________________
DECEMBER, 1917]
Sanskrit. Enfants:
THE WIDE SOUND OF E AND O
THE WIDE SOUND OF E AND O WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GUJARATI.
BY N. B. DIVATIA, B.A.; BANDRA.
IN an appendix to his article on the "Proposed Bardic and Historical Survey of Rajputâna "1 Dr. Tessitori has done me the honor of mentioning my theory on the subject mentioned at the head of this article, and very courteously advanced certain reasons for disagreeing with me. My theory is that the vocalic groups, and a pass through an intermediate step-अय and अब ( eventually अय् and अय् ) – before assuming the wide sounds sf and af. Dr. Tessitori holds that this intermediate step does not play any part, and that the sand sounds undergo a process of contraction through suppression of the hiatus, the only intermediate step thereafter being that of the dipthongal forms and st.
His reasons for differing from me are put under three heads. I shall deal with each one serially :
(1) There are no instances of - of O. W. Rajasthani having changed to The examples quoted by me—वयर from बहर, वयरागी from बहरागी and पयसार from पइसार are disposed of by Dr. Tessitori by stating
(a) that O. W. Rajasthâni MSS. often write
for; and
(b) that and rf are tatsamas 2 (meaning thereby Prâkrit words used unchanged in O. W. Râj.), and that the in them may be a corruption of Sanskrit instead of a modification of O. W. Râj. STE. My answer to this is as under:
In the first place I take my stand on the broad basis of the general principle that, when unaccented, medial and are respectively changed to and during their transit into Gujarâtî. This will include cases of such and preceded by as well as by other Vowels. I therefore do not see why the issue should be confined to the and of and 3. Necessarily, instances under this restricted class will be fewer. But if instances can be shown to prove the operation of this change over a wider field, that very fact should strengthen the case of भइ and भड passing into अब and अव. The following, then, are some instances to prove this general principle :
Praky, or Apabbr.
बैर
craft उपविष्टकः
ey पअं (Desya) पइसार
वहरु
वइरागी
उबड्डउ-बहउ
O. W. Râj. or Gujarâtî.
कीयल
297
पव पथसार वयर Fracroft 4733
1 JBAS. N. S. XII, 1916.
2 The liberty taken with the recognized nomenclature in extending the meaning of tatsama to Prakrit words that have undergone no change in transit from Prakrit to O. W. Raj. may at first sight strike one as a little bold. But this is another instance of Dr. Tessitori's happy choice of names, (the first one being the name O. W. Rajasthânî); for it accounts, in a single suggestive word, for the use of pure Prakrit words in later old Gujarati works, just as we should and do use Sanskrit tatsamas in our present-day Gujarati ; thus explaining the apparent anamoly of older Prakrit words appearing side by side with words of later evolution in the old Gujarati works I speak of.
3 For a further restriction see Appendix A.
