1854.] On the Peculiarities of the Gitthd Dialect. 609 



a matter of great difficulty to those who have nothing but their 

 knowledge of the Sanskrita grammar to help them. In the Pali 

 and the Prakrita, the use of this occasional substitute is confined to 

 the first person of the nominative singular. In the Braja Bhakha, 

 however, it has a much wider range. In the following verse, it is 

 used both for the nominative and the dative, as well as an euphonic 

 adjunct to verbs in the second person of the indicative : 



*^ft ^fT 3TrT WT^ ^T^ I (De Tassy's Chrestomathie Hindie, 

 p. 79.) 



The use of the u in the Gatha, is made with much reserve and the 

 regular inflections of the Sanskrit prevail. The locative i ( x) is n °t 

 subject, as in the Sanskrita, to any change of form by association with 

 a vowel. In the vocative a long a (^i) is the most approved case- 

 affix. In some cases, however, inflections are altogether dropped, 

 y — The following are the corruptions of pronouns that are fre- 

 quently met with in the Lalita Vistara. They apparently lead the 

 way to the formation of pronouns in the modern vernaculars. 



?T^J for am and *HT: 



TjW for -&-q, vjf, and W3" 



^f?j for *pi» 



7T for m 



3»N for sp^l and ^i*r 

 8 — The new forms of conjugation observable in the Gatha are 

 attributable exclusively to corrupt pronunciation ; they follow no 

 fixed rule, and are the result of that natural tendency to abbre- 

 viation which in English originates "wont'* from " will not" and 

 " shant" from " shall not." The following are a few examples : 



*nf?T for TT^fa" 



^f*T for ^Tfa 



fV^TT for ^J¥WTrT 



frn^fa for faWiifa 

 $Tfo for *ref% 

 $Tfa for ^fa 

 Vlfa for V^f^ri 

 ^f% for W^T 



4 L 



