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" JOURNAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BOMBAY
pitaram, pitarau. Now in Avesta we have exactly the same situation. The stems ending in s have forms like dātā, dātārem, dātāro, but for pits we have forms like pitaram, pitaro. We can take one more example. In Sanskrit and Avesta, the cardinal numbers show gender distinction only for the first four numbers viz. eka, dva, tri and catvar. To take the forms only of the word for 'four' we have in Skt. calvāraḥ (m.), catasraḥ (f.) and catvári (n.) to which Avesta corresponds for the first two with cathwäro (m.), catanro(f.). Such close resemblances in morphological peculiarities can neither be explained as due to chance or borrowing. They have their basis only in common origin. When an item is borrowed from one language to another, one does not borrow it with all its morphological peculiarities. If today & word like sputnik is borrowed from Russian, no-body borrows with it all the declined forms of that word in Russian. And we have no ground to assume that the linguistic developments which took place in historic or prehistoric times were quite different from, or even opposed to, what we find today.
1. W.D. Whitney : Language and the Study of Language (1867), “So far back as we can trace the history of language, the forces which have been efficient in prodlucing its changes, and the general outlines of their modes of operation, have been the same; and we are justified in concluding, we are even compelled to infer, that they have been the same from the outset." (p. 258):
Madhu Vidyā/375
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