Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/255

Rh বর) the ease-denoting suffix এ of the Eastern Māgadhi Prākṛta, has to be noted. That the form দেউ is in use in Oriya, and was in use in Bengali, and that it does not differ from দেউক and later দিউক, need not be discussed. The অ ending of চিন্তিঅ is certainly equivalent to 'ত.'

I dare say we have got enough material to examine the various forms of মাগধী speech which transformed itself into Bengali. We do not exactly know, when the effusions quoted above adorned the Prākṛta literature, but we can see very clearly, by comparing the language of the poems with our modern language, that the forms which occur in the poems are genuine predecessors of our modern forms. I do not mean to say that the passages, I have quoted from the Prākṛta Paingala, should alone be referred to in tracing the history of our modern forms, and that the other literary Prākṛtas dealt with in this lecture, should be left altogether out of view because of their artificial character. I have no doubt tried to show, that the old classification of the literary প্রাকৃতs by some names indicating provincial origin of the speeches, is highly misleading, but it must be remembered that inspite of their provincial names, the artificially got up প্রাকৃতs contain forms and idioms of the dialects of the provinces, which their names do not indicate; as such we must look into the treasures of all the literary প্রাকৃতs, to get the মাগধী elements of our quest.

We have noticed this significant peculiarity in our investigation, that from the remotest time our literary languages have been different from the real living speeches of the people. The standard literary speech is bound to differ from the vulgar speech in every country, but the sort of gap which we notice in India, between the literary and the popular, is of such width and character, as is generally unknown in Europe. I cannot take up to