1 86 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [June, 



every respect, excepting the slight modifications of the case-affixes, 

 identical. Almost all the words derived from the Sanscrita, have 

 retained their orthography in writing, but in common conversation 

 some of them are so far modified, that at first sight they defy iden- 

 tification. Hence arises that difference in the written and spoken 

 language of the country, offering serious difficulties to foreigners 

 in acquiring fluency of speech in the Bengali. In Romanising 

 Bengali words, the same discrepancy has been observed, and it 

 becomes almost impossible to the uninitiated to put in Roman 

 characters a conversation conducted between two natives of the 

 country. The vowels are so indistinctly pronounced, and the differ- 

 ent S's and JV's confounded and interchanged, that in transcribing 

 them, the ear always misleads the pen. These peculiarities of 

 pronunciation, not being observed in writing, have given rise to 

 a serious question, whether such corrupt forms are to be con- 

 sidered as distinct words or not. 



Excepting the case-terminals and certain very awkwardly dis- 

 torted words which have to be traced to the Prakrita and the Gratha 

 for an explanation of the mode of their formation, almost all Ben- 

 gali corruptions from the Sanscrita are not permanent types. Such, 

 however, as *ftf?3, s^ST, f*f?t?ft, corruptions of the Sanscrita £ftf%, 

 TT &, and c£t<T^t are permanent modifications, and though they are 

 now and then rejected by the pedantic as vulgar, they are to be seen 

 in many authors. The word f*t<It^t, however, has been so exten- 

 sively used both in literary compositions and as a proper name, that 

 the most strict defender of the purity of the language finds it 

 difficult to eliminate it. Supporters of the converse theory, how- 

 ever, would retain such forms as, ^"55T, S4"55T and 'sr^sr ; they are used in 

 common conversation even by the learned, though never in writing. 



For the sake of euphony many Sanscrita words have been cor- 

 rupted. Several such corruptions have been traced in this paper, 

 and the rules of the substitution, elimination or interpolation of 

 letters in Bengali and Prakrita have been given, and lists of words 

 so derived have also been added. The paper concludes with a list 

 of Bengali words derived from tho Sanscrita either direct or through 

 the Prakrita. The Prakrita forms have been placed side by side for 

 comparison. 



