Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/133

Rh of the old time. We can clearly see in the history of the word গিনি, that on account of accent on the last syllable, the unaccented first syllable dropped out, following the natural rule of phonetic decay. In our consideration of the form অগ্&zwnj;গি, we first notice, that according to our previously formulated rule (stated in illustrating the Dravidian influence), গ of the second syllable has been doubled, as letters of different বর্গ cannot form a compound; the word is therefore, more in a changed form than in a decayed state. As to the pronunciation of it, I refer to a line of a verse composed in ইন্দ্রবজ্রা, as occurs in the Thera Gāthā: —অগ্&zwnj;গি যথা পজ্&zwnj;জলিতো নিসীথে (like the fire blazing in the midnight). The metre here is only seemingly faulty, as the second syllable of অগ্&zwnj;গি is not long; but if we accept the proposition, that the short syllable in question has a high accent on it, it will be admitted that the accent makes up for the shortness in question.

We notice, both in the so-called Pāli and the later Prākṛta dialects, that their speakers changed the spelling of the words according to accent and pronunciation, but did not introduce like the Dravidians, such additional vowels as short এ and short ও. The fact however, that long and short vowels were articulated short or long, following the natural accent, can be easily determined by referring to the prose composition with which the Prākṛta literature abounds. Professor Pischell has rightly asserted in his work on the Prākṛta Grammar, that the Vedic accent or tone did not die out, but existed in the so-called Pāli Prākṛta. The learned scholar came to this conclusion, by looking deep into the causes, that led both to the phonetic decay and the accretion of new letters in the Pāli words. Professor Jacobi, misled by the modern artificial method of reading Pāli, has criticized this view, and has asserted, that the Vedic tone did not survive in the Pāli speech, but only