14 



ON THE ORIGIN OP 



xviii. Kannarali, ' a melancholy event,' in Tamil, is compared 

 with kanakal, Excellent,' Sinhalese. Clough does not give this; 

 nor is there a word approaching to that sound in the Sinhalese. 

 But, what is the analogy between excellent and melancholy ? 



xix. Mottamuta, ' total,' Tamil=mowvat«, ' beautiful/ Sinha- 

 lese. What coincidence there is between * total ' and ' beautiful,' I 

 cannot perceive; but this I can state — that the Sinhalese word mona- 

 vata comes from mand, ' pleasingly,' and kota, ' done.'* 



xx. Kargarapu, 6 a rattling noise like thunder,' Tam\l=kara~ 

 dara, Sinhalese, e teazing.' The Sinhalese word is deduced by some 

 from the Pali khara with the affix tara, changed into dara; whilst 

 others trace it directly to the Pali kheda', * affliction.' 



xxi. Pinru, 'retreat,' Tamil.===peraZ, 'overturn,' Sinhalese. The 

 latter is from parivattana, and has no relation to the Tamil word 

 here given. 



xxii. Polip, ' a brief explanation,' in Tamil==6oZa, * a familiar 

 term of address,' Sinhalese. Here again we do not perceive the 

 analogy intended to be drawn. Bola comes from bhrutaka, Sans- 

 krit; bhataka, Pali; bala Sinhalese, 'hireling'; hence bola is a 

 term of address for a subject, or a servant. 



xxiii. Muri, ' to break,' r Twoca\=madanva, ' to squeeze,' Sinha- 

 lese. Muri bears no relation to madina, which is directly derived 

 from majjama, the Pali word of the same signification. 



xxiv. Apa, Tsimil==apoi t Sinhalese, an interjection. Without 

 exclaiming with Yaska, the eminent Hindu philologer, that i words 

 are fixed in the world, we cannot say how, — svabhavatah by na- 

 ture!,' we may refer to the Sanskrit particle apa implying ' loss, 

 negation, privation, wrong, bad, unnatural, as the source whence 

 we have obtained apoi. 



" The only resemblances (says Caldwell) which have been points 

 ed out are those which Dr. Stevenson has traced in a few words 

 remote from ordinary use, and on which, in the absence of analogy 

 in primary roots, and especially in grammatical structure, it is 

 impossible to place any dependence." I may add that, as regards 



* K is changed into v as dandu-kam=^dandu-vam ; See Sidatsangar a, p. 17. 



