Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/282

260 etc., and the finite verbs indicating different tenses and moods. Other important points of grammatical or struc­tural changes or evolution will be next noticed to determine, or rather to confirm the proposition advanced before, re­garding the origin and character of Bengali.

We may set down on the evidence of old literary records, the language of which must be accepted on all hands to be Bengali, that 'মই' and 'মুই' are the earliest forms of personal pronoun of the first person in singular number and 'আমি' or 'আম্‌হি' is the plural form of 'মই' and 'মুই.' The earliest Prākṛta form 'মি' from which 'মই' comes out, is in use in Mārhāṭi, but we do not meet with the form in old Bengali. 'মই' and 'মুই' occur indiscriminately in the "শ্রীকৃষ্ণকীর্ত্তন" noticed before; 'মই' is still current in the provincial Bengali dialect of Rangpur and this is the form that obtains in Assamese. 'মুহি' was only the accented form of 'মুই' as 'আম্‌হি' was the accented or emphatic form of 'আমি.' In Oriya the singular form is 'মুহি' (though reduced very often to 'মুই' and 'মু' in colloquial speech) and the plural form is 'আম্ভে' which is a changed form of 'আম্‌হি.' 'আমি' the oldest singular form acquired the dignity of being treated as plural when 'মুই' came into use; it is still the plural form in Mārhāṭi and also in Assamese which is closely related to Bengali. As the ending 'এ' invariably occurred in old times to signify nominative case, 'আম্‌হি' became 'আম্‌হে' in Oriya and this 'আম্‌হে' when reduced to one word assumed the shape 'আম্ভে.' As we cannot be sure of the time of the 'বৌদ্ধ গান ও দোঁহা' edited by Pandit Hara Prasad Sastri, we must say (for want of literary evidence in support of any proposition to the contrary) that these differentiated forms cannot be shown to date from a time earlier than the 10th century A.D.; that the 10th century A.D. is the probable time when Oriya was formed as