604 On the Peculiarities of the Gdthd Dialect. [No. 6. 



On the Peculiarities of the Gdthd Dialect. — By Bdhu Kajen- 



DRALAL MlTTRA. 



It is an established truth in the science of Philology that lan- 

 guages change in course of time, even when uninfluenced by the 

 intrusion of foreign elements. This process of mutation is most 

 clearly exemplified in the transition of the Latin into the modern 

 dialects of Italy, which have assumed their present forms by a series 

 of phonetic changes from the influence of the genius loci without 

 any such heterogeneous admixture as are met with in the languages 

 of England and Trance. In India, the Sanskrita has undergone the 

 same course of transformation, and like the Latin has produced a 

 number of Prakrita or vernacular dialects by a process of curtail- 

 ment of inflexion and euphony to which the Komance and Germanic 

 languages of Europe offer the nearest parallel. 



Of the dialects which have proceeded from the Sanskrita, the 

 Pali and the Magadhi have hitherto been supposed to bear the 

 closest resemblance to their parent, but the discovery of the Sans- 

 krita Buddhist literature of Nepal (thanks to the untiring zeal 

 of the learned Mr. Hodgson) has brought to our knowledge a 

 new dialect bearing a still closer affinity to the classic language 

 of the East, than either of the former. Nepalese chroniclers have 

 named it Gatha, (ballad) probably, from its having been princi- 

 pally used by the scalds and bards of mediaeval India. Eor nearly 

 a similar reason the Balenese style the language of their poets, 

 the Kdwi or poetical, and the language of the Vedas is called 

 Chhandas (metrical), whence by a well-known euphonic law, we have 

 the Zend of the old Persians. 



M. Burnouf, the only European scholar who has noticed the 

 existence of this dialect, describes it to be "a barbarous San- 

 skrita in which the forms of all ages, Sanskrita, Pali and Pra- 

 krita appear to be confounded."* It differs from the Sanskrita 

 more in its neglect of the grammatical rules of the latter than 

 from any inherent peculiarity of its own. The niceties of the 

 Sanskrita forms of declension and conjugation find but a very in- 

 * i'Histoire du Buddhisme, p. 104. 



