Indian Antiquary Vol 60

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

Page 362

$975-76
.
ON THE MODERN INDO-ARYAN VERNACULARS
[OCTOBER, 1931
1 LSI., III, i, 273 ff.
2 Cf. LSI., I, i, 132, and Konow in IV, 9. The Munda languages form a branch of the Austro-Asiatic family. The question as to borrowings by Sanskrit in ancient times from languages of this family is too wide to be discussed here. Reference may be made to " Pre-Aryan and Pre-Dravidian in India" (published by the University of Calcutta, 1929) containing translations by P.C. Bagchi of articles on the subject by Sylvain Lévi, J. Przyluski, and J. Bloch, and also articles in English by other scholars. See aleo P. Tedesco, BSL., XXIV (1924), 255 ff.
75. Indo-Chinese languages come into contact with the IAVs. in Assam, in Eastern Bengal, and in the Himalaya. In the first two a few Tibeto-Burman and Ahom words have been borrowed. In Assam, Tibeto-Burman influence has also been at work in obscuring the distinction between cerebral and dental letters, and in encouraging the retention of pronominal suffixes added to nouns, which has fallen into disuse in other IAVs. except in the North-West. Tibeto-Burman languages employ pronominal prefixes very freely. In the Eastern Pahāși of Nēpāl, Tibeto-Burman languages have affected the grammar more than the vocabulary, and the whole conjugation of the verb bears many traces of their influence. Another more general fact may possibly be due to Tibeto-Burman example. This is the so-called bhāvē prayoga of IAV. transitive verbs. In Classical Skr. the past participle of an intransitive verb may be used impersonally, as in mayā gatam, it was gone by me, i.e., I went. But this idiom is incorrect with transitive verbs. We cannot say mayā māritam, for 'I struck.' But this very idiom, with transitive verbs, is the rule in Tibeto-Burman languages, and is common in all IAV8. except those of the Eastern Group. If this extension or, possibly, survival of the prayoga in popular speech, although exoluded from Classical Skr., is due to Tibeto-Burman influence, it must come from very early times.
E.g., the use of the agent case for the subject of all tenges of the transitive verb, and the creation of a new impersonal honorific conjugation.
76. Far more important than Dravidian, Mundā, or Indo-Chinese additions to the vocabulary are those which are due to Persian influence. The Persian is not the Eranian language of pre-Musalmān times, although that also has furnished a small quota,1 but the Arabicized Persian of the Muyul conquerors of India. Through this Persian, IAV. has also received an important contribution of Arabic and some few Turki words. The influence of the religion of Islam has opened another door for the entry of Arabio, and a few words have been imported on the west coast from Arab traders; but in the main the Arabic element in all the LAVs. came in with Persian, and as a part of that language. The pronunciation of the Persian and Arabio words so imported is still that of Muyul times, and not that common in Persia at the present day. Thus in India people say tēr, not fir, for 'tiger,' and godt not gūst, for 'flesh.' The extent to which Persian has been assimilated varies much according to locality and to the religion of the speakers. Everywhere there are some few Persian words which have achieved full citizenship and are used by the most ignorant rustic, and we find every variation between this and the Urdū of a highly educated Musalmān writer of Lakhnau (Lucknow), who uses scarcely a single Indo-Aryan word except the verb at the end of the sentence. Under all circumstances, it is the vocabulary, and but rarely the syntax, which is affeoted. The additions to the vocabulary are, as in the case of Ts8., nearly oonfined to nouns substantive (see $ 70). Only in the Urdū of Musalmāns do we find the Persian order of words in a sentence, and there has been no other introduction of Persian construction, which is not actually borrowed as a construction with Persian words. Nor are Arabic words inflected except by purists, but they have to conform to the grammatical system of their host. So strong is the native instinct against the use of foreign constructions, that Hindū writers class a dialect as Urdū, not on the basis of its vocabulary, but on that of the order of words employed.
1 E.g., Skr., Pr., and OA. sähi, a king, not derived from the Musalmān Persian dāh, but preserving the i of the OPersian xdāyabiya-. See Stein, Zoroastrian Deities on Indo-Scythian Coins, Oriental and Babylonian Record, August, 1887.