A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v1.c5.5

v1.c5.5

In addition to this favourite and predominating a sound, there are the other two pure vowels *i* and *u* with their respective long vowels *î* and *û*, and this trilogy of pure sounds¹ maintains itself with peculiar constancy. There are none of those broken or impure vowels, in which other languages so much abound, with the exception of *e* and *o*, *ai* and *au*,—the two former produced by prefixing a short *a* to *i* and *u* respectively, the two latter by prefixing *â* to the same. These latter vowels, however, are almost entirely restricted in their use to derivatives and secondary forms, the dependent or complex meaning being thus philosophically brought into harmony with the broken or impure vowels. *E* and *o*, moreover, are always long, and thus preserve the consciousness of their diphthongal nature. The Keltic races appear first to have introduced a complicated system of broken or impure vowels, and Grimm thinks that through their influence a similar tendency grew up in the languages of the Teutonic family which lay nearest to the Keltic area, as the Anglo-Saxons, Frisians, and Franks. The Kelts, however, must have parted company with the Aryans at a very early date, and the latter consequently have not been affected by their disposition to corrupt the vowelsounds. The modern Aryan languages retain many of the characteristics, in this respect, of their parent speech, and their vowels are still, as in ancient times, chiefly pure and simple.