Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 61
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications
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§ 154)
ON THE MODERN INDO-ARYAN VERNACULARS
[JUNE, 1939
154. Nevertheless, hardly any one has paid attention to this important subject. In fact, the only mention of it that has hitherto been made by any writer on Indian languages is contained in the passages already referred to in NP. Gr. For the rest of India no written information is available, and I can only, with much hesitation, quote my own experience, which is confined to the Ganges Valley. In good English, clearly spoken, the tone is focussed, on the bard palatal arch, though professional singers, for the sake of clearness focus it more forward, behind the teeth. In Pañjābi, 'the tone is brought to the very front of the mouth and on the teeth, giving a ringing metallic effect,' and endows the voice with a splendid carrying quality. One result of this clear metallic tone is that vocal indolence is not encouraged. Compound consonants, and, especially, ancient double letters, are preserved, and herein we find a cause for the phonetic facts, that in Pañjābi, double letters are not simplified, and letters difficult to pronounce, such as and !, are in common use. As we go west, down the Jamunā and Ganges Doāb, the focus is placed further back. The result is a less clear-cut tone, accompanied by a vocal indolence that simplifies double consonants with compensa. tory lengthening of a preceding vowel. Thus, P. súkkhā, but H. súkhā, dry. This change is, however, in these tracts not so universal as we might assume from literary usage, for the double consonant preceded by a short vowel is still often heard in the mouths of the un. educated. With this focus, we find n and ! gradually disappearing, being replaced by the dental n and I respectively. As we go eastwards, the focus gradually recedes slightly, the chief result being further vocal indolence. A tendency is observable to confuse the letters n and l. We hear, e.g., a village named Lakhnaur (Lakşmaņapura), called Nakholaur or Nakhlaul. Similarly there is a tendency to substitute a purely dental r, not only for the cerebral 7, but also for the r of the West, which is semi-cerebral. Then again this dental is liable to be exchanged with the dentall. By this time we have reached Bihäri, but on our left, we have passed by Audh, a country in which the language is Eastern Hindi. In Central Audh, while the language is still fairly clear-cut, a tendency to nasalization is observable,
- not so much of particular words, as of general intonation. This is probably not very manifest to foreigners living in Audh itself, for it is too general; but, when a Magistrate in Bihar, where this nasal intonation is not prevalent, I was frequently struck by the clear-cut nasal intonation of witnesses brought down from Central Audh to give evidence before me. From the Panjāb, down the Ganges Valley as far as Bihär, the letter 8 is invariably dental. The sh-sound of & is rarely heard, although we know that in the Prakrit period it existed in South Bihār. So also the clear sound of the letter 0,-the so-called a of America,'has persisted till we come to East Bihār where we find it with a more rounded sound, approaching that of 7 in 'hot' Further East we come to Bengal. Here the focus of intonation is decidedly further back in the mouth. I should be inclined, pending further enquiry, to say that it was on the soft palate. The result is a rounded, indistinct, sound of the vowels. The a has become distinctly õ and broken Vowels, such as e, have come into frequent use. Bengali has its own melody. It has been described as possessing the mellifluousness of Italian,'1 but its best friends cannot call it a clear-cut language. Indeed, I have heard it irreverently libelled, by one who came from the Panjāb, as a 'slobbering' form of speech. Without going so far as that, there can be no doubt that in Bengali vocal indolence, consequent on the back-focus of its intonation, has seriously affected its clearness of enunciation. Compound consonants are indolently simplified, padma sounds as piddo, smaran as sörön, vāhya as būjihva, and hrasva as rõdéo. Finally the dental s, which requires a certain effort to pronounce clearly, is everywhere superseded by the easily pronounced palatal s.
1 Cf. Anderson, JRAS., 1912, 1074.
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