S3 A. F. Budolf Hoernle— Essays on the Gaurian Languages. [ No. 1, 
Naipali hearer and the Hindi would correspond the Bangali 
^«Tf#*7T; and to the Hindi form (in Braj Bliasha) or or (in 
Marwari) yy?Rr (the alternative Low Hindi forms of ypT «T) would correspond 
the Bangali ^jfsRT. It is evident that the Bangali nouns of agency in ^f?TNT 
and are derived from the two Skr. and Prak. Part. Put. Pass, in and 
rf^T in the sense of the infinitive or of a noun expressing act ; and that (as 
regards form) they are equivalent to the organic genitive of those participles, 
and thus came to signify the agent. Thus the Part. Put. Pass, of the root 
^ (Prak. to hear is either (Skr. or or vypnrr^f 
(Skr. RUT^l). The genitive of the former (^Tyrpg or by Sandhi is 
or or pff'f 1 yr, of which forms the last changes in 
Gaurian to ypffHNT, the present Bangali form of the word. Again the 
genitive of the other Prakrit form or is yjfAoquyr or 
or ygwRR, of which the last form changes in Gaurian to yyvRT, the present 
Bangali form of the word. 
The Bangali nouns of agency in and RT (or Tij and ^t) and the 
Naipali nouns of agency in *n are, then, Prakrit genitives, or, looked at 
from the Gaurian standpoint, oblique forms ; they all require, to complete 
their sense of agency, the supplement of some common noun (as man). 
This noun is, however, suppressed and in course of time the real genitive- 
nature of those nouns of agency was forgotten, and they came to he 
considered as regular original adjective or substantive nouns ; # and, 
accordingly, to be declined as if their form were a nominative singular. 
Hence we meet in Naipali with a genitive %f, Dat. ypRJT ^TT<G as if 
were theNom. Sing. e. g\, St. Luke xxii. 21.; TiK %T 
^TcT W #3T #RT *nf«? W, (i. e., H. H. etc.) ; or St. Luke 
xix. 24. ~TIT ^ (i. e., H. H. Bfit ^l). Similarly 
in Bangali the nouns of agency may be declined. In illustration of this 
phenomenon, I may refer to a parallel one in German. Some of the modern 
German surnames are the Latin genitive of original Christian names ; but 
now they are considered and are declined as regular original nouns in the 
nominative case. E. g\, such names as Jacobi , Georgii are really genitives 
to which filius “ son” is to be added; Jacobi meant originally, the son of 
Jacob ; Georgii, the son of George ; and they are declined as Jacobisphiloso_phie, 
the philosophy of Jacobi, as if Jacobi were a nominative. Similarly such 
names as Stevens are really genitives ; for Stevens is properly Steven's son. 
* A very similar phenomenon happened in the formation of the direct form of the 
plural in some Gaurian languages; e. g., Naipali hearers (lit. hearer’s 
multitude) corresponds to Hindi yjcpFRrif,’ where some noun like ifr must be 
supplied. Thus Naipali of ViT^T hungry =: Hindi (or complete ViA 
ijy). This will be fully discussed in a future essay on the inliexional base of the 
Plural. 
