A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages c8.4

c8.4

The primitive radical forms of the Dravidian numerals will be found to be those of the numeral adjectives, corresponding to the oblique case or inflexion of ordinary nouns. In investigating the numerals one by one, it will be seen that the neuter or abstract nouns of number have been formed from the shorter and simpler numeral adjectives by the addition of neuter formatives and euphonic increments, or by the lengthening of the root-vowel. It is, therefore, the numeral adjectives of the Dravidian languages, not their numeral nouns, which are to be compared with the numerals of other families of languages. The compound numbers between ten and twenty, and especially the higher compounds (twenty, thirty, two hundred, three hundred, &c.), afford much help towards ascertaining the oldest forms of the Dravidian numeral roots; seeing that the numeral adjectives which are employed in those compounds exhibit the numerals in their briefest, purest, and most ancient shape.