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Dr. Charlotte Krause : Her Life & Literature
developed Praksta dialects, and on the other hand, the modern vernaculars with their enormous mass of words newly borrowed from Saṁskṛta, but we know nothing whatever of the causes of those innovations.
It is evident that problems of that kind can only be solved by means of critical editions of well preserved and exactly dated texts, together with thorough investigations of their peculiarities. A series of such monographs treating texts of different ages and dialects will finally lead to a truly historical grammar of the Indian languages. In spite of all that has been done by Beames (1. c. ), Sir R. G. Bhandārakar ( 'Wilson Philological Lectures on Samskrta and the Derived Languages Delivered in 1877', ed. by Śrīdhara R. Bhandārakara, Bombay 1914), and Tessitori ( 'Notes on the Grammar of the Old Western Rājasthāns with special reference to Apabhraíśa and to Gujarāti and Mārawādī', Indian Antiquary, Vol. XLIII, Part DXL ff.), we are yet far from such an achievement, because their researches were based on but incidentally chosen and in themselves insufficient materials.
In the following study it has therefore been my principal aim to correctly edit and interpret my text, subordinating the treatment of all other questions and problems under this point of view. The chapter on grammar as well as the vocabulary are therefore merely descriptive and without an attempt of comparison. Equivalents from the modern vernaculars, or from Samskrta or Prākrta, etc., have, consequently, only been cited as a means of control.
In terminology, I have generally followed the use of the L. S., which must, for many years to come, be our leader in all studies concerning moder Indian dialects. In transcription, however, I could not persuade myself to try to follow the system of Sir George Grierson, who necessarily aims at an exact rendering of all possible shades of pronunciation occuring in his ( modern ! ) texts. With a text like ours, such a course would be impossible.
For :(a) we do not know the general linguistic character of
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