A History of Sanskrit Literature c4.41

c4.41

They are the sources of all the Aryan languages of modern India. From the *Apabhraṃça* are derived *Sindhī*, Western *Panjābī*, and *Kashmīrī*; from *Çaurasenī* come Eastern *Panjābī* and *Hindī* (the old *Avantī*), as well as *Gujaratī*; while from the two forms of *Māgadhī* are descended *Marāthī* on the one hand, and the various dialects of Bengal on the other. These modern vernaculars, which began to develop from about 1000 A.D., are no longer inflexional languages, but are analytical like English, forming an interesting parallel in their development from ancient Sanskrit to the Romance dialects in their derivation from Latin. They have developed literatures of their own, which are based entirely on that of Sanskrit. The non-Aryan languages of the Dekhan, the Dravidian group, including Telugu, Canarese, Malayālam, and Tamil, have not indeed been ousted by Aryan tongues, but they are full of words borrowed from Sanskrit, while their literature is dominated by Sanskrit models.