Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/640

 Case- endings. 600 BMNGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. of them imitated the Maithil forms in their padas and the Brajabuli of the Vaishava-songs is a result of this imitation. Thirdly in their attempts to propagate the creed of Vaisnavism all over India, the Vaishavas came in contact with the different races of India speaking different languages. Hindi had already grownto be the /angua franca of all India united under the suzerain power of the Moslem “<mperor of Delhi. Those who had the propagan.ia of their faith to carry to all Indians could not help taking recourse to the most con- venient vehicle already available for approaching them. The Vaisnavas imported a large number of Hindi words into their works to make them _ intel- ligible to the people of all parts of India. Owing to these causes the works written by a large number of Vaishavas are more or less influenced by Hindi, and instances of যেছে, কৈছে, SIS, SIS, FA, Zeq, HA, Srl, অবক, বিছুরিল ০০.) are numerous in all Vaishnava writings, not to speak of Brajabuli which is a thoroughly Hindi-ized form of Bengali. The signs of the case-endings that we meet with in the works mentioned in this chapter, show varied forms and are very much like what we have dealt with in foregoing chapters. The growing tendency to use the suffix atf¢ in the place of 44, 44, AFA and other words, formerly used to denote the plural number, often coupled with a pleonastic @, as in চগ্ডালাদিক, পাককর্তীদিক ০/০.,19000 11 Narottomavilas and other works—indicates the development of the form ft which now makes the case-ending in Bengali that denotes the plural number.