THE HINDI LANGUAGE and ITS NEIGHBOURS 5 Biharih^s three principal dialects, namely Maithili, Bhojpuri, and Magahi. Maithili is the chief literary- dialect, and practically all the works which have come down to us are in this dialect. It is spoken in the region which formed the old kingdom of Mithila, that is in Bihar north of the Ganges. The Hindi Alphabet and Written Character.— The alphabet used for Hindi and the other languages included with it in this book is the same as that of Sanskrit, and is arranged in the same way, that is on phonetic principles. One or two of the Sanskrit letters are not used however in Hindi. The written character is generally what is the called the Devanagari (or Nagari), which is also used for Sanskrit. But other forms are also used. Mahajanl (or Sarrafi) and Baniauti are only used in business. They are both modifications of Kayathi (or Kaithi). This word is from Kayath, or Kayasth, the name of the writer-caste amongst the Hindus. Kayathi character was originally derived from the Devanagari by slight alterations which better adapt it to the purpose of writing quickly. It is used chiefly in the Eastern portion of the area with which we are concerned, but even there is not so common as Devanagari. Vocabulary.— The vast majority of words used in the languages we are considering are those which have come down from the original Indo-Aryan language through the long development of the centuries. But in the language of to-day there are often found words which are direct borrowings from Sanskrit. These are called Tatsavia words ("the same as that") to dis- tinguish them from Tadbhava words (" of the nature of that"), which are those that have undergone change in the long process of development. In many cases Tatsama and Tadbhava forms of the same word or root co-exist in the language, such as Yogy and Jog ("fit, worthy"). Words have also been borrowed from Persian. We find these even in the works of the great writers such as Tulsi Das, and though some modern authors affect to write "pure Hindi," few
