THE SINHALESE LANGUAGE. 



59 



viii. The Locative Case. — The Dravidian Locative sign pre- 

 sent a marked contrast with the Sinhalese. Compare Sidatsangara, 

 p. 180, with Caldwell's Dravidian Grammar, p. 247 et seq. 'None 

 of the Dravidian affixes of the locative,' says the last mentioned 

 writer, ' bears any resemblance to the locative case-sign of the 

 Sanskrit, of any other of the Indo-European languages, or of the 

 North-Indian vernaculars.' 



ix. The Ablative Case seems to have been introduced into 

 Dravidian Grammars 'out of deference to the principles of Sanskrit 

 Grammarians.' It is therefore unnecessary to institute any com- 

 parisons between the Dravidian and the Sinhalese beyond stating 

 that in this respect the Sinhalese presents one other in addition to 

 the many unequivocal proofs I have adduced to show its non-rela- 

 tion to the Dravidian. 



Adjectives. 



All languages that are entitled to be considered as of high anti-< 

 quity, whilst drawing a distinction in the sense of a name and its 

 attribute^ look upon adjectives as nouns, and invest them with 

 number, case, and gender. This peculiarity may be recognized in 

 all those dialects which stand in fraternal connection with the 

 Sanskrit. But in the languages which have arisen from these 

 Sanskrit daughters, the tendency to simplify the contractions, evo- 

 lutions, involutions, and inflexions of case, gender, and number y 

 in which their mothers delight, is indeed manifest, The Sinhalese 

 in their Grammatical System place the adjective amongst nouns 

 [see Sidatsangara, § 21 <?.]; and even clothe it with a sign of gender, 

 and case ; as, hceli from hela ' white ;' kota 'short one,' from kola 

 'short'; pceti ' lass,' from peeti * young', gori * white person' from 

 gora 'white kali 'black person' from kalu 'black,' etc. These 

 are only a few remnants of a large Sanskritic developement, which 

 must doubtless have existed upon the early formation of the Sinha- 

 lese. Even some of these are being gradually given up ; and we 

 find that, generally, the Sinhalese, like the English adjective, has 



