PROBLEMS IN INDIAN LANGUAGES 123 



philological equipment. These Dravidian languages are full of 

 Sanskrit or Prakrit words borrowed at different periods; those 

 adopted at late date are easily recognizable; but others, which go 

 back to the time of early contact with Aryan civilization, have been 

 so worn down and assimilated as to be indistinguishable, except to 

 the trained scholar, from ordinary Dravidian words. A leading 

 problem in connection with these languages will be the ascertain- 

 ment of the phonetic laws by which the Sanskritic elements may be 

 detected, as well as the mutual influences of Sanskrit and Dravidian 

 determined. Singhalese, the very interesting vernacular of Ceylon, 

 presents a cognate problem. Here we have a language which has 

 been shown to have an Aryan basis due to the introduction of Pali, 

 as the sacred language of Buddhism, in the third century B.C. The 

 Tamil elements are, however, so considerable, that Singhalese was 

 long regarded as a Dravidian tongue. The scientific disentangle- 

 ment of the various strands of this language 'will furnish much 

 material of historical interest. How much historical information 

 a single word may convey, the following instance will show. The 

 word was is used in Ceylon to designate the holiday-time in the 

 summer months when the weather is settled, and, during the bright 

 moonlight nights, the people listen for hours to the recitation of 

 edifying works like the Jatakas, or tales of the incarnations of 

 Buddha. This word is ultimately derived from the Sanskrit varsa, 

 meaning the rainy season, the time when the mendicants in the 

 plains of northern India returned to their monasteries and devoted 

 themselves to the study of religious books. The term thus preserves 

 an historical connection with the original practice by indicating the 

 cause which led to it, though in the modern survival of that practice 

 in Ceylon the cause is altogether non-existent. 



On the northeast and the east of India the Tibeto-Burman family 

 of speech forms a non- Aryan linguistic fringe. Here we have a pecul- 

 iarly interesting field for research in Nepal, a country in which some 

 thirty different dialects are spoken and which has been Hinduized 

 by an admixture of Rajputs, but at the same time is one of the 

 richest repositories of Buddhist antiquities. It was within the bor- 

 ders of this state that only a few years ago the site of Buddha's 

 birthplace, Kapilavastu, was discovered, a site which when ex- 

 cavated is likely to yield material of almost unrivaled interest to the 

 Indian archaeologist. Then there is Burma, which, like Siam, has 

 experienced both a Sanskrit influence through Hinduism and a Pali 

 influence through Buddhism. Hence the scientific investigation of 

 Burmese, as well as Siamese, which is still a task of the future, 

 should, with the aid of archaeology, furnish results throwing much 

 light on the linguistic, religious, and social history of those coun- 

 tries. 



