Indian Antiquary Vol 60

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 347

AUGUST, 1931)
HISTORICAL
[#46-48
It must not be assumed that Khówār is so different from the other Dardic languages as this table seems to show. The table shows only points of difference and does not show the many points of agreement.
1 This was first shown by Leitner in The Bashyeli Kafirs and their Language, reprinted from the Journal of the United Service Institution of India, No. 43, Lahore, June 10, 1880. Morgenstierne (Rep.. p. 74) is of a different opinion.
46. Finally, in regard to Dardic languages, it is noteworthy that they still possess many words in extremely ancient forms. Such are, for instance, KI. kakauak, V. kaköku, Bš. kakak, a fowl, as compared with the Vedic Sanskrit krkaväkr. ; Kh. droyum, silver, which preserves the Greek Spyuh unaltered to the present day, although even in Skr. it became changed to dramma-; Skr. kaina, milk, Bš. kašir, white ( 290 ); Skr. svasar-, Kh. ispusát, a sister; Skr. asru-, Kh. ašru, a tear; and several others,
CHAPTER II.
Historical. 47. We have completed our geographical survey of the IAVs. and their dialects. It has beon seen that they have been divided into three families--a Midland, an Intermediate, and an Outer. We shall now consider the mutual relationship of these families, and it will be more convenient to consider their growth downwards from the source than to follow their course upstream. The treatment must necessarily be historical, but the portion dealing with those stages which preceded that of the IAVs. lies outside the frame of the present work, and my account of them will be as brief as is consistent with gaining a clear idea of the whole subject.
43. The earliest documents illustrating the language of the Indo-Aryans that we possess are the hymns of the Rg Vēda. These hymns were composed at widely different times and in widely different localities, some in Arachosia, or even in Erän itself, and some in the country near the Jamunā; but, owing to their having undergone a process of editing by those that compiled them into their present arrangement, they now show few easily recognizable traces of dialectic differences. On the other hand, it is certain that even at that early period 'there must have existed a popular language wbich already differed widely in its phonetic aspect from the literary dialect,' and that this folk-language varied 80 greatly from place to place that Indo-Aryan speakers of one locality were unintelligible to Indo-Aryan speakers of another. In the process of editing the hymns, much of the original dialectic variations have disappeared, and there has even been, as has always been the tendency in literary India, & disposition to use exceptional forms as bases for generalizations ; but, nevertheless, the hymns, even as we possess them, form an invaluable record of the Aryan language of ancient India, especially of that of the Eastern Panjab and of the Upper Gangetic Döāb where they were compiled.
1 Cf., however, von Bradke, ZDMG, I, 673 fl., Wk., xiii, xix, xxv.
Macdonell, History of Sanskrit Literature, 24. Of. Wk., xvi ff., XXV. 3 Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythologiel, i, 89, 114, 136. 4 Cf. von Bradke, 669 ff., Wk., xii.
49. It is impossible to trace the origin of these ancient dialects in detail, but one general theory must be stated, which not only has the authority of a distinguished philologist, but is also supported by the leading Indian ethnologist. 1
1 Seo Risley, Report of the Census of India (1901), i, 511, repeated in the Imperial Gazetteer of India (1907), i, 302 ff. According to him, the earlier Aryan invasion suggested by Hoernle, and mentioned below. was one of a tribe or tribes who brought their women with them. The later invadere roprosent the
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