Book Title: Desi Nammala
Author(s): Hemchandracharya, Muralydhar Banerjee
Publisher: University of Calcutta

View full book text
Previous | Next

Page 27
________________ xxvi DEŠINĀMAMĀLĀ the Prakrits and Vernaculars must be admitted. These words have come into the dialects from the languages of the aborigines whoin the Aryans conquered." Dr. P. D. Gune admits that some of the Desī words collected in the Pāialacchīnāmamālā and the Desināmamālā are " of other than Sanskrit extraction" and "some of the words are clearly Dravidian." The views of Sir George Grierson on the origin of Prakrit and its different elements best accord with the linguistic facts preserved in the literary Prakrits and in the modern Indo-Aryan Vernaculars. He considers Classical Sanskrit, including Vedic of which it is a lineal descendant, to be derived from one of the “Primary Prakrit dialects” of the Vedic age, “but fixed in its existing form by the labours of grammarians which may be said to have culminated in the work of Pāṇini about the year 350 B. C." These Primary Prakrits are now lost, not being preserved in literature. Out of these arose the literary Prakrits—the earliest specimens of which are Pali, Jaina Ardhamāgadhi, the edicts of Asoka-and the middle stage of which is represented by the Prakrit dialects of the Dramas and Jaina Mahārāştrīand the last stage of which is to be found in the literary Apabhramsas. All these he calls the Secondary Prakrits. Then by an extension of the term, the modern Aryan vernaculars that arose about the 10th century A. D. from the local Apabhramsas are called by him the Tertiary Prakrits. Speaking of the Deśya words Sir George Grierson writes : Another class of words is also to be mentioned, the so-called "Desya" or "local' words of the Indian Gram1. Ibid p. 108. Gune, 'Introduction to Comparative Philology,' p. 221. Grierson, "The Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. I, pp. 127-28.

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 ... 396