Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/229

Rh savage races alone had, on the Aryans, the effect of breaking down their rigid inflectional system, and of causing the Aryans to substitute, for case-endings in nouns and verbs, distinct particles and auxiliaries.

Origin of a class of long-winded সমাস compounds.—Let us take account of one simple case which illustrates how a tendency to agglutinate words arose, and a class of long-winded samāsa compounds came into being in Sanskrit composition. It will be observed in the Prākṛta prose, that nouns or objectives in apposition in a sentence are not usually linked together by conjunctions. This style of composition was no doubt after the general style of ordinary conversation, in which not only the copulative but the disjunctive conjunction as well is at times dispensed with. Let me illustrate by example this conversation style, as still obtains in Bengal.


 * Q.—বাজারে কি কি কিন্‌লে?
 * A.—আম কিনেছি, কাঁঠাল কিনেছি, দুধ কিনেছি৷
 * Q.—তোমরা সকলে ভাল আছ?
 * A.—আমি ভাল আছি, বাবার শরীর মন্দ নয়, [here তবে—but—is seldom used] মার একটু অসুখ৷

The authors who had the Prākṛtas of their time for their real speech, did not like to put in such a conjunctive conjunction as চ in their elegant Sanskrit composition, as that would not make the sentence sweet-sounding to their ears, trained to regard the Prākṛta method as sweet and agreeable; to compensate for the loss of চ, long samāsa chains were forged which in their natural sonorousness heightened the effect of the style.

Jaina Prākṛta.—I have stated that the links which bind Pāli with modern vernaculars are almost missing; the Prākṛta, which we meet with in the Jaina works, is in my opinion, a real link in the chain. I should not proceed seriously to controvert such a queer opinion that the