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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
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desi lexicons, Trivikrama's list, or the lists of verbal substitutes given by Prakrit grammarians, or without being used in Prakrit works, extant or lost."
Though the problem of the exact origin, development ana preservation of Desi Element in Middle Indo-Aryan has not yet had complete solution, it has been an established fact that a notable part of it is a loan from the Dravidian and the Austro-Asiatic (which also includes the Munda) languages, and amongst the former, Kannada has contributed its mite to it. A few attempts, so far, have been made to trace the Kannada element within the Desi element in Middle Indo-Aryan. Now I propose to evaluate the results of this branch of research in the light of some of the cautions struck or tests laid down by linguisticians' while proposing scientifically better lines of investigation, as well as in the light of the difficulties, a few of which, being unsurmountable in the present state of knowledge in the field, one has to face along such lines.
For scientific accuracy it is necessary that, when we say that a particular desī vocable in MIA is a loan from, say it first Dravidian, we must assure ourselves that:
(1) It is not inherited, with new phonetic developments, from Old Indo-Aryan. Several words in the desi lexicons, which have undergone phonetic changes not admitted by any rule or rules in the Prakrit grammer, can be brought under this test.
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(2) It is not inherited from Indo-European leaving, however, no trace in OIA. In Dr.Katre's words, "MIA may inherit directly IE vocables not recorded in the OIA stage.' He also points in support of this peculiarity, to Prof.Louis H.Gray's Paper11 on the Indo-European etymologies of fifteen Prakrit words. Among these fifteen etymologies, it is interesting to note the first one, viz., attana, which Kittel had noted as borrowed from Dravidian."
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(3) It is not a loan from Munda from which Dravidian itself may have borrowed. Bloch observes that Dravidian also may have borrowed from Munda "which must be at least as ancient as Dravidian in India.»14
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