Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c9.80.2

c9.80.2

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.