Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/107

Rh the most celebrated, and probably the first in point of time, of the old Bengali poets, runs as follows:

Here तिरपित=तृप्त; गोयाइनु a causal from गम्; कैछन is merely a Bengali way of writing स (see Chapter III., § 58). The language of this poem closely resembles that spoken at the present time in Tirhut. The preterites भेल, गेल, and केल are still in use there, though the first and last are now obsolete in Bengal proper. Such forms as निहारनु for निहारिलाम् are still heard in conversation, though now banished from books.

The language of these poems differs very little from early Hindi, as will be seen from comparing it with the extract from Chand given in § 5 (note). Kabi Kankan, who lived about 1570, and the author of the Chaitanya Charanâmṛita, are also celebrated early Bengali writers. The Bengali poets Kasidâs