Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/183

Rh and Egon of Greek. অহ্ however, does not appear to have been the only form in the Nom. Singular; a pronoun either of simple ম basis or in the form of a মি is strongly supposed to have been a form, in use in a dialect when অহ্ was current in another dialect, for in the first place a মি is found agglutinated with the Parasmaipadi verbs in the first person singular, and in the second place the singular forms মা, মাম্ (মা + অম্), ময়া, মদ্, মে, and ময়ি point to a simple ম base with which etymologically they must be connected. That no ম can be traced either to অহ্ or অস্ is pretty clear. Moreover such a Vedic form as মাবন্ত (like me, cf. ত্বাবন্ত like you) shows that মা was treated as a stem, i.e., a word unchanged in form in the process of declension. While considering the early fossils of the pronouns of the 1st person, we have to notice that besides তু, য়ুস্ is a form of the pronoun of the 2nd person, though the latter form occurs only in dual and plural.

For further fossils let us analyze the interesting dual forms of the personal pronouns. In the language of the early Samhitās, we get বাম্ as the dual form of অস্ and this very বাম্ is the accusative dual of তু or যুস্. The form আবাম is a very late form, occurring not earlier than the time of the ঐতরেয় ব্রাহ্মণ, while the শতপথ ব্রাহ্মণ gives perhaps the earlier form আবম্. We know that বস্ occurs as a plural form of the personal pronoun of the 2nd person and নস্ as a plural form of the personal pronoun of the 1st person. The dual বাম্ appears pretty distinctly as the combination of ব + অ + অম্ to signify 'you and I' together. Perhaps to avoid confusion, আ of অস্ was further prefixed to বাম্ to signify the 1st person, while additional য়ু was prefixed to signify the second person in creating the forms আবাম্ and য়ুবাম্. In the plural form বয়ম্, we only notice the lengthening of the penultimate vowel sound with a stress to denote plurality as if by the primitive case-denoting