52 



ON THE CLASSIFICATION 



same word as is used by her, when she addresses him. 56 

 Among the Eudeve tribe the same custom prevails. 57 



This difference in the speech of men and women, however 

 significant, is by natural causes limited within a narrow 

 compass. If men and women really spoke different languages, 

 the very aim for which speech exists, clear communication 

 of ideas, would be frustrated. Where women, as is the case 

 among the Caribes, 58 generally belong to another tribe and are 

 prisoners carried away in successful raids, the difference of 

 language is a fact easily accounted for. A female language 

 which differs from that of males, as one language differs 

 from another, does not exist. To quote in favor of its exist- 

 ence the circumstance that men speak in Sanskrit dramas 

 Sanskrit and women Prakrit, is a wrong application of a 

 false opinion. 59 For neither do all men speak Sanskrit in 

 Sanskrit dramas, nor all women Prakrit, for both men and 

 women speak either Sanskrit or Prakrit according to the 

 position they occupy in life. Different languages are spoken 

 in Indian plays as the poets intend to give a true and real 

 portrait, a concrete description of the individuals who appear 

 on the scene. The multitude of Indian languages, and the 



(56) Compare " Information respecting the History, Condition and Pros- 

 pects of the Indian Tribes of the United States," by Henry Schoolcraft, ll.d., 

 Vol. II, page 385, where he discourses on " the exclusive use of certain words 

 by one or the other sex." 



(57) See " The Native Eaces of the Pacific States of North America," by 

 H. H. Bancroft, Vol. Ill, page 701 : " In some cases females employ different 

 words from those used by the male sex." 



(58) See : Alexander von Humboldt's Eeise in die ^Equinoctial Gegenden 

 des neuen Continents, Vol. IV, page 326 and ff. 



(59) See : Ernest Renan "De 1' origins du language," pages 27|and 28. "Or, 

 si la femme employa tout d'abord certaines flexions de preference a d'autres, 

 et provoqua ces flexioiis chez ceuxqui lui parlaient, c'est qu'elles etaient plus 

 conformes a ses habitudes de prononciation et aux sentiments que sa vue 

 faisait naitre. C'est ainsi que dans les drames Hindous les hommes parlent 

 Sanscrit et les femmes Prakrit." Whether the Prakrit contained in Indian 

 dramas represents always actually spoken language is very doubtful. I 

 believe it is often an artificially made up jargon. My learned friend 

 Dr. Burnell has even found in the Palace Library at Tan j ore " a real grammar 

 of a fictitious Prakrit dialect called the Bhandlrabhasha ; " see his interest- 

 ing monograph " On the Aindra School of Sanskrit Grammarians," page 107. 



