Indian Antiquary Vol 62

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

Page 168

156
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
Auatst. 1933
may have exercised a regressive influence on an original -, and by inducing closure of the lips converted it to b.. It is to be noted that such instances, with initial b. (corresponding to v. of Tamil) are remarkably few in Telugu.
Tulu, Kannada, Kurukh and Bråhui :
There are absolutely no instances of native forms with the full initial bilabial - in these dialects; in their stead b- forms are found.
Kui : v- forms are predominant, and they correspond regularly to the v. forms of Tamil. Malayalam. A few instances of b- forms are the following:
bondi (for the sake of)......cf. Mal. vendi in phrases like ayálku vêndi (for his sake). bêndi (contrariness)........cf. Tam. vênda (not necessary), Kann. béda.
bai, imbai (who?) where Aphesis has operated. Gôndi: v. forms are regular. A few b- forms are the following: -The interrogatives : b6l, bôr (who ? ), bega (why?), bappor (when ?), etc., etc.
It is not easy to explain the initial b. of these Gôndi words ; either, these forms are the results of aphæresis (as in Kûi bái, who,' from imbai, eto.), or the initial b. is the development of the on-glide - appearing before an original interrogative particle a with a dorsal tonality. Cf. Tulu vá (which ?, what ? ) from a.
[D] Probable relationship of v- and b..
The conspicuous cleavage appearing among the dialects raises the question as to which of these two sounds may be the original in Dravidian.
In this connection the relationship of -v- to -b- in medial positions of Dravidian words may be significant.
The fact that Sanskrit b- appears sometimes as v. in Tamil Malayalam need not at all raise the presumption of b. being the original in native words also. The fondness of Tamil and Malayalam for v might sufficiently account for the adaptation of Sanskrit b as v.
The problem can now be approached only from the standpoint of native forms.
An ancient affix -- does duty in Tamil, Kannada and Telugu for the formation of certain grammatical categories Future-aoristic tense, noun-derivatives, causatives, etc.. Tamil shows the use of this v in its most elementary state in such cases, and these are confirmed by analogies in the other dialects also. In Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam this v changes into b (and sometimes into p) under certain conditions - These latter are :
(a) The influence of a neighbouring nasal, e.g., kán (to see)+v, producing the future stem kánb-; un (to eat)+v> unb..
(6) The influence of accent in kåritas leading to the closure of lips and the conversion of -v- to the geminated surd -pp-, e.g., karita bases like edu (to take), kuli (to take a bath), etc.+-v- give the future stems edupp-, kulipp., etc. A similar phenomenon is observable in the bases of vi- causatives of Tamil also. The base-extensions ---, .. and .p- of Kởi furnish instances of a parallel change :Normal
.. .. .. .. .. sáva (to die) Influence of nasal ..
Stinb- (to eat)
.. .. .. unb (to drink) Karitas and causatives .. .. .. ..tô8p. (to show). These facts raise the question whether v- may not have been original in initial positions also, and the initial - words corresponding to Tamil words with initial v- may be secondary. The exact reasons for the uniform development of initial b. in what we might term the
b. dialects of Dravidian” (Kannada, Tulu, Kurukh, Brahui) remain, however, to be investigated and clarified further.