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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1903.
The Indo-European family of languages possesses an r, as well as an l. The same is the case in Sanskrit, but both sounds are there distributed in a way which is quite different and apparently quite lawless. The sister-language of the oldest Indo-Aryan dialects, the old Iranian form of speech, has changed every l into r. The same has apparently once been the case in all Aryan dialects. In India itself we can see how the use of is gradually spreading. In the oldest Vedic texts it is a comparatively rare sound. It is more frequently used in later Vedic books, and still more so in post-Vedic literature. There must be a reason for this increasing tendency to change r into l, and the only satisfactory explanation seems to be that it is due to Dravidian influence. Bishop Caldwell has pointed out that r and I in Dravidian languages are constantly interchanged, usually so that an 7 is substituted for an r.
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There are no traces of Dravidian influence in other points of the pronunciation of the oldest Indo-Aryan language. The common softening of hard single consonants after vowels in the Prakrits seems to correspond to the similar change in Dravidian. The double pronunciation of the palatals in modern Marathi is probably due to the influence of Telugu, and so on. But we have no right to assume that such tendencies have been at work in the oldest stage of Indo-Aryan languages.
The Dravidian languages have, on the other hand, very early exercised an important influence on Aryan grammar. I do not think that this influence has been a direct one, of one language on another. It seems to have taken place in such a way that the Dravidians who were, in the course of time, absorbed by the Aryans and adopted their speech, did not abandon their linguistic tendencies, but were, on the contrary, to a certain extent able to recast the Aryan grammar after Dravidian principles. The most important point in this connection is the increasing use in Aryan languages of participles instead of ordinary tenses.
It is a well-known fact that the verb in the Vedic dialects possesses a rich system of various tenses, just as is the case in other Indo-European languages. It is also well known how the varions tenses early began to be disused and were gradually replaced by participles. According to Prof. Whitney, the number of verbal forms in Nala and the Bhagavadgitâ is only one-tenth of that in the Rigveda. In later Sanskrit literature the same tendency was carried still further, and almost every tense was replaced by a participle. The same state of affairs prevails in modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars. They have, broadly speaking, only traces of the old tenses, but have instead developed new ones from the old participles. At the same time, the verb of subordinate sentences is commonly replaced by conjunctive participles.
This double tendency, to use conjunctive participles in subordinate sentences and to substitute participles for all finite tenses, is distinctly Dravidian, and not Indo-European. When we remember that the Aryan population of India has absorbed an important Dravidian element, it seems necessary to conclude that the said grammatical tendency is due to the influence of that element.
It is perhaps allowed to go a little farther. The present tense is in modern dialects very commonly conjugated in person. We have seen that the same is the case in Dravidian. It seems probable that we have here, again, to do with the influence of the Dravidian element. It is of no importance for this question, whether the personal terminations of the modern Aryan dialects are originally pronominal suffixes or borrowed from the verb substantive. The present tense in Dravidian languages is apparently formed by adding the verb substantive to a present participle. Compare Telugu chest-unndnu, I do, lit. I am doing; Tamil sey-girén, I do; and so on. The Tamil suffix of the present is kirén, and should be compared with kiri, I am, in the Kaikâdi dialect of Berar. The personal terminations are, however, also used in other tenses, just as is the case in some Indo-Aryan vernaculars, and it is of no importance for the present question how we explain the Dravidian present.
