1GS Iloernle — Unsays on the Gaurian Languages. [No. 2, 
5. The relation, accordingly, of these three different elements, one to 
another, is this ; the Prdkritic and the proper Gaurian parts agree in both 
receiving their nouns from the Prakrit, but differ in the former (Prdkritic) 
admitting an oblique form, while the latter does not. The proper Gaurian 
and the Sanskritic parts agree in both not possessing an oblique form ; but 
they differ in the former deriving its nouns from the Prakrit, while the 
latter receives them directly from the Sanskrit. The Prdkritic and Sans- 
kritic parts differ in every respect. 
G. The great characteristic of the Gaurian languages in their full 
development, i. e., after having finally separated themselves from the Prakrit 
as distinct languages by themselves, is that they do not admit an oblique 
form, but use the nom. sing, of their parent languages (Sanskrit and Prakrit) 
as their inflexional base for the formation of all cases, in other words that 
they do not form an organic declension. Hence the proper Gaurian and 
the Sanskritic nouns only are really Gaurian. The Prdkritic nouns are 
transitional forms partaking of the character of both the Prakrit and the 
Gaurian. 
7. Hence it follows that those Gaurian languages are most really 
Gaurian which contain the largest proportion of Gaurian elements (i e., 
Gaurian Proper and Sanskritic) and least of the Prdkritic element. In 
this respect the Gaurian languages differ chnsiderably among themselves. 
They may be divided into three classes : the first class contains only the 
Marathi ; it possesses least of the Gaurian element, and therefore is the 
most Prdkritic of all the Gaurian languages, and represents most accurately 
the transitional stage between Prakrit and Gaurian. The second class * 
coirtains all the remaining Gaurian languages, except Bangali and Uriya ; 
viz., Hindi, Naipall, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, (i. e., the Hindi-class Gaurian 
languages), they are almost entirely pure Gaurian. The third class contains 
Bangali and Uriya. They also are almost entirely Gaurian ; if not perhaps 
altogether. The difference between the second and third class consists not 
so much in the relative amount of the Prdkritic element which they contain, 
as in the nature of the Prakritic element as explained in No. 2, note. 
8. All Gaurian nouns which have been received from the Prakrit, are 
derived either from the general base of the word (common to both Sanskrit 
and Prakrit) or from a particular base in (peculiar to Prakrit). The 
final sound of the direct form of the inflexional base of nouns of the latter 
kind is not liable to phonetic corruption (except the change of % to 
or ^T), while that of the former kind is. 
9. The final sound of the direct form of the Gaurian inflexional base 
(with the exceptions mentioned in No. 8) is subject to considerable phonetic 
corruptions. As regards those inflexional bases which are Prakrit nom. sing., 
two stages of phonetic corruption may be distinguished ; a., a Prakrit final 
