Professor Butiler on the Sanskrit Linguals. 129 



Ex. leh + ti=ledh + ti~lecldhi=ledhi lib -f tliah^lidh + 

 ihahr=:liddhahr=lidhah lih + dhvam — lidh -f dhvam == lid dh- 

 vam = lid h vain . 



The omission of the d, which is analogous to that observed 

 in shodaca, shodha, shadanta, is, no doubt, owing to the 

 aversion entertained by the Hindu against the immediate 

 sequence of two lingual mutes. 



The change of ' h' to ' dh' may at the first look appear 

 surprising, as the former letter is a guttural, (a) Nevertheless, 

 I think, it may be satisfactorily accounted for, if we assume 

 that at the time when it first came into use, the Sanskrit 

 already possessed linguals, that it belongs to a later period 

 than the changes produced by r, ri, ri and sh. It is im- 

 possible to prove this assumption strictly ; but there are cir- 

 cumstances which make it appear not altogether unlikely. 

 Firstly ' h' is one of those letters, which have been developed 

 in Sanskrit after its separation from the Indo-European 

 sister-languages and even from Zend. It has been produced 

 by a weakening of original ' gh' and in rare cases also of 

 ' bh,' and ' dh.' Secondly, some roots whose h in the classi- 

 cal Sanskrit admits of lingualisation, show in the Vedas 

 forms with gh only. Thus druh makes in classical Sanskrit 

 in the part. perf. pass, drudha or drugdha, in the Veda 

 drugdha only. If my premises be granted, the transforma- 

 tion of ' h' into ' dh' may be explained by the peculiarly 

 changeable nature of the former sound. ' H' as well as its 

 kindred, the aspirates, are the very Proteuses amongst let- 

 ters. Sometimes the different branches of the Indo-European 

 tongue exhibit all the three aspirates in one and the same 

 word e.g. in Sanskrit gharma=Greek #ep/xo-s=Latin formu-s. 

 In Greek 6 and 4> frequently exchanged, and the transi- 

 tion of th into f may be observed in several English dia- 



(a) Some Sanskrit grammarians call ' h' urasya a "chest-sound." See 

 Whitney's note to Aih, Veda Prat, 1. 19. 



17 



