On the Origin of the Hindvi Language. 



[No. 



d ; the examples being mahatena for mahatd 7 yasena for yasasd, rajena 

 for rdjnd. 



One form of the instrumental in the Sanskrit is nd. It is used 

 after themes in i, u and ri. and the Hindvi adopts it with but a slight 

 change in the vowel, the endings being na, ni, ne and nen. The simi- 

 litude here is so close that we need not dwell on it at any length. 



The Sanskrit ablative termination in the singular number of words 

 ending in other than a is as. This changes into hi or hinto in the 

 earlier Prakrit as, and to he in the later, in which the ablative is con- 

 founded with the genitive. In the Bengali the hinto passed into hainte 

 a little before the time of Chaitanya Deva, and subsequently into haite, 

 the form in which we now have it. The he of the Prakritas, according 

 to Dr. Trumpp, merged into se or sen in the Hindvi on the ground of h 

 and 5 being interchangeable, but we think the original Sanskrita smdt 

 the especial affix of the pronouns, offers a more probable source of sen 

 and se than the secondary he. In either case the origin of the ter- 

 mination is purely Sanskritic. In the Braja Bhasha the se is generally 

 replaced by tein s an obvious corruption of the Sanskrita tas. 



The genitive affix in the Bengali and the Uriah is formed by hard- 

 ening the Sanskrita sya into ra. But in all the other Aryan Indian 

 dialects, a novel mode is adopted which is traceable only in the old 

 Vedic language. According to Dr. Trumpp, " The noun, which ought 

 to be placed in the genitive case, is changed into an adjective, by an 

 adjectival affix, and thence follows naturally, that this so-called geni- 

 tive, which is really and truly only an adjective, must agree in gender, 

 case, and number with its governing noun, as every other adjective 

 does. The adjectival affix, used thus, to make up for a genitive, varies 

 in the different dialects # # # The Hindvi and Hindustani have pre- 

 served the original Sanskrit adjectival affix ^r without changing into 

 a palatal, viz., WT ; in Hindvi we meet with the genitive affix %T ^T. 

 A further proof that these genitive affixes WT, ^T, 3TT, ef*T, etc., are 

 really the adjectival affix efT of the Sanskrit, and the ^T of the Prakrit, 

 we have in the fact, that they all end in 0, a long vowel, 6=- a ; as all 

 those adjectives do, which are formed with this affix (see my system 

 of formation of themes under the termination e^T.)" 



The locative in the Sanskrita is i or e, which has been carefully 

 preserved in the Bengali, though the ablative te proceeding from the 

 Sanskrita tas is occasionally used in a locative sense. The e changes 



