Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c8.51.3

c8.51.3

We have not dropped away any of the elements of Prâkṛit vocables, though we may have re-arranged them in some cases. If, then, fourteen centuries have not been sufficient to make words lose any of their elements by the action of natural causes, the process by which Sanskrit words were mutilated and became Prâkṛit must, if it was natural and ordinary, have been in operation for a considerably longer period, a supposition which appears extremely improbable. And it is questionable whether a language which has not been exposed to accidents in the course of its history suffers so much, even after the lapse of any conceivable time. The Teutonic languages, though they have been going through an independent course of development since the period when the ancestors of the modern English and Germans separated from the ancestors of the Hindus in pre-historic ages, have preserved the elements of old Aryan vocables which the Prâkṛits lost. They may have transformed the words, but have not mutilated them to any extent. The English words *father*, *mother*, *brother*, *foot*, and others, have all the elements of the old पितृ, मातृ, भ्रातृ, पद् (पाद), and others; while the Prâkṛit पीआ or पीउ, माआ, माइ or माउ, भाआ or भाउ, and पाअ, and the modern vernacular पिउ, माउ, मा, मा, भाई, भाउ, and पा or पाय, have lost all except the first consonantal sound.