Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/290

268 of instances of হি being used as suffix to denote instrumental singular; take for instance the line মানিনি, মানহি কাঁইফল (What does it avail, Oh Mānini, by becoming cross?). No doubt at first হি was reduced to ই as we meet with in the old literary Prākṛta works, but its reduction to এই is not also very recent. The instrumental ই ending in such cases as ইচ্ছাই (ইচ্ছয়া) বিদ্ধাই (বিদ্ধয়া), etc. as we meet with in the সেতুবন্ধ may be considered with some reasons to be derived from য়া, but the early history starting with হি is not in favour of this supposition. Be that as it may, we get the suffix ই, as well as এই, in old প্রাকৃত works of uncertain dates; ভমরেহি or লতাহি being reduced to ভমরেই or লতাই, the path for further reduction to ভমরে or লতা-এ (or লতায়) was paved. The history of the idiomatic use of the instrumental case forms, if studied in regular succession, it does not become easy to hold that 'এন' (say of দেবেন) generated the 'এ' in question by dropping the final ন. I have discussed in the previous lecture that in our proto-Bengali, 'এন' does not occur and that its occurrence in one passage in a বৌদ্ধ দোঁহা has been wrongly formulated because of incorrect reading of the text. The cases where 'এন' seems to occur in Oriya as instrumental suffix have not been in my opinion properly studied; it will be observed that the words with seeming এন suffix in Oriya have been used to denote locative case as well; I am inclined to hold, on reference to the use of ন as a particle of emphasis in Oriya, that the words with a suffix (denoting either instrumental or locative ease) stand with additional ন to indicate emphasis. The half-nasal occurring in ইচ্ছেঁ (by the desire) or নেহাএঁ (by the affection) does not seem to represent the loss of ন, for the instrumental form with এন is not met with in the Prākṛta speeches which are later than Pali in date; corresponding to 'এ' we get 'এরে' in Assamese and রে in Oriya;