[1] For a full account of the manufacture of indigo in northern Behar
see Ch. Rawson, _Journ. Soc. Dyers and Colourists_ (July 1899).
[2] Although bright shades of blue are produced with this derivative,
they are not fast.
INDIUM (symbol In, atomic weight 114.8), a metallic chemical element,
included in the sub-group of the periodic classification of the elements
containing aluminium, gallium and thallium. It was first discovered in
1863 by F. Reich and Th. Richter (_Journ. für prak. Chem._, 1863, 89, p.
444) by means of its spectrum. It occurs naturally in very small
quantities in zinc blende, and is best obtained from metallic zinc
(which contains a small quantity of indium) by treating it with such an
amount of hydrochloric acid that a little of the zinc remains
undissolved; when on standing for some time the indium is precipitated
on the undissolved zinc. The crude product is freed from basic zinc
salts, dissolved in nitric acid and the nitric acid removed by
evaporation with sulphuric acid, after which it is precipitated by
addition of ammonia. The precipitated indium hydroxide is converted into
a basic sulphite by boiling with excess of sodium bisulphite, and then
into the normal sulphite by dissolving in hot sulphurous acid. This salt
on strong ignition leaves a residue of the trioxide, which can be
converted into the metal by heating in a current of hydrogen, or by
fusion with sodium (C. Winkler, _Journ. für prak. Chem._, 1867, 102, p.
273). Indium is a soft malleable metal, melting at 155° C. Its specific
gravity is 7.421 and its specific heat 0.05695 (R. Bunsen).
_Indium oxide_, In2O3, is a yellow powder which is formed on ignition of
the hydroxide. It is readily reduced on heating with carbon or hydrogen,
and does not pass into an insoluble form when ignited. The _hydroxide_,
In(OH)3, is prepared, as a gelatinous precipitate, by adding ammonia to
any soluble indium salt. It is readily soluble in caustic potash, but
insoluble in ammonia.
Three chlorides of indium are known: the _trichloride_, InCl3, a
deliquescent salt, formed by heating a mixture of the oxide and carbon
in a current of chlorine; the _dichloride_, InCl2, obtained by heating
the metal in hydrochloric acid gas; and the _monochloride_, InCl, which
is prepared by distilling the vapour of the dichloride over metallic
indium. The mono- and dichlorides are decomposed by water with the
formation of the trichloride, and separation of metallic indium. _Indium
Sulphate_, In2(SO4)3, is obtained as a white powder very soluble in
water by evaporating the trioxide with sulphuric acid. Concentration of
the aqueous solution in a desiccator gives a deposit of crystals of a
very deliquescent salt, H2In2(SO4)4·8H2O. An _indium ammonium alum_,
In2(S04)3·(NH4)2S04·24H20 is known.
The atomic weight of indium has been determined by C. Winkler and by R.
Bunsen by converting the metal into its oxide. Thiel (_Ber._, 1904, 37,
p. 1135) obtained the values 115.08 and 114.81 from analyses of the
chloride and bromide, whilst F. C. Mathers (_Abst. J.C.S._, 1907, ii.
352) obtained 114.88 and 114.86. Indium salts can be recognized by the
dark blue colour they give in the flame of the Bunsen burner; and by the
white beads of metal and the yellow incrustation formed when heated on
charcoal with sodium carbonate.
INDIVIDUALISM (from Lat. _individualis_, that which is not divided, an
individual), in political philosophy, the theory of government according
to which the good of the state consists in the well-being and free
initiative of the component members. From this standpoint, as contrasted
with that of the various forms of socialism (q.v.) which subordinate the
individual to the community, the community as such is an artificial
unity. Individualism is, however, by no means identical with egoism,
though egoism is always individualistic. An individualist may also be a
conscientious altruist: he is by no means hostile to or aloof from
society (any more than the socialist is necessarily hostile to the
individual), but he is opposed to state interference with individual
freedom wherever, in his opinion, it can be avoided. The practical
distinction in modern society is necessarily one of degree, and both
"individualism" and "socialism" are very vaguely used, and generally as
terms of reproach by opponents. Every practical politician of whatever
party must necessarily combine in his programme individualistic and
socialist principles. Extreme individualism is pure anarchy: on the
other hand Thomas Hobbes, a characteristic individualist, vigorously
supported absolute government as necessary to the well-being of
individuals. Moreover it is conceivable under given circumstances that
an individualist might logically advocate measures (e.g. compulsory
military service) which conflict with individual freedom. In practice
individualism is chiefly concerned to oppose the concentration of
commercial and industrial enterprise in the hands of the state and the
municipality. The principles on which this opposition is based are
mainly two: that popularly elected representatives are not likely to
have the qualifications or the sense of responsibility required for
dealing with the multitudinous enterprises and the large sums of public
money involved, and that the health of the state depends on the
exertions of individuals for their personal benefit.
INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES. "Indo-Aryan" is the name generally adopted for
those Aryans who entered India and settled there in prehistoric times,
and for their descendants. It distinguishes them from the other Aryans
who settled in Persia and elsewhere, just as the name "Aryo-Indian"
signifies those inhabitants of India who are Aryans, as distinguished
from other Indian races, Dravidians, Mundas and so on. A synonym of
"Aryo-Indian" is "Gaudian" or "Gaurian," based on a Sanskrit word for
the non-Dravidian parts of India proper. These two words refer to the
people from the point of view of India, while "Indo-Aryan" looks at them
from the wider aspect of Indo-European ethnology and philology. The
general history of the Aryan languages is treated in the articles
INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES and ARYAN. Here we propose to offer a brief
review of the special course of their development in India.
Most of the Indo-Aryans branched off from the common Aryan stock in the
highlands of Khokand and Badakshan, and marched south into what is now
eastern Afghanistan. Here some of them settled, while others entered the
Punjab by the valley of the river Kabul. This last migration was a
gradual process extending over several centuries, and at different
epochs different tribes came in, speaking different dialects of the
common language. The literary records of the latest times of this
invasion show us one Indo-Aryan tribe complaining of the unintelligible
speech of another, and even denying to it the right of common
Aryan-hood.
_The Pisaca Languages._--Before proceeding farther, it is advisable to
discuss the fate of another small group of languages spoken in the
extreme north-west of India. After the great fission which separated the
main body of the Indo-Aryans from the Iranians, but before all the
special phonetic characteristics of Iranian speech had developed,
another horde of invaders crossed the Hindu Kush from the Pamirs,
journeying directly south. They occupied the submontane tract, including
the country round Chitral and Gilgit, Kashmir and Kafiristan. Some even
followed the course of the Indus as far as Sind, and formed colonies
there and in the western Punjab. Here they mingled with the Indo-Aryans
who had come down the Kabul valley, and to a certain extent infected the
local dialect with their idioms. How far their influence extended over
the rest of India is undecided, and will probably never be known, but
traces of it have been detected by some inquirers even in the dialects
of modern Marathi. Those who remained behind in the hill country, the
whole of which is popularly known as Dardistan, were isolated by the
inhospitable nature of their home and by their own savage character.
They seem to have had customs allied to cannibalism, and in later Indian
literature legends grew around them as a race of demons called
_Pisacas_, [Greek: hômophagoi], who spoke a barbaric tongue called
_Paisaci_. This language appears now and then in the Sanskrit drama, and
Sanskrit philologists wrote still-extant grammatical notices of its
peculiarities. These show that it possessed an extremely archaic
character, and the same fact is prominent in the Pisaca languages of the
present day. Some words which were spoken in the oldest time are
preserved with hardly a change of letter, while in India proper the
corresponding forms have either disappeared altogether or have been so
changed as to be hardly recognizable at first sight. The principal
modern Pisaca languages are three or four spoken in Kafiristan, Khowar
of Chitral, Shina of Gilgit, Kashmiri, and Kohistani. The last two are
border tongues, much mixed with the neighbouring languages of India
proper. The only one which has any literature is Kashmiri (q.v.). The
rest are entirely uncultivated. Their general character may be described
as partly Indian and partly Iranian, although they have in their
isolated position developed some phonetic laws of their own.
_Indo-Aryan Classification._--The oldest specimens of Indo-Aryan speech
which we possess very closely resemble the oldest Iranian (see PERSIA:
_Language_). There are passages in the Iranian Avesta which can be
turned into good Vedic Sanskrit by the application of a few simple
phonetic laws. It is sufficient for our present purposes to note that
after the separation the development of the two old forms of speech went
on independently and followed somewhat different lines. This is most
marked in the treatment of a nexus of two consonants. While modern
Iranian often retains the nexus with little or no alteration, modern
Indo-Aryan prefers to simplify it. For instance, while the old Aryan
_sth_ becomes _s^it_ or _ist_ in modern Persian, it becomes _tth_ or
_th_ in modern Indo-Aryan. Similarly _bhr_ becomes _b^ir_ in the former,
but _bbh_ or _bh_ in the latter. Thus:--
+----------------+-------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Old Indo-Aryan.| Old Iranian.| Modern Persian. | Hindi. |
+----------------+-------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| sthana- | stana- | s^itan_ or istan| thana, a place. |
| bhratar- | bratar- | b^iradar | bhai, a brother.|
+----------------+-------------+-----------------+-----------------+
The earliest extant literary record of Indo-Aryan languages is the
collection of hymns known as the Rig-Veda. As we have it now, we may
take it as representing, on the whole, the particular vernacular dialect
spoken in the east of the Punjab and in the upper portion of the
Gangetic Doab where it was compiled. The tribe which spoke this dialect
spread east and south, and their habitat, as so extended, between the
Punjab and the modern Allahabad and reaching from the Himalaya to the
Vindhya Hills in the south, became known to Sanskrit geographers as the
_Madhyadesa_ or "_Midland_," also called _Aryavarta_, or the "home of
the Aryans." The language spoken here received constant literary
culture, and a refined form of its archaic dialect became fixed by the
labours of grammarians about the year 300 B.C., receiving the name of
_Samskrta_ (Sanskrit) or "purified," in contradistinction to the
folk-speech of the same tract and to the many Indo-Aryan dialects of
other parts of India, all of which were grouped together under the title
of _Prakrta_ (Prakrit) or "natural," "unpurified." Sanskrit (q.v.)
became the language of religion and polite literature, and thus the
Midland, the native land of its mother dialect, became accepted as the
true pure home of the Indo-Aryan people, the rest being, from the point
of view of educated India, more or less barbarous. In later times, the
great _lingua franca_ of India, Hindostani, also took its origin in this
tract.
Round the Midland, on three sides--west, south and east--lay a country
inhabited, even in Vedic times, by other Indo-Aryan tribes. This tract
included the modern Punjab, Sind, Gujarat, Rajputana with the country to
its east, Oudh and Behar. Rajputana belongs geographically to the
Midland, but it was a late conquest, and for our present purposes may be
considered as belonging to the Outer Band. The various Indo-Aryan
dialects spoken over this band were all more closely related to each
other than was any of them to the language of the Midland. In fact, at
an early period of the linguistic history of India there must have been
two sets of Indo-Aryan dialects,--one the language of the Midland and
the other that of the Outer Band.[1] Hoernle was the first to suggest
that the dialects of the Outer Band represent on the whole the language
of the earlier Indo-Aryan immigrants, while the language of the Midland
was that of the latest comers, who entered the Punjab like a wedge and
thrust the others outwards in three directions.
As time went on, the population of the Midland expanded and forced the
Outer Band into a still wider circuit. The Midland conquered the eastern
Punjab, Rajputana with Gujarat (where it reached the sea) and Oudh. With
its armies and its settlers it carried its language, and hence in all
these territories we now find mixed forms of speech. The basis of each
is that of the Outer Band, but the body is that of the Midland.
Moreover, as we leave the Midland and approach the external borders of
this tract, the influence of the Midland language grows weaker and
weaker, and traces of the original Outer language become more and more
prominent. In the same way the languages of the Outer Band were forced
farther and farther afield. There was no room for expansion to the west,
but to the south it flowed over the Maratha country, and to the east
into Orissa, into Bengal and, last of all, into Assam.
The state of affairs at the present day is therefore as follows: There
is a Midland Indo-Aryan language (Western Hindi) occupying the Gangetic
Doab and the country immediately to its north and south. Round it, on
three sides, is a band of mixed languages, Panjabi (of the central
Punjab), Gujarati, Rajasthani (of Rajputana and its neighbourhood), and
Eastern Hindi (of Oudh and the country to its south). Beyond these
again, there is the band of Outer Languages (Kashmiri, with its Pisaca
basis), Lahnda (of the western Punjab), Sindhi (here the band is broken
by Gujarati), Marathi, Oriya (of Orissa), Bihari, Bengali and Assamese.
There are also, at the present day, Indo-Aryan languages in the
Himalaya, north of the Midland. These belong to the Intermediate Band,
being recent importations from Rajputana. The Midland language is
therefore now enclosed within a ring fence of Intermediate forms of
speech.
We have seen that the word "Prakrit" means "natural" or "vernacular," as
opposed to the "purified" literary Sanskrit. From this point of view
every vernacular of India, from the earliest times, is a Prakrit. The
Rig-Veda itself, composed long before the birth of "purified" Sanskrit,
can only be considered as written in an old vernacular, and its
language, together with the other contemporary Indo-Aryan dialects which
never attained to the honour of "purification," may be called the
_Primary_ Prakrits of India. If we compare literary Sanskrit with
classical Latin (see Brandreth, "The Gaurian compared with the Romance
Languages," _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_ xi. (1879), 287; xii.
(1880), 335), then these Primary Prakrits correspond to the old Italic
dialects contemporary with and related to the literary language of Rome.
They were synthetic languages with fairly complicated grammars, no
objection to harsh combinations of consonants, and several grammatical
forms strange to the classical speech. In the course of centuries (while
literary Sanskrit remained stereotyped) they decayed into _Secondary_
Prakrits. These still remained synthetic, and still retained the
non-classical forms of grammar, but diphthongs and harsh combinations of
consonants were eschewed. They now corresponded to the post-classical
Italic dialects. Just as Sanskrit (and the Primary Prakrits) knew of a
city called Kausambi, which was known as Kosambi to the Secondary
Prakrits, so the real Umbrian name of the poet known to literature as
Plautus was Plot(u)s. Again, as the Latin _lactuca_ became _lattuca_, so
the Primary Prakrit _bhakta_- became the Secondary _bhatta_-. In India,
the dislike to harsh consonantal sounds, a sort of glottic laziness,
finally led to a condition of almost absolute fluidity, each word of the
Secondary Prakrits ultimately becoming an emasculated collection of
vowels hanging on to an occasional consonant. This weakness brought its
own Nemesis and from, say, A.D. 1000 we find in existence the series of
modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars, or, as they may be called, _Tertiary_
Prakrits, closely corresponding to the modern Romance languages. Here we
find the hiatus between contiguous vowels abolished by the creation of
new diphthongs, declensional and conjugational terminations consisting
merely of vowels becoming worn away, and new languages appearing, no
longer synthetic, but analytic, and again reverting to combinations of
consonants under new forms, which had existed three thousand years ago,
but which two thousand years of attrition had caused to vanish.
It is impossible to fix any approximate date for the change from the
Primary to the Secondary Prakrits. We see sporadic traces of the
secondary stage already occurring in the Rig-Veda itself, of which the
canon was closed about 1000 B.C. At any rate Secondary Prakrits were the
current vernacular at the time of the emperor Asoka (250 B.C.). Their
earliest stage was that of what is now called _Pali_, the sacred
language of the Buddhists, which forms the subject of a separate article
(see PALI). A still later and more abraded stage is also discussed under
the head of PRAKRIT. This stage is known as that of the Prakrit _par
excellence_. When we talk of Prakrit without any qualifying epithet, we
usually mean this later stage of the Secondary Prakrits, when they had
developed beyond the stage of Pali, but before they had reached the
analytic stage of the modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars. The next, and
final, stage of the Secondary Prakrits was that of the _Apabhramsas_.
The word _Apabhramsa_ means "corrupt" or "decayed," and was applied to
the vernaculars in contrast to the Prakrit _par excellence_, which had
in its turn (like Sanskrit and Pali) become stereotyped by being
employed for literature. It is these _Apabhramsas_ which are the direct
parents of the modern vernacular. The following is a list of the
Indo-Aryan vernaculars, showing, when known, the names of the
_Apabhramsas_ from which they are sprung, and the number of speakers of
each in the year 1901:--
+---------------+-------------------------------+------------+
| _Apabhramsa._ | Modern Language. | Number of |
| | | Speakers. |
+---------------+-------------------------------+------------+
| | _A. Language of the Midland._ | |
| Saurasena | Western Hindi | 40,714,925 |
| | | |
| | _B. Intermediate Languages._ | |
| Avanta | Rajasthani | 10,917,712 |
| " | Pahari Languages | 3,124,681 |
| Gaurjara | Gujarati | 9,439,925 |
| Saurasena | Pañjabi | 17,070,961 |
| Ardhamagadha | Eastern Hindi | 22,136,358 |
| | | |
| | _C. Outer Languages._ | |
| | (a) _North-Western Group._ | |
| Unknown | Kashmiri (with a Pisaca basis)| 1,007,957 |
| " | Kohistani (with a Pisaca | |
| | basis) | (unknown) |
| " | Lahnda or Western Pañjabi | 3,337,917 |
| Vracada | Sindhi | 3,494,971 |
| | | |
| | (b) _Southern Language._ | |
| Maharastra | Marathi | 18,237,899 |
| | | |
| | (c) _Eastern Group._ | |
| Magadha | Bihari | 34,579,844 |
| " | Oriya | 9,687,429 |
| " | Bengali | 44,624,048 |
| " | Assamese | 1,350,846 |
| | +------------+
| | Total More than |219,725,473 |
+---------------+-------------------------------+------------+
Of these, the Pahari languages are offshoots of Rajasthani imported into
the Himalaya. Kohistani includes the mixed dialects of the Swat and
Indus Kohistans. The census of 1901 did not extend to these tracts. A
full account of the _Apabhramsas_ will be found in the article PRAKRIT.
Although the modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars are not derived from
Sanskrit, and though all, or nearly all, are not derived from the
language of the Rig-Veda, nevertheless, as these are almost the only
sources of our information as to what the Primary Prakrits of India
were, and as all Primary Prakrits were related to these two and were in
approximately the same stage of phonetic development, they afford a
convenient means for carrying out historical investigation into the
origin of all the modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars to its legitimate
conclusion. At the same time they are not always trustworthy guides, and
sometimes fail to explain forms derived from other ancient contemporary
dialects, the originals of which were unknown to the Vedic and classical
literature. A striking example is the origin of the very common
locative suffix -_e_. This can be traced through the _Apabhramsa -hi_ to
the Pali -_dhi_. There all Indian clues cease, and it is not till we
recognize its relationship to the Greek -[Greek: ti] that we understand
that it is an ancient Indo-European termination kept alive in India by
some of the Primary Prakrits, but ignored both by the dialect of the
Rig-Veda and by literary Sanskrit. With this reservation, a short
comparison of Sanskrit with the Secondary and Tertiary Prakrit
developments will be of interest. As the Pali and Prakrit stages are
fully treated under their proper heads, very brief references to them
will be sufficient.
_A. Vocabulary._--The ground of all the vocabularies of the modern
Indo-Aryan vernaculars is, of course, the vocabulary of Aryan India in
the Vedic period. Thousands of words have descended from the earliest
times and are still in existence, after passing through certain
changes subject to well-known phonetic laws. As many of these laws are
the same for every language, it follows that a large stock of words,
which principally differ in inflection, is common to all these modern
forms of speech. These words, which natives believe to be derived from
Sanskrit itself, are called by them _tadbhava_, i.e. "having 'that'
(sc. Sanskrit, or, more correctly, the Primary Prakrit) for its
origin." As the language of the Midland is derived from the old
dialect of which Sanskrit is the "polished" form, it is approximately
true to say that it is derived from that form of speech, and its
native vocabulary (allowing for phonetic development) may be said to
be the same as that of Sanskrit. But the farther we go from the
Midland, the more examples we meet of a new class of words which
natives of India call _desya_ or "country-born." Most of these are
really also _tadbhavas_, descendants of the old Primary Prakrit
dialects spoken outside the Midland, of whose existence native
scholars took no account. Finally, owing to the ever-present influence
of literary Sanskrit, words are, and have been for many generations,
borrowed direct from that language. Some of these borrowed words are
due to the existence of Sanskrit as the language of religion. Their
use is paralleled by the employment of Greek and Latin words for
religious technical terms in all the languages of Europe. Others are
technical terms of arts and sciences, but most of those which we meet
are simply employed for the sake of fine language, much as if some
purist were to insist on employing _hlaford_ instead of "lord" in
writing English. These Sanskrit words are known as _tatsama_ or "the
same as 'that' (sc. Sanskrit)." The number of _tatsamas_ employed
varies much. In languages such as Panjabi which have little or no
literature, and in the speech of the peasantry all over India, they
are few in number. In the modern literary Bengali a false standard of
literary taste has led to their employment in overwhelming numbers,
and the homely vigorous home-speech, which is itself capable of
expressing every idea that the mind of man can conceive, flounders
about awkwardly enough under the weight of its borrowed plumes. The
native vocabulary of the modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars is thus made up
of _tadbhavas_, _desyas_ and _tatsamas_.
The Dravidian languages of southern India have also contributed a
small quota to the Indo-Aryan vocabulary. Most of the words have been
given a colour of contempt in the process of borrowing. Thus the word
_pilla_, a cub, is really the Dravidian _pillai_, a son. But the most
important accretion from outside comes from Persian, and (through
Persian) from Arabic. This is due to Mahommedan influence. In the
Mogul courts Persian was for long the language of politeness and
literature, and words belonging to it filtered into all stages of
society. The proportion of these Persian words varies greatly in the
different languages. In some forms of Western Hindi they have almost
monopolized the vocabulary, while in others, such as Bengali and
Marathi, the number is very few. Instances of borrowing from other
languages are of small importance.
_B. Phonetics._--The alphabet of the Indo-Aryan languages is, on the
whole, the same as that of Sanskrit (q.v.), and the system of
transliteration adopted for that language is also followed for
them.[2] Some new sounds have, however, developed in the Secondary and
Tertiary Prakrits. New signs will be used for them, and will be
explained in the proper places. Sanskrit knew only long _e_ and _o_,
but already in the Secondary Prakrits we find a corresponding short
pair, _e_ and _o_, of which the use is considerably extended in the
tertiary stage. The Sanskrit diphthongs _ai_ and _au_ disappeared in
the secondary stage, _e_ and _o_ being substituted for them
respectively. On the other hand, in the same stage, we frequently come
across pairs of vowels, such as _aï_, _aü_, with a hiatus between the
two members. In the tertiary stage, these pairs have been combined
into new diphthongs _ai_ and _au_, shorter in pronunciation than _ai_
and _au_. The pronunciation of _ai_ and _ai_ may be compared with that
of the English "aye" and "I" respectively. In the languages of the
Outer Band, there is again a tendency to weaken this new _ai_ to _e_,
and the new _au_ to _o_. All the tertiary languages weaken a short
final vowel. In most it is elided altogether in prose, but in some of
those of the Outer Band (Kashmiri, Sindhi and Bihari) it is half
pronounced. Some of the Outer languages have also developed a new
_a_-sound, corresponding to that of _a_ in the German _Mann_. The
stress-accent of classical Sanskrit has as a rule been preserved
throughout. In the tertiary stage it generally resolves itself into
falling on the ante-penultimate, if the penultimate is short. If the
latter is long it takes the accent. In the eastern-languages there is
a tendency to throw the accent even farther back. There is also
everywhere a tendency to lighten the pronunciation of a short vowel
after an accented syllable, so that it is barely audible. Thus,
_cál^ata_ for _cálata_. In some dialects, e.g. the Urdu form of
Western Hindi, this "imperfect" vowel has altogether disappeared, as
in _cálta_.
The tertiary languages have on the whole preserved the consonantal
system of the secondary stage, preferring, however, as a rule, to
simplify double consonants, with compensatory lengthening of the
preceding vowel. Thus, for Sanskrit _hasta_-, a hand, we have
Secondary Prakrit _hattha_-, Tertiary _hath_. Some tertiary languages
have both _hatth_ and _hath_: others (like Gujarati) have only _hath_:
while others (like Panjabi) have only _hatth_. In the extreme
north-west, Sindhi and Lahnda, under the influence of the Pisaca
languages, simplify the double consonant without compensatory
lengthening, so that we have _hath_. Again, many languages of the
Outer Band show a tendency to avoid aspiration, so that Kashmiri,
Marathi, Bengali and others have _hat_. It is well known that the
Iranian languages change _s_ to _h_. The Tertiary Prakrits of the
Outer Band find analogous difficulty in pronouncing a sibilant. The
north-western languages change it to _h_ as in Persian. Marathi
changes _s_ to _s_ before palatal sounds, and the same change occurs
in Bengali in the case of every uncompounded sibilant. Eastern Bengali
and Assamese go farther. Here _s_ is again sounded almost like _h_. On
the other hand, in the Midland, _s_ rarely becomes _h_ and then only
when medial. In the Outer languages the palatal consonants are also
liable to change; _j_ and _jh_ approach the sound of _z_, and _c_ and
_ch_ often become _ts_, or, in the East, a simple _s_. Thus, the
Midland cakar. a servant, is pronounced _tsakar_ in Marathi, and the
Midland _mach_, a fish, is sounded _mas_ in Marathi, Bengali and
Assamese.
_C. Declension._--In the latest stage of the Secondary Prakrits the
neuter gender begins to disappear, and in the tertiary stage, except
in Gujarati and Marathi, it is nearly altogether wanting. Elsewhere we
only come across occasional relics of its employment. In some of the
tertiary languages grammatical gender, as distinct from sexual gender,
has disappeared as entirely as it has in English. The dual number had
already fallen into disuse in the Secondary Prakrits. In the secondary
stage we see a gradual simplification of grammatical form and a
disappearance of case endings. The complicated Sanskrit system is more
and more superseded by the simple uniformity of the declension of
_a_-bases. One by one the case endings were discarded, and cases were
confounded with one another till at length in _Apabhramsa_ only one or
two forms remained for each number. In the tertiary stage there remain
in most languages only two cases, which we may call the nominative and
the oblique. The latter can be employed for any case except the
nominative, but the sense is usually defined by the aid of help-words
called postpositions.[3] It is a linguistic rule that languages in
which the genitive precedes the governing noun prefer suffixes to
prefixes and vice versa;[4] and, as the genius of the Indo-Aryan
languages does require the genitive to be prefixed, these help-words
take the form of suffixes. In the Midland they are still separate
words, but in the Outer Band each has in general become incorporated
with the main word to which it is attached. Thus, the Midland _ghora_,
a horse, has its oblique form _ghore_, genitive _ghore ker_, but
Bengali has oblique form _ghora_, genitive _gkorar_ contracted from
_ghora + (k)ar_. The ground principles of declension in all tertiary
languages are the same, but as each employs different postpositions
the systems of declension vary considerably. Marathi is the only true
Indo-Aryan language which has preserved anything more than sporadic
relics of the old system of case terminations.
_D. Conjugation._--Two tenses, the present and the imperative, of the
old synthetic system of conjugation have survived in all the Tertiary
Prakrits, and in some of them we also find the ancient future. All
other tenses are now made periphrastically, mostly with the aid of
participles to which auxiliary verbs may or may not be added. The
participles employed are all survivals of the old participles of the
present, of the past and (in some languages) of the future. The past
and future participles are passive in their origin, and hence tenses
formed with these participles must be construed passively. Thus,
instead of "I struck him" we must say, either "he was struck by me,"
or else (impersonally) "it was struck by me with reference to him."
So, for an intransitive verb we have, either "I am gone," or "it is
gone by me." In the language of the Midland this is quite simple and
clear, but in those of the Outer Band the subject (in the
instrumental, or as it is usually called "agent" case) is indicated by
means of pronominal suffixes attached to the participle or auxiliary
verb; thus (Bengali) _marila_ + _am_, struck + by-me, becomes
_marilam_, I struck. In such cases all memory of the passive meaning
of the participle is lost by the eastern languages, and it, together
with the appropriate pronominal suffixes, becomes in appearance and in
practical use an ordinary past tense conjugated as in Latin or in
Sanskrit. It is an instance of reversion to the original type; first
synthetic, then analytic, and then again a new synthetic conjugation.
In the other languages of the Outer Band, the memory of the passive
nature of the participle is retained, although the conjugation is as
synthetic as in the East, and the subject has to be put into the
"agent" case.
AUTHORITIES.--No work has yet been published dealing with Indo-Aryan
subjects as a whole, although several have been written which treat of
one or more stages of their development. For the general question of
the Pisaca languages, the reader may consult G. A. Grierson's _The
Pisaca Languages of North-Western India_ (London, 1906). For the
different languages of this group, see G. W. Leitner, _Dardistan_
(Lahore, 1877); J. Biddulph, _Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh_, (Calcutta,
1880); D. J. O'Brien, _Grammar and Vocabulary of the Khowar Dialect_
(Lahore, 1895); J. Davidson, _Notes on the Bashgali (Kafir) Language_
(Calcutta, 1901). For the linguistic conditions of Vedic times, the
Introduction to J. Wackernagel's _Altindische Grammatik_ (Göttingen,
1896) gives much useful information in a convenient form. For the
literature concerning Pali and Prakrit, see under those heads. The
following are the principal works dealing with the general question of
the Tertiary Prakrits: J. Beames, _Comparative Grammar of the Modern
Aryan Languages of India_ (1872-1879); A. F. R. Hoernle, _A Grammar of
the Eastern Hindi compared with the other Gaudian Languages_ (1880);
R. G. Bhandarkar, "The Phonology of the Prakrits of Northern India,"
in the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_ (Bombay Branch), vol.
XVII., ii., 99-182 (see also the same author's series of papers on
cognate subjects in vol. XVI. of the same _Journal_); and G. A.
Grierson's essays "On the Phonology of the Modern Indo-Aryan
Vernaculars" in the _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen
Gesellschaft_, vols. xlix., 1. (1895-1896), 393, 1; "On the Radical
and Participial Tenses of the Modern Indo-Aryan Vernaculars" in the
_Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, vol. lxiv. (1895), part
i., 352; and "On certain Suffixes in the Modern Indo-Aryan
Vernaculars" in the _Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung_
(1903), p. 473. The general subject of this article is discussed at
greater length in chapter vii. of the _Report on the Census of India,
1901_ (Calcutta, 1903). The volumes of the _Linguistic Survey of
India_ also contain much detailed information, summed up at length in
the introductory volume. (G. A. Gr.).