Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/238

216 The Sanskrit form of the verse will be:

As many old Aryan words have been reduced to unreal forms in the প্রাকৃত, it will be interesting to notice the following words, more than 50 in number, as have not undergone any decay or অপভ্রংশ in Bengal from remotest antiquity till now; the words here grouped together are such as are used and understood by even the uneducated people in rural areas in Bengal. Some of these words have no doubt changed their original meaning, but have not changed their form. The words marked with asterisks were not in use in the early Vedic time, but have been in use in Sanskrit, since a very remote time. The words are:

অতি, অলঙ্কার, অহংকার, আকাশ, আচার, আনন্দ, ইচ্ছা, উপর, কপাল, কাল, খুর,* গন্ধ, গুরু, গোল, ঘন, ঘাস, ঘোর, চিন্তা, চির (as in চিরদিন), ছাগল,* জল,* জাল, তাল,* তিল, দণ্ড,  দূর, দোষ, ধন, নল, নাম, পর, পশু, পাপ, পার, ফল, ফাল, বুদ্ধি, ভাগ, ভার, ভাব, মন্দ, মাঘ, মানুস, মাস, মূল, মেঘ, রস, লোক, বন, বল, শীত, সার, সুখ, হার৷

It is difficult to say what linguistic value should be attached to the old time classification of the literary Prākṛtas. Looking to such names of the Prākṛtas as Māgadhi, Sāuraseni and Mahārāṣṭri as occur in some works on poetics and dramaturgy, one is naturally inclined to hold, that there were good grounds for classifying the Prākṛtas by their respective provincial names, but these Prākṛtas now survive in such an artificial form that the elements of real, provincial speech in them elude our grasp. Moreover, the characteristic peculiarities of Mahārāṣṭri, for instance, as have been noted in the aforesaid works, are not what can be shown to bear genetic affinities with the modern vernaculars of the Mahārāṣṭra country.