THE SINHALESE LANGUAGE. 



17 



In the Sinhalese, as unu vissa. It is an elliptical phrase; and 

 though it literally means 'less twenty/ or ' incomplete twenty '; 

 yet it conveys ekena una vinshatih * twenty less by one,' or, as in 

 ekona-vinskatih 'twenty minus one nineteen.' The un in the 

 Latin word is, as I conceive, a negative prefix like the na in the 

 Sanskrit ekanna-v in s h atih, 4 by one not. twenty «' 



This elliptical phraseology, it is curious to observe, is found in 

 different dialects in expressing numerals; e. g. addhena chatutto, 

 in the Pali, is « four by half W four (less) by half/=' four (less) 

 by half (of one),' [W three and a half/] eka being understood as 

 in the Sanskrit una-vinshatik, or in the Sinhalese unu-vissa. 

 Again dasa-a&a-masa * ten months by half '=' ten months (less) 

 by half/ or 6 ten months (less) by half (of one)/ or ' nine months 

 and a half.' This elliptical form, moreover, is the same in the 

 Hindustani, which has unu-is (=una-bis), akhough the Murathi 

 has ek-zm-isa, like the Sinhalese form which we sometimes find in 

 our books, ek-un-vlsi. The Tamil on-hadu is indeed formed like 

 the Hindustani una-bis*, but except in the principle of its forma- 

 tion, I perceive no analogy between the two; for whilst una in the 

 latter expresses ' diminution/ the on in the former (on-patu, or 

 cn-pattu) denotes 'one* as in the Roman numeral ix^=(i — x), 

 4 one (less) ten.' 



I shall next examine the names for days and months* 



Days. 





Pali. 



Sinhalese. 



Tamil. 



Sun-(day) 



ravi-(dina) 



iri-(da) 



nair-ti-(keleme) 



Mon. 



soma 



sandu 



tinkal 



Tues. 



mangala 



angaharu 



sevai 



Wednes. 



budha 



bada 



pudan 



Thur's 



guru 



brahaspati 



vyala 



Fri. 



shukra 



sikura 



velii 



Satur. 



seni 



senasura 



seni 



The above comparisons lead to this, if no other, important result, 

 — that the Sinhalese names are not derived from the Dravidian. 

 But, the principle on which the names were originally formed 



