A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v2.c12.s2.41

v2.c12.s2.41

The origin of शु is to be found in the earlier form कशुं, a neuter signifying “what,” from which have been constructed a masculine and feminine कशो and कशी, which are also used as an indefinite pronoun, and, as will be seen presently, the only form in use for the oblique plural of the indefinite is कशा. This form would lead us back to Pr. कारिसो, Skr. कीदृश, from which, as we have seen above, Sindhi and Panjabi draw their interrogative. कारिसो becomes in H. कैसा, and in Old-Hindi the forms are कइसा and कसा, the latter produced by elision of the short i. With this last-named form our Old-Gujarati कशुं is identical, for श is not in this language necessarily the palatal sibilant, but rather the distinction between it and स having been obliterated, and only one sibilant sound remaining, the letter used to express that sound is sometimes स, and sometimes श, according to the habit or caprice of the scribe; so that we might here also compare the oblique in M. कसा or कशा, instead of treating it as from Skr. gen. कस्य, Pr. कस्स, which would not account for the final long á. Sindhi का is probably also of like origin, क being often interchanged with स in all the modern languages; or कसा might also have lost the a of its first syllable, and become सा, whence the transition to का is in accordance with the usual law, It is more probable, however, that both in S. and G. there has been loss of initial क, as it is not in harmony with the general phonetic laws of this group to suppose the creation of ख from क+स at so late a date as we must assume, to bring it posterior in point of time to the tenth-century कसा.