Indian Antiquary Vol 12

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 70

58
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[FEBRUARY, 1883.
long 4 of the animate masculine, as minihd, puta, ing examination. In the oldest inscriptions the = manusa, puta, points back to an older a, just as well-known peculiarly Magadhio nominative of the fof the feminine does to an older i. In the the masculine and neuter in e appears to be Elu prosody the preponderating shortness of pretty common (Goldschmidt's Report on Inscripvowel appears also with the condition that every tions, &c. 1876, p. 3); in Elu the which recals syllable ending in a consonant be considered as the Prakrit o is much more frequent than in the long (Alwis, SS. p. xci, xcii, cxx).
modern language, which appears to make use Very extensive and multiform is the vowel more of the a. Of various exceptions, like kiri change produced by a following i, f, by virtue of =khira, dana =jdne, vesi = vassa, and many which the umlaut vowels e, é; i, 1; e, e; are others, there is no lack. In the last part of a produced from a, &: u, u: 0,0; transitions which, compound the non-radical terminal a is mostly in the formation of the feminine with f, of the dropped (Childers, Journ of the R. As. Soc. N. S. passive with original iya, of the participial) pre- VII, pp. 45, 47); many forms of originally dissylterite with ita, have obtained a widespread labic words contracted in this manner may then grammatical acceptance. As Childers has (loc. cit. have been also employed independently, and p. 143, 148 ff.) discussed exhaustively all three would thus have not immaterially increased the cases, I can refer generally to his examples, and number of monosyllables, especially numerous in wish only to call attention to the fact that in Elu (vide supra p. 566). We have already passive forms like kerenava, from karanava, spoken above of the lengthening of non-radical tertibenavd from tabanand, as against the regularly minal a and i in words denoting animate being. formed kodenavd from kadanavd, greater trans- | In' regard to the constitution of the consonant formations have taken place, the true cause of system the want of aspirates and the incompletewhich has yet to be discovered. Of other cases of ness of the palatal series are peculiarities which * umlaut I would also especially mention the strike one immediately. abstract suffix (ma and the suffix of possession i: The representation of the former, whether in devima from dovinavá, v duh; gæmi from gama= tenues or mediae aspiratae, by the corresponding gama. In words like kili = kuti; pirisa = unaspirated consonants is the rule; besides this purisa; iru, hiru, from *hiriyu = suriya, the we have the separation of the aspiration from the umlaut cannot with full certainty be separated more permanent consonantal element, and transifrom the complete vowel assimilation, which is tion into simple h. The former was a special well attested by such examples as pili= pati; peculiarity of the Elu, and is sufficiently supported piri = pari; dunu = dhonu; lúnu from luhunu in § 22 of the Sidat Sangard by such characteristic for lahuna = lasuna; muhuda from *mahuda for examples as sædehæ, also sædcê, = saddhd (Skr. *hamda = samudda, and many others. The i graddha), sadaham, also sadam, = saddhamma, also, which was produced first by the weakening of &c. The latter is clearly proved in the case of the other vowels, can, it seems, be produced by popular speech by such a form as bihird=badhira, umlaut : modiya = mandaka; bæma from Mald. biru (Ch.); for this reason also luhu==laghre *bæmiya = bhamuka (cf. scela = Skr. sdriká); (also lutkundu) may with justice claim the privilege in the last example the i which gave rise to the of nationality over the less disfigured lagu. umlaut has since disappeared, as it was removed by With the loss of the aspiration may well be contraction in id = lohita and the example classed the dropping of the h in nasal quoted by Childers kd = khdyita, khad. combinations: bamunu from the Prakrit form
A large number of remarkable vowel changes bamhana for Skr. and Pali brahmana (Hema. are closely connected with certain consonantial chandra I, 67; 11, 74; cf. E. Kuhn, Beitr. xur Palimutations. An I, which has been produced from Gramm. p. 5 f.); gim = gimha (Elu—in the a cerebral or a dental, appears to have often modern language completely supplanted by the changed a neighbouring a into o: ekolaha, dolaha, tatsamas from the Skr. and Pali grishma-ya and pahaloha = ekddasa, dvddasa, pasichadasa; polova gimhdna-ya); unu, hot,=unha, Mald, hunu; in = pathavf or pathavf; molova, brain, perhaps = the same manner uh to o: diva =jivha. Besides #mattha, Skr. *masta, in the sense of Skr. mastishka forms are freely found like banba for the name and mastulunga = Pali matthalunga. Instead of of the god Brahmd and the Pali adjective brahma ça in Sanskrit tatsamas we find sé (Clough's (E. Kuhn, loc. cit. p. 18) on the one hand, and the Singhalese and English Dictionary, p. 686). Of the derived unuh-um, unuh-uma, heat, on the other, change of consonant produced by the dropping which however appear to belong more to the of vowels we shall have more to say further on. literary dialect.
The subject of the non-radical terminal vowels As to the palatal series, c and naturally ch will render necessary in the future a more search appear only in later loan words. Their ordinary