Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c6.16

c6.16

Before I proceed to the subject in hand, it is necessary that I should trace some of the laws of the development and growth of language, as I shall have occasion to refer to them frequently in the course of these lectures. Suppose a person wishes to express the idea *in a village*, and the only means at his command are the roots and independent words in a language such as the Sanskrit. Now the word which expresses a village is ग्राम, and another which signifies the interior is मध्य. By joining the two together in such an expression as ग्राममध्य he conveys the idea the interior of, or in, a village. Now this word मध्य is pronounced मझ or मह by persons who have either not been taught to pronounce it properly or are not sufficiently careful to do so. This again is reduced to माझ or माथ and thence to माह or मह, and ultimately to मा or मे. In this manner ग्राममध्य becomes गाममा or गाममे, which, as you know, are the forms of the Gujarâtî, Sindhî, and Hindî locative. In this condition its origin is forgotten by the speakers, and becomes simply a termination signifying *in the interior*. Again, if a man wants to speak of one who makes a pot and has not got a word to express the idea, he naturally puts together the words कुम्भ pot and कार maker, and uses the compound कुम्भकार. After a time, by faulty pronunciation, the क् goes out and the word is reduced to कुम्हार. In the same way, as before, the persons who use the word कुम्हार have no consciousness that they are putting together two words, one of which means a pot and the other maker; but the syllable आर becomes with them a simple termination which signifies the doer of the thing expressed by the base. We thus see that these two very general terminations were originally independent words, and that in the course of time they lost that character. If you examine those forms which constitute the declensions and conjugations of any language you may happen to know you will find that these also have originated in the same way. When, our remote ancestors wished to say *I now do*, they put together क् do, न् now, and मि I, and said कृणमि, afterwards changed for the sake of euphony to कृणोमि. In the same way कृणोति means do now he कृणुतः do now he (and) thou, स being a corruption of स a pronoun signifying thou, and कृणोषि do now thou. Or they expressed present time by using a pronoun equivalent to here or this and said बोधति know here he, the अ being the same as that we find in the forms अनेन, अस्मै, अस्मात्, &c. and signifying something that is near. In this manner we are able to trace the original signification of a good many of these forms, but since after their invention, they are more or less corrupted, it becomes a difficult matter to do so in all cases. Still, we know enough to be able to lay it down as certain that this is the mode in which all our grammatical forms have originated. When a language is in that condition in which grammatical relation is expressed by such compounds consciously formed, and both parts of the compound can be used independently, it is said to be in the analytic stage. The change of मध्य to मा or मे, or of कार to आर, or of तसि to तस् or तः: is what is called phonetic decay. Though this is usually spoken of in censure as corruption, it is the means by which a language leaves the analytic stage and develops. The words forming the compound grow together, both being altered in the process, and the original sense of the latter is forgotten. It is this circumstance that renders phonetic change possible, for, if those who speak the language always used the two words in the compound with a conscious desire to express their joint sense, such a corruption would not take place. Phonetic decay reduces the latter portion to a mere termination, and thus a language arrives at what is called the synthetic stage. All the dead Aryan languages, and most of the living ones also, are in the synthetic condition, while the Chinese is said to be in the analytic stage.