Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/152

130 that earliest-known Māgadhi Prākṛta, is what we should duly appreciate. How because of the natural accent of the speakers, and owing to the changed value of the sound of some letters, such euphonic combinations occurred in Pāli, as দেবাতি (দেব + ইতি), পন্নরসেরিব (পন্নরসে + ইব), পাদন্&zwnj;তি (পাদং + ইতি), etc., should be a subject of special study. That the Sanskrit Sandhi-system does not support this claim of Sanskrit, that it was naturally evolved out of Chāndasa should be duly noted; we can very clearly see, that the natural Vedic rules of euphonic combination have only been artificially extended in Sanskrit, to cases where combination brings about stiffening of the speech and unintelligibility of meaning.

It is certainly very true, that our Bengali Sandhi system is not worked by the rules of the old time speeches, but we proceed to show that the very principle which governed the phenomenon of euphonic combination, in the speeches of ancient times, governs to-day the Sandhi system of ours. Before I cite examples to substantiate my proposition, I should notice an objection which is raised by some in this direction. On the basis of a superficial and unscientific observation of the fact, that the rules which govern the formation of such combinations as ইত্যাদি, মনোহর, etc., do not prevail in Bengali, some scholars have gone the length of asserting that the natural phenomenon of euphonic combination does not at all exist in Bengali. We have certainly borrowed the words ইত্যাদি and মনোহর in their entirety, and cannot disjoin them in our language; no doubt our ইতি means finish, আদি means original, and ইত্যাদি means etcetera; again there is no such word as মনস্ in Bengali, nor the word হর, if not a name of a man, can have any meaning independently. It is also true that ই and আ do not combine according to Sanskrit rule to form য়া, but we have noticed previously,