Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 1.pdf/129

 ON HINDI.

APRIL 5, 1872.]

answer to the argument drawn from the lan guage of the ancient native grammarians in sup port of the view that the Indian Prākrits contain a large non-Sanskritic element. Their language, it is shown, is capable of an exactly opposite interpretation, and rather indicates that the classic and vulgar speech were both confluents from two identical sources.

But again it is

said all argument and theory may be dismissed as unnecessary, since it is a positive fact, and one obvious at a glance, that the Hindi voca bulary is, to a large extent, essentially different from the Sanskrit. Thus Dr. Muir writes:— “There are in Hindi words which have no re

semblance to any vocables discoverable in San skrit books, such as bâp, father; betá, son ; per, tree ; chauki, a chair; chuk, a blunder ; khirki, a window; jhagra, a dispute ; bakhera, a dispute; átá, flour; chatai, a mat, and a mul titude of other instances.”

A few pages further

on he gives a tabular list of such Prākrit words, with their modern vernacular equivalents, as are

105

os ‘dew' with the Latin ros, the Greek 3:42, the English drop, and the Sanskrit drapsa from the root dru or dram, “to run.” Again the deri vation of pet, ‘the belly, from the Sanskrit peta, “a basket,' appears to me by no means in conceivable, when we have the English slang term “bread-basket' applied to that part of the body. Bakhera, again, which also occurs in the verbal form bakherna, “to scatter,’ as in the phrase bij bakherna, “to sow seed,” is, I think, almost beyond a doubt derived from the Sanskrit kship with the prefix vi. So too, chauki would seem to be connected with chatur, ‘four,” a seat, being ordinarily of square shape ; while an ‘ outpost' (chauki) is most conveniently situate at a quadrivium or chatvara; and a man may be called chaukas, ‘vigilant, who keeps a good look out on all four sides. Again, chhinál is unques tionably the same word as chhina, ‘perforata,' from the root chhid; and equally certain the Prākrit hire for ‘a dog, is connected with the

Kashmiri hân, the English hound, the Greek …,

not found in classical Sanskrit or are of doubtful

Latin canis, and Sanskrit swan. Nor do I see the

origin. This list is composed of the ten words above mentioned, together with fourteen more, viz., gor the leg; pet, the belly ; chhinál, a har lot; khonta, a peg; johna, to look ; thartharána to tremble; barna, to sink ; dubna, to sink; dhakna, to cover; gharna, to fabricate; ghunt na, to gulp ; sip, a shell ; chamakna, to glitter; and thokar, a blow or stumble. To this total of 24, he is careful to add at the end of a long comparative vocabulary of Pāli and Prākrit, ex tending over 14 pages, two other supplementary words, viz., os, dew, and dhona, to carry a load,L thus increasing the specification to 26. Now I am far from asserting that there are not in Hindi many more than 26 words, which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to connect with any Sanskrit forms; but from the pains with which Dr. Muir has made up even so short a list, it

slightest improbability in the suggestion which

may be concluded that “the multitude of in stances” did not readily occur to him ; and se– condly, even though the connection may not be discoverable, it is rash to assert positively that no such connection ever existed ; witness the extraordinary manner in which, at the present

Dr. Muir himself makes, that gharna or ghadna is from the root ghat, since Vararuchi express ly recognizes the substitution of d for a non

initial t. But, without labouring to establish any further identification, we are justified in de claring that the system of hermeneutics adopted by Lassen, in conformity with the ancient gram marians, is an eminently judicious one, and less

likely to result in error than the hasty assump tion of the non-Aryan school that every un familiar form in vernacular speech is necessarily of barbarous extraction.

A skilful dissection of the village names that prevail in Upper India would probably illustrate in a very interesting manner the successive changes which the language of the country has undergone. And perhaps no district is better adapted for such a purpose than Mathurá. A mere glance at the map proclaims it to be of almost exclusively Hindi character. In the two typical parganas of Kosi and Chhātā there are 173 villages, not one of which bears a name with the familiar termination of -ábdid.

Not a

day, English names are distorted by Indian pro score of names altogether betray any admixture nunciation beyond all possibility of recognition. of a Muhammadan element, and even these are Even among the 26 words, so carefully selected, formed with some Hindi ending, as -pur, -nagar, I detect several that, at a glance, appear to betray or -garhi ; for example Shāhpur, Shernagar, and their Sanskrit origin ; and I cannot doubt that Shergarh. All the remainder, to any one but a rigorous scrutiny would yield further results a philological student, denote simply such and in the same direction.

Thus I would connect

such a village, but have no connotation whatever,