Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c9.80

Language: English

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You will find that in the Marâthî passage there are about 58 different words of which 26 or a few less than a half are derived from the Sanskrit through the Prâkrits; in the Gujarâtî there are 42 out of which 23 or a few more than a half are of the latter description; in the Sindhî the proportion is 38 to 21 or somewhat greater than a half; in the Panjâbî 44 to 23 or a half; in the High Hindî 48 to 23 or a little less than a half; in the Braj 45 to 29, i. e., about two-thirds; in the Bangâlî 71 to 27, i. e., about two-fifths; and in the Oriyâ 32 to 15 or a little less than a half. I have not taken into consideration other words which do come to us undoubtedly through the Prâkrits, but the etymology of which is not so obvious. These would increase the proportion and bring it to more than one-half in most of the cases. In this list there are three or four words such as नाम and वह which may be called old Tatsama, since they exist unchanged in the Prâkrits, and the rest may be called old Tadbhavas. Now in these passages you will also have seen a large number of words such as प्रार्थना, अग्निप्रवेश, आश्चर्य, स्वप्न, बालक, शरीर, नदी, प्रिय, प्रथम, ज्वर, दिवारात्रि, शृङ्ग, स्थान &c., which are exactly the same as in Sanskrit. They could not have existed in those forms in the Prâkṛits, and hence it is clear that they were introduced long after the Prâkṛit period; and the tendency now-a-days in our languages is to introduce more of such words. These may be called modern Tatsamas.

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But some of these have undergone a corruption since they were adopted. Thus कर्म is pronounced as करम; धर्म, धरम; क्षत्रिय, खतरी; कार्य, कारज; and कृपा, कर्पा or कुर्पा; while the Prâkṛit corruptions of these are कम्म, धम्म खत्तिअ, कज्ज, and किवा. Such words therefore are modern Tadbhavas. At the end of my observations on the Prâkṛits in the last lecture I gave a list of vocables existing in those dialects which are called Deśyas by native grammarians, and showed that several of them existed in our vernaculars also. We observe from the above passages, which contain such words as मुत्सद्दी, साहेब, and पातिशाह, that there are in the modern dialects words of an Arabic or Persian origin also. Thus we may distinguish these elements in the vocabulary of the vernaculars of Northern India:—1. Old Tadbhava, 2. Old Tatsama, 3. Modern Tadbhava, 4. Modern Tatsama, 5. Deśya, 6. Arabic, and 7. Persian. In its nature the old Tatsama element is but a small quantity and the main skeleton of our languages is made up of the old Tadbhava. It forms the principal constituent of the speech of the middle classes. The higher classes, however, use the Modern Tatsama and Tadbhava element to a much larger extent; and the language spoken by learned men is heavily loaded with pure Sanskrit words. This element has succeeded in driving out a very appreciable portion of the first in some of the languages.

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The Bangâlî contains the largest number of pure Sanskrit words, and hence one who knows Sanskrit can master the language in but a few weeks. The old Tadbhava element is reduced to the smallest minimum in what is called the sâdhubhâshâ or the speech of the educated. According to the extent of the modern Tatsama or Tadbhava element, the other languages may be arranged in the following order:—Oriyâ, Marâṭhî, Hindî, Gujarâtî, Panjâbî, Sindhî. It must, however, be remarked that the modern Tatsamas appear in a pure or correct Sanskrit form only in the written language. The Bengalis in actually pronouncing these words corrupt them in a manner which renders them unrecognizable as Sanskrit words; and often in the same way as the old Prâkṛit speakers did. Thus आत्मा is pronounced अत्ता, ईश्वर इस्सर, मोक्ष मोक्ख, &c. The same is the case more or less with the speakers of the other languages, so that the pure Sanskrit words that we meet with in the written modern vernaculars may be considered modern Tadbhavas and in rare cases Prâkṛit Tadbhavas. The educated classes, however, in Mahârâṣṭra and Gujarât and to a certain extent in the Hindî provinces pronounce the Sanskrit words correctly. The Sindhî however contains but a few pure Sanskrit words; hence it is rich in the old Tadbhava element, while it draws largely upon the Persian and Arabic. This foreign element is used in our dialects, principally in political matters.

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Persian and Arabic words are also used in the concerns of ordinary life, but their number is limited. The higher classes and learned men very rarely use them; while that element enters largely into the speech of the Mahomedans in the different provinces and of the Parsis. And the Mahomedans in the Hindî area use such a large number of these words that their language is by some considered an independent dialect and called Urdu, but it differs from the High Hindî in nothing further than in the use of these foreign words.