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248 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [May, 1910. 



in the specimens extant, viz., " mata, ha, am, khange, jata, 

 samtao, haral, disom, tahas nahas, ar, ubla dubla, enkhan, 

 san, kal, choklak', chatan munis, rangach', bendak, chak'a, 

 khataok ', ho, taram parani, maram, jaman, gate, kusmbi, 

 bachha. 



The bases and words " hick', natan, ajum, lakeck', asu, 

 hara, bogin, chekan, layari, karma, jit', narech", rak'a, birit', 

 rengech' perech', menak' " may represent a corrupted or 

 santalized form of Mundari, comp. Mundari " hiju, natin, 

 ayum, lae\ isu, horo bugin, chikan, loyofi, hormo, jid' nare' 

 ra\ birid', renge', pere', mena' "; but genuine Mundari 

 words I find in the Koda specimen only the following, viz., 

 " sirma, lei, nam, nir, bugin odon, tusin." I have omitted a 

 few words like apu, agu, huriii, haga, etc., which are the same 

 in Mundari and Santali. Looking on the grammatical forms, 

 I find indeed used the Mundari suffixes ren and te, but the for- 

 mer is used with mandi, while in Mundari it is used only with 

 animate beings. Then the suffixes tak', tet' are not used in 

 Mundari, and ak' and lok' (comp. Mundari a' and la') seem to 

 be santalized. Nik'i, ani and ana occur instead of the Mun- 

 dari Demonstratives ni', ini' and ena\ but inkin is found, and 

 e at the end of the verb, as in Mundari. The predicate suffixes 

 tan" and "ken "are Mundari, "ket" is santalized, the 

 suffix of the past time " en " is Santali, and so are the forms 

 tahan, tusin taepe and the use of the inceptive base lag and 

 of chse. The frequent omission of the categorical a, a^ in 

 gamach'e, set'ene, sanok'ing, etc., is never met with in Mundari, 

 nor forms as "birit' ke tach', amsekena, hoeto kanme, 

 chekan tan ak', at'ge tahan kenae." The position of the 

 Pronoun at the end of the predicate is also a point of difference. 

 In Mundari it is generally attached to the preceding word. 



I think the result of this investigation shows that, with 

 regard to grammar, the Koda dialect of Birbhum stands 

 between Mundari and Santali, containing formative elements of 

 both. With regard to the vocabulary about seventy per cent, 

 of the words are non- Mundari (Santali, and Bengali and Bihari 

 loan words). Of the twenty-five per cent. Mundari words only 

 one-fourth is genuine, the rest is corrupted or santalized. The 

 compiler writes, p. 108, vol. iv, L.S.I. — " It seems as if the Munda 

 Kodas originally spoke a dialect of Mundari, but are gradually 

 abandoning their old language for that of their neighbours in 

 districts, where they are only found in small numbers." In 

 Birbhum 5,200 Kodas are living and more than 47,000 Santals. 

 It is only to be expected that the Koda language was strongly 

 influenced by Santali and Bengali. But this should have pre- 

 cluded to draw conclusions from it concerning Mundari phone- 

 tics, and to regard the specimens setting it forth as a standard, 

 according to which the specimens of other Mundari dialects 

 were to be corrected. 



