1864.] 



On the origin of the Hindvi Language, 



495 



Hindvi Bdlah or Bdlahu. The euphonic laws which regulate these 

 changes are not yet known, but their operation is universal, and we 

 accordingly find that the 5 of the Latin nominative singular is first 

 dropped in the language of the Troubadours, in Provencal and 

 Trench, but transformed into o in the Italian and Spanish. Thus 

 the Latin oculus* eye becomes in Provencal huel, in French ceil, in 

 Italian occhio, and in Spanish ojo ; the changes being almost parallel 

 to what we have seen above. 



The flexional termination for the accusative, like that of the nomin- 

 ative, has been either dropped or assimilated with the dative in almost 

 all the modern vernaculars. This commenced as early as the time of 

 the Apahhramsa in which the Sanskrit accusative mark m used to be 

 frequently if not uniformly omitted. In the Hindvi, this mark is ho, 

 which in some of its patois, in poetry, and in some of the earlier 

 writings, occurs in the form of hu, hon, haun, haha, hanha, hahan 

 and hi. Apparently this termination is perfectly distinct from the 

 Sanskrita inflection, for both the accusative and the dative, and this 

 has led to much discussion as to the ethnology of the Hindvi speaking 

 races of India. Dr. Kay, (ante xxi. p. 109) thought the ho of the 

 Hindvi and the Ice of the Bengali, came from the Tartar suffix ha, 

 and Dr. Caldwell bases on the existence of this particle his strongest 

 argument in favour of the Dravidian origin of the Hindvi. He says, 

 " of all the analogies between the North Indian dialects and the 

 Southern, this is the clearest and most important, and it cannot but 

 be regarded as betokening either an original connexion between the 

 northern and the southern races, prior to the Brahman irruption, or 

 the origination of both races from one and the same primitive Scythi- 

 an stock." Dr. Trumpp, commenting upon this, observes : " At the 

 first coup d'ceil the identity of if, #, <%T, etc., with the Dravidian 

 dative case-affix hn, etc., seems to be quite convincing ; yet, on 

 nearer investigation, we shall find this comparison to turn out illusive. 

 In the first instance, the fact speaks already very strongly against it 

 that the Marathi, which is the closest neighbour to the Dravidian 

 tongues of the south, has repudiated the use of # or <^t altogether 

 and used an affix, the origin of which we have attempted to fix and 

 as we hope, past controversy. We shall further see that the Gujarati 



* The Sanskrita Akshi (eye) the counterpart of oculus, runs a similar course 

 but as a neuter noun takes no case-mark in the nominative. 3 



