The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c13.6

c13.6

Vararuchi, in his Prâkṛita Prakâsha II. 2, lays down that g in ga may be medially dropped as between Sanskrit and Prakrit, e. g., Sk. sâgara, Pk. sâ-ara; Sk. nagara, Pk. na-ar, eventually corrupted into nara, as in Jun-nara and other names of cities. This is, in fact, the same rule which, when applied to Teutonic languages, accounts for the change of segel into sail, nagel into nail and so on. Comparison of Avestic tigra with Mod. Per. tir shews that a similar change may also take place between those languages. We may, therefore, fairly say that the rule about the omission of a gutteral before a liquid obtains not only in Teutonic languages, but also between Greek and Latin, Latin and French, Sanskrit and Old Irish, Sanskrit and Prakrit, and Avestic and Modern Persian. In the face of these facts it would, I think, be unduly restricting the applicability of the phonetic rule if we refuse to apply it to Sanskrit and Greek. There is at any rate no a priori improbability in expecting that a similar change may take place as between Greek and Sanskrit. Let us now see if there are any instances as between Greek and Sanskrit to support such a conclusion.