Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/90

68 the Assamese বিলাক্ is very likely a variant of গিলাক্, since that Assamese form cannot be traced to any Mongolian source.

That our plural-forming suffix রা originates from Tamil অর্ need be discussed next. We have to notice first that the plural form with রা is peculiarly Bengali as distinguished from Māgadhi, Oriya and Assamese. We have next to notice that neither any Prākṛita form, nor any provincial idiomatic use can be cited in support of the view that the possessive case-ending 'র' became the plural-forming suffix 'রা.' That this suffix was adopted in Bengali on the soil of Bengal, is quite evident; being a new suffix of vulgar or popular origin it was not much used in the literary language of olden days; the Editor of Sree Kṛṣnakīrtan has noted only three instances of its use in the whole book. One early use of the suffix exactly in the form of অর্ may be noticed in the formation of the word পয়ার (পদ = পয় + অর্) which signifies a couplet or verse of two lines. We will see that 'আ' became once a plural-denoting suffix in প্রাকৃত; that this 'আ' could naturally be compounded with অর্ to give rise to the suffix 'রা' can be easily formulated, since such compounding of different suffixes in the formation of one new suffix is noticeable in other cases: for example, 'ক' of অম্‌হাকম্ (অস্মাকম্), তুম্‌হাকম্, etc. was joined with honorific দ্বীয় of মদীয়, তদীয় etc., and the whole portion (i.e., দ্বীয় + ক) was compounded with possessive-denoting 'র' to form the suffix দিগের. I shall have to discuss this question, over again, later on.

The position of negative-indicating particle না in a sentence in Bengali seems also to be due to Dravidian influence; in Chāndasa, in Sanskrit, in Pali and in later Prākṛitas, the negative-indicating ন has its place before the verb, and this idiomatic use is current in Hindi, while in the