1870.] 



Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 



199 



then be seen that Uriya is a perfectly self-contained and independent 

 member of the family. 





Hindi. 



I 



fit 



Sindhi. 



Gujarati, 



Marathi. 



Uriya. 



1 

 8 



Genitive, 



ka, ke ki, 



da, de. 



jo, je ja 



no, ni, nun 



cha, chi, 



f ar 



11 







di,dian, 



3h J e > ji 





chen. 









ja, jun 





che, chya, 













jyun, jini 





chin. 













etc. 











Dative, 



ko 



nun 



khe 



[mate, ar- 



f -a, -as 

 ( -ala. 



ku 



-ere 











the saru] 





-re 



Accusative, 



ko 



nun 



khe 



ne 



— 



ku 



-ke 



Instrumen- 

 tal, 



ne 



nai 



-a 



-e 



Cnen, -en, 



I sin . 



[dwara] 



-te 



Ablative, 



se, par 



-te 



( khan, te, 

 ( aun, etc. 



thi, thaki 



hun -un 



f tha.ru, 



haite 













\ ru 





Locative, 



men 



vich 



men. 



man 



•an -in 



thare, 1 

 re J 



te 



All the genitives, except Uriya and Bengali, are declined to agree 

 with the governed noun ; in Sindhi, the number of forms arises 

 from a desire to enable the governing noun to agree with each case 

 and gender of the governed ; which is not thought necessary in the 

 other languages. 



If we pass on to the question of the phonetics of the language, we 

 find some more curious particulars. 



Geographical position seems to have some influence here. While 

 Panjabi and Sindhi in the extreme west exhibit a tendency to 

 employ always short vowels and closed syllables, Bengali in the ex- 

 treme east prefers long vowels and open syllables, while Hindi in 

 the centre holds a middle place, neither too prone to lengthen nor 

 to shorten ; and this is a standard by which to measure the other 

 languages. Marathi again, which lies due south of Hindi, and is 

 also somewhat central, being neither very far to the west, nor to the 

 east, exhibits the same centrality as Hindi with which it generally 

 agrees in the quantity of its vowels. Gujarati is more prone to 

 shorten than Marathi, and less so than Sindhi. Thus we get in 

 fact a regular gradation from west to east. The more westerly 

 a language is in situation, the greater its tendency to short 

 vowels and closed syllables, and as you go further east by 



