394
The newstudy ofthe ver-naculars,1872-92.
Resultsdisclosedby the ver-naculars.
of view. In 1872, Mr. Beames ’ Comparative Grammar of theModern Aryan Languages of India 1 opened up a new field ofhuman knowledge, and began to effect for the Aryan dialectsof the North, what Bishop Caldwell’s great work accomplishedfor non-Aryan speech in Southern India. Dr. Ernest Trumpp ’sGrammar of the Sindhi Language followed, and would probablyhave modified some of Mr. Beames ’ views. Another learnedGerman officer of the Indian Government, Professor Rudolf Hoernle , further specialized the research by his ComparativeGrammar of the Gaudian Languages (1880), with particularreference to the Hindi . The same scholar and Mr. George Grierson , of the Civil Service , undertook a ComparativeDictionary of the Bihar'i Language, which will enable everyEuropean inquirer to study the structure and framework of amodem Aryan vernacular for himself. These and othercognate works have accumulated a mass of new evidence,which seems to settle the relationship of the present Aryanvernaculars to the languages of ancient India .
They prove that those vernaculars do not descend directlyfrom Sanskrit . They indicate the existence of an Aryanspeech older than Sanskrit —older, perhaps, than the Vedichymns; from which the Sanskrit , the Prakrits or ancientspoken dialects of India , and the modem vernaculars, werealike derived. Passing beyond the Vedic period, they showthat ancient Aryan speech diverged into two channels. Theone channel poured its stream into the ocean of Sanskrit , alanguage ‘ at once archaic and artificial,’ elaborated by theBrahmanical schools. 2 The other channel branched out intothe Prakrits or ancient spoken vernaculars. The artificialSanskrit ( Samskrita , i.e. the perfected language ) attained itscomplete development in the grammar of Panini ( circ . 350b.c .). 3 The Prakrits (i.e. naturally evolved dialects) foundtheir earliest extant exposition in the grammar of Vararuchi ,about the 1st century b.c . 4 But the 4000 algebraic aphorisms
1 Three volumes, Triibner & Co. The first volume was published in1872 ; the last in 1879.
2 Hoernle and Grierson ’s Comparative Dictionary of the Biharl Language,pp. 33 and 34. Secretariat Press, Calcutta, 1885. It should be remem-bered that Indian grammarians, when speaking of the Vedic languagetechnically, do not call it Sanskrit , but Chhandas. They restrict thetechnical application of Sanskrit to the scholastic language of the Brah-mans, elaborated on the lines of the earlier Vedic.
3 Vide ante, pp. 142-145.
4 Hoernle ’s Comparative Grammar of the Gaudian Languages, pp. xviii.et seq., ed. 1880.