. Pali in fact means only “writing.”
- ↑ Lest it should be objected that this description of the Prakrits is too brief and seanty, I must remind the reader again that our business is with the modern languages only, and that the subject of Prakrit, though frequently introduced for the sake of completing the range of view, is after all quite secondary throughout.
- ↑ Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, has sægan, dæg, nægel, sægel, rægn. Gothic dags, nagls. Modern High German sagen, tag, nagel, segel, regen.
- ↑ He ascended the throne Samvat 821.
- ↑ The passage occurs in the first book of Chand, and the story is probably historical, though, as usual with Chand, mixed up with much that is extravagantly legendary. Sarang Dev's foster-brother, a bania, had been killed by a tiger while travelling through a forest, and the prince was so grieved that he turned Buddhist. The words are—
अति दुचित भयौ सारंग देव।
नित प्रति करै अरिहतं सेव।
बुध ध्रम लियौ बांधे न तेग।
सुनि स्रवन राज मन भौ उदेग।
बुल्लाइ कुवंर सनमान कीन।
किहि काज तुमं इह ध्रम्म सीन।
तुम छंडि सरम हम कहौ बत।
बानिक्व पुत्र हन तें दुचित।
इह नष्ट ग्यान सुनिये न कान।
पुरषातन भज्जै कित्ती हान।
तुम राज वसं राजनह संग।
मृगया सर खेलो बन दुरंग।
परमोध तजो बोधक पुराण।
रामायन सुनहु भारथ निदान॥"Very grieved was Sârang Dev, constantly he worships the Arhaut, he embraced the religion of Budh, he binds not on his sword; hearing the news, the king’s mind was distressed; he called the prince, and saluting him (said), Why have you embraced this religion, abandoning shame tell me, are you grieved at the death of the bania's son? Do not listen to this destroyed science, (by which) manliness flies away, fame is destroyed. You are of royal race, with kings hunt the deer in the far-stretching forest, abandon this delusion, be the Purans your guide, listen to the Ramayan and (Maha)bharat."—Chand, i., 72.
- ↑ I have placed these four languages alone, because, down to the fifteenth century, the Panjabi and Gujarati are little more than dialects of the Hindi; and the Oriya, till the time of Upendra Bhanj and Dînkrishna Dâs, has no literary existence, and we cannot tell what the spoken language was like, because poets always wrote a language of their own, having no care to keep their works on the level of the spoken dialects. The poems of the earliest Bengali writers also present very few of the grammatical peculiarities of modern Bengali; they, like Chand, and even like much later writers, Tulsi Dâs and Bihâri Lâl, resemble the writings of the Troubadours and Trouvères, in which the old synthetical languages with their array of inflections have fallen into decadence and disuse, while the analytical system of modern time has not yet obtained its full development.
- ↑ The following list of words will exemplify what is meant:
Latin. Old Tadbhavas
or popular French words.New Tadbhavas
or scientific words.alúminum alún alumíne ángelus ánge angelús blásphemum bláme blasphéme cáncer cháncre cancér débitum détte debít exámen essáim examén móbilis meúble mobíle órganum órgue orgáne Brachet, Grammaire Historique Française, p. 73.
- ↑ Sir G. C. Lewis, "Essay on the Romance Languages," p. 9. This clever little work gives an admirably condensed and lucid epitome of the whole question of the Romance languages.
- ↑ The word "Romans" here does not mean inhabitants of Rome. In the ages immediately succeeding the German invasion, all the conquered races of France, Spain, and Italy, whether they were Gauls, Italians, or Iberians, were called Romans, in distinction from the conquering tribes of Teutons.
- ↑ A few examples are:
Classical Latin. Vulgar Latin. French. verberare batuere battre pugna batalia bataille osculari basiare baiser felis catus chat edere manducare manger ignis focus feu vertere tornare tourner iter viaticum voyage aula curtis cour Some of these words, as focus, viaticum, are in use in classical Latin, but not in the sense in which they are employed in French.
- ↑ In addition to which Forbes' is a mere plagiarism from other writers.
- ↑ In A.D. 717.—Elliot's Historians of India, ed. Dowson, vol. i., p. 12.
- ↑ For many generations after the victories of Kutb-ud-din Aibak, the first Musulman sovereign of Delhi, the conquerors retained their own Persian, and the conquered their Hindi. Mr. Blochmann, whose knowledge of the Muhammadan court of Delhi is singularly extensive and accurate, is of opinion that Hindi did not begin to be impregnated with Persian words, and the Urdu language consequently did not begin to be formed, till the sixteenth century—see "The Hindu Rajas under the Mughals," Calcutta Review, April, 1871. The Musulmans had long been accustomed to speak pure Hindi, and it was not they who introduced Persian words into the language, but the Hindus themselves, who, at the epoch above mentioned, were compelled by Todar Mal's new revenue system to learn Persian.
- ↑ The most correct way of speaking would be to say "the Urdu dialect of Hindi," or "the Urdu phase of Hindi." It would be quite impossible in Urdu to compose a single sentence without using Aryan words, though many sentences might be composed in which not a single Persian word occurred.
- ↑ Although in the present day Bengali surpasses all the other cognate languages in literary activity, yet the fact of its comparative rudeness until very recent times admits of no doubt. Even within the memory of Bengali gentlemen now living there was no accepted standard of the language, the dialects were so numerous and so varied. Since the vernacular literature has received such an immense development, the high-flown or semi-Sanskrit style has become the model for literary composition, but no one speaks in it. I think it is not too much to say that for spoken Bengali there is hardly yet any unanimously accepted system. Among recent works there is a class of comic productions, such as novels, farces, ballads, and satires, in which the spoken language is imitated. The writers of these works, like our own comic writers, attempt to seize the peculiarities of the various classes whom they introduce. Such works would not be intelligible to foreigners who have only studied the classical Bengali. Babu Piâri Lal Mittra, in his admirably clever and spirited novel, Allâler gharer Dalâl, "The Spoilt Child of the House of Allal," puts into the mouth of each of his characters the appropriate method of talking, and thus exhibits to the full the extensive range of vulgar idioms which his language possesses. In the cheap newspapers, which are now sold for a pice about the streets of Calcutta, much of this edifying stuff may be seen. It would puzzle most Europeans sadly to understand its meaning.
- ↑ Yates's Bengali Grammar initiates the student into all the mysteries of Sandhi as though they were still in use, and his distress, when he is obliged to give a genuine vernacular form instead of some stilted Sanskritism, is quite ludicrous. Thus, in introducing the common pronouns mui, tui, which are of course the real original pronouns of the language, he says, "It would be well for the first and second of these pronouns, and for the verbs that agree with them, to be expunged from the language." (!) One feels tempted to ask why he did not try to expunge I and thou from English, and to substitute the much more elegant phrases, "Your humble servant" and "Your worship."
- ↑ For the information of readers in Europe it may be necessary to explain that the word "Hindu" is always used in India as a religious term denoting those Aryans who still adhere to the Brahmanical faith, and who in most parts of India constitute the majority of the population. "Hindî," on the other hand, expresses the language spoken by the Hindu population of the country from Delhi to Rajmahal, Hindusthan proper, or, as Chand calls it, "Hinduoṇ thân."
- ↑ This position of the languages on the page is, as will be seen at a glance, nearly identical with their position on the map of India.
- ↑ For a further examination of this point, see § 30.
- ↑ I hear that it is shortly to be published at Leipzig, if this unhappy war will permit. September, 1870.
- ↑ There are some twelve or thirteen different alphabets current in Sindh, some of which differ very widely from the others. Of late, however, the Arabic character, though very ill adapted to express Sindhi sounds, has come into common use, and a modification of the Devanâgarî is proposed for adoption, though I believe it is not actually employed by any class of Sindhians.
- ↑ This story is told by Babu Rajendra Lâl Mittra, in vol. xxxiii., p. 508, of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. There is much that is good in his article, though I entirely disagree with the greater part of it.
- ↑ This section and the following should be read with the tables of alphabets in the second volume of Prinsep's Indian Antiquities at hand for comparison. The modern alphabets will be found in a table at the end of this chapter.
- ↑ The Kashmiri character is very similar to the Panjabi, though in several instances its forms are even more archaic still.
- ↑ These letters being pronounced rŭ, rû, lŭ, lû, respectively, the common people often use them for रु, रू, लु, and लू; thus, we see deluṉ "I gave," written देलृं, properly delṛṉ; and rûp, "form," ॠप, properly ṛîp.
- ↑ This remark is more exactly applicable to the western Panjabis. I find it in my note-book made at Gujrat and Jhelam in 1859.
- ↑ They do so also in words of Sanskrit origin in many instances. I believe, however, this is more of a personal and individual characteristic than a law of the language, as I have heard some persons pronounce it more as z than others.
- ↑ The cases in Hindi in which य is retained are chiefly in the terminations of Tatsamas used in the early poets, as वानीय vânîya, where the Skr. pronunciation is preserved; and in the pronominal forms यह, यौं, यहां, the first and last of which are often written and pronounced इह, इहां.
- ↑ Hindi retains the Sanskrit pronunciation of v in old Tatsamas and in वह, वहां, वैसा, and such words. Here again we often hear and see उह, उहां, etc.
- ↑ This little o at the top is meant to express a sort of half-heard fleeting labial tone, like a labial Sheva, if such a thing could be.
- ↑ Hindustan must throughout these pages be understood in its literal and restricted sense of the area from Delhi to Rajmahal, within which the Hindi and its dialects are the mother-speech.
- ↑ "Man schliesst den Mund, und drückt einen dumpfen Laut herauf, öffnet dann den Mund und lässt den Laut g (j, d, b) austönen."—Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenl. Ges., vol. xv., p. 702.
- ↑ Those who wish to pursue this subject further should read M. Garcin de Tassy's Histoire de la littérature Hindoustani, in which an immense amount of information is collected. The learned author is an ardent admirer of Hindi literature.
- ↑ For this hitherto unpublished poem I have to thank my friend Babu Jagadishnath Rai, who has also procured for me others of the same kind. Vidyâpati's date is fixed as early as A.D. 1320; but I am disposed to doubt this.
- ↑ For the majority of the facts contained in this paragraph on Bengali I must acknowledge my obligations to the article on Bengali Literature in the Calcutta Review for April, 1871.
- ↑ Literally, “the association of Yama,” considered as Fate; sanghât in the second line is used in the sense of association, or propinquity; in the fourth, in that of killing or death. This verse is almost identical with the modern spoken language; hoībo = hebo is the only archaism.
- ↑ ध्रुपद, or "Chorus"; it is repeated after each verse.