Early History of Orissa

SR No.: 006922
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Amarchand Mittal
Publisher: Jain Cultural Research Society
Publication Year: 1957
Total Pages: 506
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

Page 41

16
AN EARLY HISTORY OF ORISSA
In northern Orissa, a multitude of sub-castes follow the Rājanyas, and it is not very convenient to locate them in any order of sequence. LANGUAGE
Language is one of the most important factors which have conferred an individuality to a region. "Each language is a product of a social tradition and itself reacts on other modes of thinking”, remarked Gordon V. Childe'. The State of Orissa has its own language—the Oriya or Utkali, which like the Bengali, had its origin in the ancient Māgadhi Apabhramśa and is therefore an Aryan language as distinguished from those of Dravid origin. The earliest example of the Oriya language, which is at present spoken, consists of some Oriya words in an inscription of the 13th century A. D. An inscription, dated a century later, contains several Oriya sentences, which shows that the language was then fully developed and differed little from the modern form of speech either in spelling or in grammar. It is a sister language of the Bengali, but has one great advantage over the Bengali in the fact that, as a rule, it is pronounced as it is spelt. Each letter in each word is clearly sounded, and it has been well described as a 'comprehensive and poetical, with a pleasing sound and musical intonation, and by no means difficult to acquire and master.” Its verbal system is, at once, simple and complete. It has a long array of tenses, but the entire thing is so logically arranged and built on so regular a model that its principles are easily impressed upon memory. But, it is handicapped by possessing an exceedingly awkward and cumbrous written characters.
1. Gordon V. Childe - What Happened In History, p. 17. 2. The above account is based on Grierson's Linguistio Survey of
India, Vol. I, Part I, Calcutta, 1927.