Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c10.4

c10.4

The Marâṭhî has preserved the Apabhraṁśa instr. sing. णं which is used after nouns in अ and the plural हिं reduced to ईं. In all the modern languages the णं of the Apabhraṁśa forms is dropped. These terminations are appended to the old instrumental termination न and we have नें and नीं which are now ordinarily used. These you will see are double forms and of such we have many in the various languages. Goan., Mâl. and Chit. have न for the sing. and the last has ईं for the pl. The loc. Apabhraṁśa हिं from the Pâli म्हि and the Skr. स्मिन् is also used as घरीं गेला; this is peculiar to nouns in अ, and in old Marâṭhî it is reduced to आं after the augmented nouns in आ; as गळां, माथां etc. There are instances of the other locative in ए such as मध्ये and मते ( माझ्या मते तुम्ही जावे 'you should go in my opinion,' where मते is hardly an instrumental ); but here evidently the termination ए is confounded with एं of the instrumental and we have माझ्या मतें, lit. "by my opinion." The dative ला is generally considered a remnant of the Skr. स्य and Pr. स्स. But I have not found it in the Jñâneśvarî and in its place we have शीं in the old poets, which is connected with a similar post-position in other languages which will be considered hereafter. None of the minor dialects of the language have anything like it, but still the derivation may be correct.