32 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



one, and sometimes the other; and this has led many Oriental 

 scholars, and amongst them Professor Spiegel in his Kamma- 

 vakya, to the error of believing that ' a multitude of words have 

 been transferred from Sanskrit, and not Pali, into the Sinhalese/ 

 Under this belief he has given two instances; and he is in error as 

 to both. For, kana* ' ear ' is the Sinhalese for the Pali kanna, 

 and not karna, Sanskrit — and vaira is the modern form of the 

 ancient Sinhalese vera,^ so much nearer the Pali than the Sanskrit 

 form of the word for ■ enmity.' The use of the visarga, which has 

 nearly disappeared from the Pali, is indeed quite unknown in the 

 Sinhalese; and in the latter language the Word * pain ' is not duksha 

 but duk from the Pali dukkha. Such speculations as those to 

 which Professor Spiegel refers, and which I give in the note below, J 

 has made him say—" Propius adhuc Elu ad linguam Sanscritam 

 accedere, quin etiam originem ex ea ducere fertur, quod tamen 

 addubitamus, ipsius Cloughi verbis innisi, quia Raskius, linguam 

 Singhalensem numero dikkhani car am esse adscribendam, certissi- 

 mis probavit testimoniis." — Kdmmavakya pp. vi. vii. 



All my observations in this chapter will serve as a running 

 commentary on the above remarks; and the question as to the 

 Sinhalese being one of the Dekkhanse, or of the Malay-Polynesian 

 group of languages, is also disproved by the positive proof of the near 

 relationship which 1 have throughout exhibited between the 

 Sinhalese and the Pali. 



On comparing, moreover, the Tamil words in the above list, 

 consisting of 64 words, (of which we shall for obvious reasons 

 exclude two, Meghavanna and yutta) w T ith the Sinhalese, it is 

 quite clear that the relation which the 28 italicised Tamil words 



* See Namavaliya, p. 44. 

 t ib., p. 18. 



% * Eloo has undoubtedly given birth to the vernacular language of this Coun- 

 try. It appears to claim great antiquity, and being derived from Sanskrit, a 

 great portion of her may be traced from that source.' Clough's Sinhalese Dic- 

 tionary, p. ii. 



