Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/135

Rh I have judged here the Sanskrit language, by taking the question of accent only into consideration; other facts, as are necessary to be discussed in determining the character of a language, will certainly be discussed relevantly in a subsequent lecture, but we should not forget, that accent is the life breath which vitalizes the words, and a speech without accent is a contradiction in terms. We have seen from the accent point of view only, how unnaturally rigid the Sanskrit language is; we will see on references to other facts, that this artificial rigidity is due to the fact, that Sanskrit had to accommodate itself within a frame-work of generalized rules, which some mighty grammarians constructed in their zeal to perpetuate linguistic purity, when in consequence of a natural change, the speech of the holy Vedas was transformed into a new popular speech.

I should mention in this connection, that some persons are very wrong in their opinion, that such a living speech as Oriya, is without an accent system. The misconception is due to the fact, that in Oriya, as in Sanskrit, all the letters are pronounced as distinct independent syllables. That inspite of it, the letters and words are accented by the Oriyas, without any reference to the long or short sound of a vowel, is instructive. I cannot deal with the Oriya accent system here; I adduce only one example to serve my purpose. গলা (gone) as an exclamation of surprise, will be articulated with accent on the first syllable, which is short, and the word will sound like গ-অ-অলা (Oh! it is gone), while the accent on the second syllable in similar feeling of surprise will bring in another গলা as প্রচয় or accumulated unaccented letters, like a tag to the word, and the sound will be like গলা-আগলা. I should inform you in this connection, that in Oriya the final syllable of a word is generally accented and this is why, Rh