46 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



Sanskrit from not only the Sinhalese but its very parent the Pali, 

 and other Prakrits of undoubtedly Sanskrit origin. This will be 

 rendered manifest by the following table of Sanskrit, Pali, and 

 Sinhalese words, which show the growing reluctance with which 

 each generation has cast away, what even all Northerners must 

 admit, the difficulty of expressing heterogeneous sounds, as in the 

 following :— 





Sanskrit. 



Pali. 



Sinhalese, 



Head 



sirsa 



sisa 



hisa 



Full 



purna 



punna 



pun 



Limb 



gatra 



gatta 



gat 



Raiment 



vastra 



vattha 



vat 



Mouth 



vaktra 



vatta 



vat 



Eye 



netra 



netta 



net 



Demon 



raksha 



rakkha 



rakus 



Heaven 



svarga 



sagga 



saga 



Pearl 



mukta 



mutta 



mutu 



Name 



Laksmana 



Lakkhana 



Lakkana 



Agent 



kartru 



kattu 



katu 



Above 



urdhvan 



uddhan 



uda 



ix. Another peculiarity observable in the formation of words 

 may here be mentioned. Whilst, as a general rule, in the Dra vi- 

 dian, as in the Scythian family of tongues, ' neither the vowel nor 

 the consonant (or consonants) of which the root is composed, sus- 

 tains any change or modification on the addition of the signs of 

 gender, number, and case, or of person, tense, and mood; which 

 are successively agglutenated to the root, not welded into combina- 

 tion with it,'* — the vowels in the Sinhalese as well as in the Indo- 

 European radical, are, in general, modified by the addition of 

 the suffixes of case and tense. E. g. the Sinhalese word kolu ' boy,' 

 which comes from keli 'to sport,' is changed into holla in the 

 masculine, and keli in the feminine. The word balu i dog ' be- 



* Caldwell., p. 164. 



