Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c7.37

c7.37

You will thus have observed that the phonetic changes which Sanskrit words undergo in passing into the Pâli may be brought under a few general rules. There are not such various and extensive corruptions both of vowels and consonants as we find in the later dialects and in the modern vernaculars. It has been estimated that two-fifths of the Pâli vocabulary are composed of pure Sanskrit words, and the remaining three-fifths, of words altered in one or other of the modes explained above. The conclusion to be drawn from these facts is, that when the Pâli was in use, the tradition of the original Sanskrit was not distant; the words, so to say, did not stray away long from the mother-language, so as to undergo extensive alterations. If so, how is it that some of the changes such as the transformation of ऐ and औ into ए and ओ and the assimilation of consonants are so universal, the first being without any exception, and the second with but a few unimportant ones? The principle which guides phonetic change is the economy of effort, understanding the word in its widest sense. This economy is observable in the two kinds of changes, as well as in the transformation of surds into sonants, the elision of consonants or of some of their elements, the assimilation of the vowels or the single consonants that make up a word, and in several other processes. But in the Pâli there are very few instances of some of these, and none at all of others. The language had not a sufficiently long duration of independent existence to bring them into extensive operation. If, then, the two processes we have noticed are found in full play in that dialect, the reason must be sought for in the vocal peculiarities of the people who spoke it. Though they heard conjunct consonants and the diphthongs ऐ and औ pronounced by the speakers of Sanskrit, as correctly as the other letters which they did not corrupt, their organs were not fitted to utter them. These peculiarities may have been natural or acquired. If natural, the people who first corrupted Sanskrit into the Pâli must have belonged to an alien race which came into close contact with the Âryas and learnt their language. If they were acquired, a branch of the same Âryan race must be supposed to have been isolated in some part of the country, and to have developed them, in consequence of being cut off from the main body. But this supposition must be rejected for the reasons that have been already given. Such complete isolation as could give rise to new vocal peculiarities must be expected to have occasioned greater phonetic decay in other respects than is observable in the Pâli. And our analysis of the Sanskrit conjunctal and the Pâli double sounds favours the first view. For, we have seen that these latter represent all the elements of the former, but they are combined in a sound produced in one vocal position only. The Pâli speakers endeavoured to reproduce the sound of a conjuct faithfully, their pronunciation was not weak, as is that prevailing in modern times, but energetic and correct in every other respect; but they could not combine energy of utterance with two successive movements of the vocal organs. This could only be because their organs were not sufficiently trained for the purpose; in other words, because the sounds were foreign to them. The condition of men who have to learn the language of others is similar to that of children, whose organs of speech are being exercised for the first time. Healthy children, whose utterance is energetic, pronounce the conjuncts almost in the same way as the Pâli speakers did. And there is another instance in History of an alien race having treated the sounds of the language of a civilized community in just the same way. The Barbarians who overran Italy and developed the Italian from the Latin, showed the same inability to pronounce the Latin conjuncts, and assimilated them as our Pâli ancestors did.