A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v1.c4.339

v1.c4.339

In chronological sequence, therefore, we may place the Hindi with its subsidiary forms, Gujarati and Panjabi, first, fixing their rise and establishment as modern languages, distinct from their previous existence as Prakrits, in the eleventh century. Second comes Marathi, which remained a Prakrit till the twelfth or even thirteenth century; and third Oriya, which must have quite completed its transformation by the end of the fourteenth. Bengali was no separate independent language, but a maze of dialects without a distinct national or provincial type, till the seventeenth or beginning of the eighteenth century. It was not till the gradual decay of the central Muhammadan power of Delhi enabled the provincial governors to assume an independent position that Bengali severed itself from Hindi and assumed the characteristics which now vindicate for it a right to be considered a separate language. Sindhi having very little literature and no fixed system of writing remains a mystery. Its rise and development were independent of all the other languages, and I cannot determine its place in the sequence.