THE SINHALESE LANGUAGE. 



69 



Sinhalese in their colloquial dialect make an effort io express 

 themselves in the active rather than in the passive voice. It is 

 also true, as stated by Dr. Stevenson, that they generally express 

 themselves as in the North-Indian vernaculars, 'I ate a beating' 

 instead of 4 1 was struck' This is after the fashion of the people 

 with whom they had been, and from whom the Sinhalese were 

 long ago separated. And the reason why the North -Indians have 

 adopted this idiom may be found in the constant intercourse which 

 they have had for centuries with their Dravidian neighbours. 



Yet because a foreign idiom is adopted, or the Sinhalese shews 

 a tendency to adapt itself to circumstances it must not be concluded 

 that the language is destitute of a passive voice. It must moreover 

 be borne in mind that in the particular investigation in hand it is 

 not necessary to enquire what is the tendency of the Sinhalese at 

 the present day — twenty-four centuries after it had been fixed in 

 Ceylon— but what was its state, as to this passive voice, according 

 to its earliest writings^ its acknowledged grammatical system, and 

 the learned usage in respect of it at the present day. There is 

 scarcely a single Sinhalese book in which the passive voice is not 

 unmistakeably expressed by its author. It is expressly treated of 

 in the only ancient Sinhalese Grammar of authority, the Sidat- 

 sangara ; it is found in writings contained in the Newspaper Press 

 of this Island ; and it is familiar to every one who reads his Lord's 

 Prayer in Sinhalese. 



But it is said that the word used is Iceba ' receive.' It signifies 

 nothing what the auxiliary verb is that is employed to express the 

 passive, so long as it conveys, when joined to the principal verb, 

 which Iceba does, a passive signification. If exception be taken 

 as I have seen it has been, that Iceba is by itself a separate word, 

 what will the critic say to the verb substantive which enters into 

 the composition of the English passive verb ? What to the ya 

 (from ya i to go') which is added to the Sanskrit verb ? Surely 

 the one or the other of these is as much a distinct word and a verb 



