NO. 5. — 1850.] THE ELU LANGUAGE. 



251 



altogether upon a process different from, and less certain 

 than, that in the Sanskrit. The declensions are also differ- 

 ent in the Sinhalese from the Sanskrit, the dual being 

 unknown to the former, &c. If further it can be shown 

 that the Sinhalese is capable of being written without an 

 admixture of Pali and Sanskrit terms,* I apprehend there 

 will be no difficulty in establishing my position, which is 

 this : that the Sinhalese bears an affinity to the Sanskrit, 

 and that they are both cognate languages, derived from one 

 and the same source, which is perhaps now irrecoverably 

 lost. 



If, as I have once heard, it be maintained, because cer- 

 tain words in one language bear affinity to others of like 

 signification in another language, that therefore the former 

 must be and is a dialect of the latter, I fear we shall be 

 driven to the absurdity of pronouncing the Sinhalese to be 

 a dialect of the English,! and the Sanskrit a dialect of the 

 Latin. For " the Sanskrit language," to quote from Sir 

 William Jones (vide his works, vol. L, p. 26), "whatever be 

 its antiquity, is of wonderful structure : more perfect than 

 the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exqui- 

 sitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a 

 stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms 

 of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by 

 accident— so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine 

 them all three without believing them to have sprung from one 

 common source, which perhaps no longer exists." 



* The writer's acquaintance with the Sanskrit and Pali is indeed 

 inadequate to illustrate this part of the subject with an example; but 

 upon the authorit}' of the " Sidatsangarawa," it is to be presumed that a 

 language of which two-thirds are nipan and tasama, is capable of being 

 expressed without a mixture of the Sanskrit, &c. 



f E. g., lop, ©(3ad ; door, ©q,<5 ; mud, ©a) ; water, ; hour, 



©ssfd) ; serpent, esS ; new, way, ; name, «SD®; &c. 



