Book Title: Kalpasutra and Navtattva
Author(s): J Stevenson
Publisher: Oriental Translation Fund London

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Page 165
________________ 136 APPENDIX. (num) of the Gujarathi, and the at cheni) of the old Maráthi. To find anything like a parallel to this we must pass the Sanskrit, and seek it in the Turkish Š In regard to the dative, the letter ä (k) is the prevailing characteristic in the vernacular languages of India ; thus in the Tamil we have (ku), in the Canarese (kke) of the second declension, in the Telinga (ku), in the Hindostani #7 (ko), and in the Bengali (ke). How could there be such an analogy in respect of these the two most common and important of all the cases among languages whose vocables are so different, unless we ascribe it to the influence of an aboriginal Indian language, which obtained throughout the country, though doubtless with dialectic varieties, before the Brahmanical tongue had prevailed in nearly supplanting it everywhere, except in the Peninsula. On this, however, and on the allied subject of the affinity between the languages spoken by the mountaineers and the Tamil, additional information will be found in the first volume of the “ Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society." The Prákrit and other dialects, then, mentioned by Vararuchi had their origin in the necessity which had arisen of adapting the Brahmanical speech to the organs of the Indian aborigines, and may either be considered as corruptions or refinements, according to the standard which is used to try the qualities of languages. Having for my own part first studied the Sanskrit, and admired the accuracy with which it

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