1883.] 
G. A. Grierson —Essays on Bihari Declension. 
141 
The first I believe to be a deroded form of ‘ all,’ through an 
intermediate form then appears naturally as its oblique plural, 
with a lengthening of the final vowel. 
Similarly, I would connect f^f%, with the Maithil word ^1%‘all.’ 
through an intermediate form or and then ^ easily appears 
as a contracted form of the same word. 
In the Bihar districts bordering on Bangal a form or is 
used to form a plural. A reference to the neighbouring Bangali gives the 
word meaning ‘and’, ‘other.’ This is derived from the Skr. mean¬ 
ing ‘ other.’ Its use in Purniya and Bhagalpiir is best seen in the pro¬ 
nouns, where it is used with the oblique form of the genitive singular, thus 
‘ others of me’, ‘ we.’ So also T iirf T ‘ horses.’ 
I consider a plural of through transposition from 
Affinities and derivation. 
The derivation of the plural termination *T, f%, fir, is from the Skr. 
gen. plural in through Prakrit (cf ‘ of five’), 
(<?/! Hoernle, pp. 202 and 211). The only difficulty in this derivation is 
the termination in fNr and fff. This I believe to be inorganic, and is 
due either to the memory of the Skr. neuter nom. plur. in fir which led 
to confusion, or (more probably) to false analogy with the very common 
termination of the third person plural of the Bihari verb in f%, which has 
quite a different origin, viz., from the Skr. fsfi. E. g., the 3rd plural past 
of the verb ‘ see,’ is which is frequently written 
or Seeing therefore these three plural verbal termina¬ 
tions, false analogy would inevitably suggest the addition of the form 
to the regular plural substantival forms and iilTST. It may be 
noted here that there is also a Skr. nom. neut. plur. in fsfi (wrafa), which 
may have lent its aid to the false analogy. 
On the preparation of the base. 
It is commonly said that in Bihari the oblique form of nouns is the 
same as the direct. This, however, is not the fact, and I hope to be able 
to shew that a distinct oblique form of nouns and of possessive pronouns 
exists throughout all the dialects. 
It will be convenient to consider first the Bhojpuri affixes of the 
genitive. Hoernle (p. 220) gives the genitival affixes (amongst others) 
as ctf, oblique %. The latter termination in use in Banaras, is not, how¬ 
ever, pure Bhojpuri. It appears to me to be borrowed from Hindi and 
not to be a pure Bihari form. The oblique form % is almost universal 
over the Hindi area, and is not used in any Bihari dialect with which I 
am acquainted. 
In the pure Bhojpuri of western Bihar the forms are— 
