________________
A Basic Tendency of Prākrit Languages
explained on the ground that it was always kept in its own syllable, and the persistence of all the three syllables and their separateness may explain the nasalization of the final syllable and not the preceding one. In the parallel cases from French, one can see that the nasal nasalizes the preceding vowel only when it is followed by another consonant and thus properly belongs to the preceding syllable. In other cases we find that Latin amare gives rise to French aimer.
The investigation of this one principle underlying a number of phonetic changes would suggest that in the apparent welter of linguistic changes of Prākrits there does run as an undercurrent some well-marked principle which cannot be possible in a group of artificial changes produced by grammarians and literary men. On the contrary it suggests strongly that it was the result of the unconscious tendency of the speaker to value the syllabic structure of the word more than anything else. This is probably the strongest proof in favour of regarding the Prākrit languages as having a natural origin. Because they have been preserved to us only in literary documents they are bound to show some deviations from the actual spoken forms on which they are based.
000
A Basic Tendency of Prākrit Languages B.C. Law Vol.2 1946
5
