form; but so strong is the tendency to extend the use of one good simple form to all possible cases and classes, that no hesitation was felt in tacking the case-sign of an ablative singular on to a form derived from a genitive plural, in order to compose an ablative plural!

§ 49. In striking contrast to the wide range of synthetical forms observable in Marathi and the western languages, stands out the naked simplicity of the Bengali and Oriya, which have scarcely any variations of the stem. With the exception of the now almost obsolete form in e, which did duty at once for instrumental, locative in the singular, and nominative in the plural, Oriya has no modifications of any kind; and Bengali has but one, the nom. plural in era or rå. The question then arises, what is the reason of this difference? Why should two members of the group have so thoroughly emancipated themselves from the trammels of the old system, while the others are still so tightly bound up in them? The question seems to be parallel to that of the difference between English and German, the former of which has altogether rejected, while the latter has very largely retained, a synthetical type. In the case of English, whose development lies open before us, we can see the influence of the Norman race,-a race kindred in blood, and originally kindred in speech, to the subjects of Harold whom they conquered, but who had been put through a preliminary training by a long sojourn in France, as though purposely to fit them for the task of raising our rough English fathers to their present high position in the world. To the manly vigour of the old Norse pirate, the descendants of Rolf had added the grace and polish of the vivacious Frenchman. With that teachableness which was so pre-eminently their characteristic, they had sucked in all the sweetness and light which Europe then had to give. They came amongst us as a leaven of cultivation, and they made us what we are. On our language they worked a mighty

change; and it is to this that I would especially draw attention. They taught us by degrees to throw away all terminations as useless, retaining only a very few which were absolutely necessary. Under their guidance, the language softened and simplified itself amazingly. Gender was the first thing to go, artificial gender especially; even natural gender remained only in a few objects, and those indicated by uniform and regular methods. The numerous systems of forming the plural all fused into the addition of -es or -s to the singular, and the case-endings disappeared, till at last our language stood forth clear and active like a trained athlete with his loins girt for the running.1

It is something of this sort of influence that we should be disposed to seek for in Bengali and Oriya, and the difficulty of the inquiry is that we cannot find it. We may, however, guess at it, and there are scintillations afforded us out of the gloom of Indian history which confirm our guesses, till at some points they almost touch on certainty. The first of these is the fact, now almost beyond a doubt, of the very modern character of Bengali. The earliest writers in that language, the Vaishnava poets, use a language so much akin to Bhojpuri and the dialects spoken in the eastern parts of the area occupied by the Hindi dialects, as to force on us the conclusion that the Bengali itself is nothing more than a dialect of Eastern Hindi. It is not till the beginning of the sixteenth century that we come to anything sufficiently marked to deserve the name of a separate language. Now long before that time, we know that Hindi had cast aside the greater portion of its synthetic machinery. The only relic of the modifications of the stem consists of the e of the oblique of a-stems, as in a, obl. a. But it has before been noticed that down to a late period this form was not fixed, and the oblique ended vaguely in ahi. After 4-stems this would naturally take the form âhi; and the rejection of the hi, which

1 See on this subject Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, vol. i. pp. 694, 709 (first ed.), and Rapp, Comp. Gram. Verbal-Organismus, vol. iii. p. 163.

we have seen was a common process in all the languages, would leave an oblique base in & for the 4-stems, and in a (mute) for the a-stems; or, in other words, there would be no difference between the nominative and oblique. Further, it must be remembered that Bengali descends from the peasant language of Bihar, in which, as I know from long residence in those parts, it is not customary to form the oblique of the a-stem in e, as it is in classical Hindi. The rustic of those regions will say ghorâ ko instead of ghore ko. The classical Hindi is not based on the speech of the eastern area, but on that of the western, and especially of the regions round about Delhi and Agra. It is not surprising therefore that Bengali, an offshoot of the rustic dialect of the eastern area, should be ignorant of this peculiar custom. The crude form in f is very common in the Vaishnava poets, as ânahi "to another" (anya), premahi “in love," karahi "in hand," and the like. Perhaps the rejection, so universally occurring, of the hi, arose from its being confounded with the common particle f "indeed," and so being regarded as a mere emphatic addition easily rejected without altering the sense. If Bengali had attained an independent existence as a separate language at the early period when the other languages were passing through the stage of transition from synthesis to analysis, it would probably have struck out a course of action for itself. During all that period, however, Bengal was but thinly peopled, and its language was identical with Hindi, and it therefore partook of the changes which went on in that language. Its independent existence dates from a time when the sentiment of the necessity for indicating various relations of the noun by modifications in the terminal syllable had entirely passed away, and it does not therefore partake of any such changes. This modernness of Bengali must always be kept in mind in considering its present structure, because in recent times the language has been so overlaid with words borrowed from Sanskrit, in their Tatsama shape, that scholars

unacquainted with historical facts have been led to regard it as that member of the Aryan group which most closely approaches to the old classical speech, and to give it the position which is held by Italian in the Romance group. It is time that this misunderstanding should be removed. If we strip Bengali of all the Sanskrit words which have been brought into it during the last fifty years, and examine minutely its grammatical forms, and the true peasant vocabulary, we shall find that it is more removed from Sanskrit than any of its sisters, and it will stand out in its true light as a coarse rustic dialect destitute of refinement and precision.

With regard to Oriya, the same remarks hold good. We know from history that the Oriya race did not enter Orissa from the north, through Bengal, but from the west, across the mountains which separate it from the southern limits of Bihar. Many of the words of the language have the Bihar type of Hindi, and resemble Bengali only in those respects in which Bengali itself resembles Hindi. If we place the immigration of the greater part of the present Aryan element into Orissa at the beginning of the tenth century A.D., on the decay of Buddhism, it will result that the language which they brought with them from the valley of the Ganges must have been already to a great extent analytical; and their subsequent long isolation will account for the retention of forms which the onward march of the parent Hindi has long ago discarded.

In both these languages there is also great reason to suspect non-Aryan influence. Recent inquiries into the component elements of the Hindu population in both provinces lead to the conclusion that a large portion is still, and has always been, non-Aryan. In fact, it would not be going too far to describe the inhabitants of Bengal and Orissa as aboriginal non-Aryans converted to Hinduism by, and mixed up with, an immigrant element of Gangetic Aryans, whose language, religion, and physical type they have, notwithstanding their political in

feriority, largely and deeply influenced. When the scholar whose non-Aryan dictionary has led us to expect a non-Aryan grammar from his pen, shall have given to the world the result of his labours, we shall be in a position to measure the extent to which the wild hill tribes and rude fishermen of the coast have reacted upon their invaders. At present we are not able to do more than hint at the existence of such influence; we can point out neither its direction nor extent.

§ 50. Marathi possesses a process peculiar to itself as far as the seven languages which we are working at are concerned, but which is also apparent in some of the cognate dialects which it has been necessary to exclude from the present inquiry, as Kashmiri and Pashto. In our seven languages the changes which take place in the stem are confined to the termination, but in Marathi a class of words exists in which internal modification is found. These are principally feminines in, formed from masculines in, examples of which have been given in § 35. These words either reject the long altogether in the oblique, or retain it shortened to i, or change it to its semivowel. Thus, Skr. fat, M. “a female devotee," obl. faut, where the i is shortened according to Molesworth; or, where it is changed to a according to Stevenson; and in either case the oblique termination in í is added, as in nouns of the form आग, obl. आगी. In cases like this it would probably be more logical to say that the noun retains its correct form in the oblique, while in the nom. it is lengthened in accordance with Marathi custom.

There is a large class of these words, and many others not derived from are treated in the same way without regard to their gender; thus,