238 



JOURNAL R. A. S. (CEYLON.) [Vol. VII., Pt. III. 



The terminations of the future tense are the same, with 

 <£?€S£3, issa, prefixed to them. 



" Another striking characteristic of this family," says Mr. 

 Beames, a is its power of expressing complicated ideas or strings 

 of ideas by compounds. Several words are joined together, 

 and the case and tense-endings are added to the last word only, 

 the first memher of the compound being either a preposition or 

 a noun, or even a verb. This power is not possessed hj % other 

 families" This power the Sinhalese language possesses in a 

 preeminent degree, S)6D ^5 cf JiDS)§5l, Bamba sura naro 



namaditj given in the Sidat Sangard is a familiar example. 



I have here attempted to shew that most of the charac- 

 teristics of the Aryan languages do also apply to the modern 

 Sinhalese. 



The following languages, as was said before, belong to the 

 Indie class of the Indo-Germanic family, Hindi, Bengali, 

 Panjabi, Sindhi, Marat hi, Gujarathi, Oriya, and Kashmiri. 

 Following Mr. Beames' excellent work on the Philology of 

 these languages I shall endeavour to shew the connection of 

 Sinhalese with this family. 



The numerals, says Mr. Beames, are those parts of speech 

 which retain their forms with the greatest tenacity, and offer 

 the most obvious similarities. Let us compare the Sinhalese 

 with the Indian vernacular numerals. 



