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Spontaneous Nasalization in the Indo-Aryan Languages

George A. Grierson

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society / Volume 54 / Issue 03 / July 1922,pp 381 - 388DOI: 10.1017/S0035869X00053570, Published online: 15 March 2011

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0035869X00053570

How to cite this article:George A. Grierson (1922). Spontaneous Nasalization in theIndo-Aryan Languages. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 54,pp 381-388 doi:10.1017/S0035869X00053570

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Spontaneous Nasalization in the Indo-AryanLanguages

By SIR GEORGE A. GRIERSON, K.C.I.E., M.R.A.S.

T)ROFESSOR TURNER, in his valuable articles onGujarat! Phonology, refers to what he terms

" Spontaneous Nasalization ". In regard to GujaratI he says(JRAS., 1921, p. 344) " there seems from the earliest timesto have been a tendency to pronounce vowels with the velumincompletely raised, which results in the vowel becomingnasalized ". Similarly, Professor Bloch (La Formation de laLangue Marathe, § 70) says " Toute voyelle longue tenda developper une resonance nasale ", and he discusses thisquestion at greater length in his article on "La Nasalite enIndo-Aiyan " on pp. 61 ff. of the Cinquantcnaire de VEcolePratique des Hantes Etudes.

Although he does not call attention to the fact, all theGujaratI nasalized vowels of which Professor Turner givesexamples are of secondary origin, and are long.1 Similarnasalization is found in Hindi and in other modern Indo-Aryan languages, except those of the extreme north-west,where the phonetic rules are different.

Both Professor Bloch and Professor Turner look upon thistendency to " spontaneous nasalization " as dating from veryearly times, long before the present stage of development ofthe modern languages had become established ; but, so far asI can gather from the writings already referred to, theyconsider the particular instances of this nasalization to whichthey draw special attention as occurring in the modernlanguages, to be developments which have arisen in latetimes and which have taken their birth in these modernlanguages themselves. I think, however, I can show that

1 The one exception, majdr, is only apparent. Here the a representsa theoretical a, which has been shortened owing to its position beforea long vowel with the stress accent.

382 SPONTANEOUS NASALIZATION IN

the length of the vowel has nothing whatever to do withthe nasalization, and that the instances of nasalization towhich they refer are not peculiarities of the modern languages,but are an inheritance from earlier stages. In order to dothis it is necessary to go a stage further back and to discussthe state of affairs in Prakrit.

Omitting a few less important cases, in literary Prakritthere are two classes of compound consonants, viz.:—

1. Double consonants.2. Compounds in which the first element is anusvara or

a class nasal.1

Excluding the North-West, in the modern languages theTegular developments of these compounds are respectively :—

1. The double consonant is simplified, and the precedingvowel is lengthened in compensation.

2. The anusvara or class nasal becomes anunasika, andthe preceding vowel is lengthened in compensation.

Examples of these are :—1. Sanskrit. Prakrit. Hindi.

cakra- cahka- cdk.suskaka- sukkhaa- sukhd.agre. aggahi. age.vydghra- vaggha- bdgh.•nrtya- iiacca. ndc.svidyati. sijj^ sije.

and so on in thousands of cases.2. kankana- kankana- kdkan.

jaiighd. jaiighd. j&gh.vandhya- vanjha- bajh.kdnla- kanta- k&t.candra- canda- ctid.

and so many others.2

1 Prakrifc grammarians treat these two as interchangeable. SeeMarkandeya, iv, 24, where we have, e.g. both jalarh manthai and jalammarhthai. Cf. Pischel, § 269.

2 In the above I have omitted other changes, such askdgan, for kdkan,or can, for cM. As regards the former, see note 2, p. 385, below.

THE INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES 383

The " spontaneous nasalization " referred to above occursonly in the words falling under class 1. As I have on previousoccasions pointed out,1 this nasalization is much more commonthan we should gather from the study of the literary dialectalone. It is very frequently met with in rural dialects.Examples from the literary dialect are :—

Bg. kakar, H. kankar.G. makhi, H. m&khi.H. pakh, a side; H. pankhd,

a fan.H. dkh.H. mug, M. mug.G. \Zmdg-, H. \/ma.g-, H.

•\fmang-.H. -tied, Bg. unca.H. stic, H. sane.H. chare, Old H. chande.H. riid, or nld.H. sap or s&p.

and so many others. In the above I have not mentioned allthe languages in which each word occurs, contenting myselfwith mentioning one in each case.

It should be noted that in the above there are a number ofpairs, in one of which the " spontaneous nasal " is animasika,with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel, while,in the other, it is a class nasal without such compensatorylengthening. Thus we have :—

kakar and kaiikar.pakh and pankhd.m&g- and inang-.tica and unca.stic and sane.char- with an old form chand-.

karkara-maksikd.paksa-

aksi-mudga-•\/mdrg-

uccaka-satya-chardati.nidrd.sarpa-

kakkara-makkhid.pakkha-

akkhi-mugga-•\/magga-

uccaa-sacca-chaddai.niddd.sappa-

1 See ZDMG., 1, 1896, pp. 21, 22.JRAS. JULY 1922. 25

384 SPONTANEOUS NASALIZATION IN

In the rural dialects many more such pairs can be heard ofwhich no trace will be found in the dictionaries. Such casesare. rather instances of the personal equations of the respectivespeakers than of local dialect. In the same village oneman may say sdc and another may say sane, or the same manmay say one or other as the rhythm or the style of the sentencemay demand. Many such cases will be found in the Index toBihar Peasant Life. Now, it is clear that whatever the longvowel may have to do with the nasalization of sac, it can havenothing to do with the nasalization of sane.

I think we must look upon the nasalization of such as sacas not occurring spontaneously in the modern stage of thelanguage, but as descendants of nasalized Prakrit forms. InPrakrit, the vowel before a compound consonant must beshort, so that we cannot have any form such as sanca-. Theonly possible form with a class nasal would have been sanca-,and from that sdc would be a quite regular derivative, underhead 2 above. If this is true, then in pairs such as sane andsac we must look upon sane as the older form, of which sacrepresents a further—later—stage of development.

May we therefore assume such a Prakrit form as sanca- orsamca- as existing in Prakrit alongside of the sacca- given bythe grammarians % I think that we can.

In Mk. iv, 20 (=- Vr. iv, 15 ; He. i, 26 ; Pischel, § 74) thereare given a number of words parallel to samca-, which doinsert a nasal instead of doubling the consonant as we shouldexpect under the ordinary rules. To quote a few, such are :—

Sanskrit. Prakrit.vahra-. vamka- instead of vakka-.darsana-. damsana- instead of dassana-.grsti-. gamthi- instead of gatthi.fuccha-. pumcha- instead of puccha-.sulka-. sumka- instead of sukka-.

The question is how did such words get into Prakrit ? Theanswer will be found in the Prakrit grammarians' lists of

THE INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES 385

Dhatv-adesas. These are lists, given in the grammars, ofPrakrit roots which may, or should, be substituted for Sanskritroots of similar meanings. As pointed out by ProfessorJacobi,1 a large number (I calculate about 388 out of 930) ofthese are admittedly Desi words, catalogued as saxch in theDesindmamald. We have no grammar of these Desi dialects.All that we have to go by are vocabularies and lists of words,and in these we find quite a number of pairs similar to thosegiven above for the modern languages. Taking verbal rootsalone, such are :—

Sanskrit. Prakrit.sprsati. dlukkhai, dlumlchai, dlumghai.2

Jcanati, kvanati. okkhanai, onganai.taksati. cacchai, camchat.carcayate. cappai, campa'Lyunakti. jujjai, jumjai?trpyati. ihippai, thimpai.taksati. rappai, rarhpa'i.valati. vappat, varhphai.

and so many non-verbal forms which can be collected fromthe Desindmamald. From the above it is evident that Desidialects, or at least some of them, freely substituted ananusvara (or class nasal) plus a consonant for a doubleconsonant prescribed for literary Prakrit by the Indiangrammarians. As certain forms of this literary^Prakrithad no hesitation in borrowing words from the Desi dialects *we are entitled to assume that the so-called irregular wordsvamka- and so forth quoted above are also Desi words

1 Bhavisatta Kaha, p. 63*.2 Cf. Skt. kahlcana-, Hindi kagan, referred to in note 2, p. 382, and

similar instances in the modern languages of softening after a nasal.3 Here it is the form with the nasal which is original, and jujjai

which is the by-form. Similarly we have maggai < mangati. Fromthis we learn that De6i dialects looked upon mj and jj as interchangeable.

4 Jacobi, op. cit., p. 63*.

386 SPONTANEOUS NASALIZATION IN.,

which in the literary language have ousted the regularliterary forms from use.

That this assumption is not extravagant is shown by aconsideration of a work entitled the Mahdrtha-manjan ofMahesvarananda, of which a manuscript has been in mypossession for some years.1 This consists of a series ofGatha verses written in the old Apabhramsa (or DesI) dialectonce spoken in Kashmir and is provided with a Chaya anda commentary. The language of the verses contains numerousexamples of the representation of standard Prakrit doubleconsonants by anusvara plus a single consonant. The metreshows that it is anusvara, not anunasika, that is intended,and there is no lengthening of the preceding vowel. Sofrequent are these spellings that when the MS. first came intomy possession, I was tempted to assume that they were simplya scribe's graphic device for indicating a double letter in theSarada, alphabet. I made inquiries on the point from Kashmirand was assured by the most competent authorities that nosuch graphic device had ever existed. We may thereforetake it that the spelling shows the actual word intended bythe author. I here give a hurriedly made up list of suchwords occurring in the first twenty verses of the work,indicating in each case the number of the verse in which itis to be found :—

Mahartha-Manjari with Corresponding Corresponding

verse number.

aarhnona- (? readamnomna-), 12.

ampa-, 6.urhbhdvariittim, 17.kamtaro, 11.jamtha, 7.

form in LiteraryPrakrit.

anrbonna-.

appa-.ubbhaverhfi.kattdro.jattha.

Sanskrit form

anyonya-.

dtrna-.udbhdvayanti.kartd.yatra.

1 An edition, taken from the same unique MS. as that from whichmine was copied, has lately been published as No. XI of The KashmirSeries of Texts and Studies.

THE INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES 387

Mahartha-Manjari withverse number.

jamsam, i.nimca-, 1, 18.nimcalarhjou, 2.namthi, 7.nimthusdm, 16.tamiha, 7.paccamJcharh, 5.pamjdloana-, 8.puriino, 18.bimbama-, 6.mdhampam, 5.vamiha-, 8.viamva-, 17.samvamnu, 18.sahdvamsa, 8.simpdi, 17.

Correspondingform in Literary

Prakrit.

niccalojjoo.natthi.nittusd.tattha.paccakicham.pajjdloana-.

punno.vibbhama-.mahap'pam.vatthu-.viappa-.savvanno.sahdvassa.sippdim.

CorrespondingSanskrit form.

yasya.nitya-.niicaloddyotah.ndsti.nislusd.tatra.pratyalcsam.parydlocana-.

purnah.vibhrama-.mdhdtmyam.vastu-.vikalpa-.sarvajnah.svabhdvasya.silpani.

But such nasalizations are older even than the above.As Professor Bloch himself points out,1 instances are foundin the Asoka inscriptions, where we have amna- (anya-),amnatra (anyatra), pumnarii (punyam), liiram/riAi- (hiranya-),tambaparhni (tdmraparni), and so on. What the origin of thisnasalization may be, I leave to phoneticians to decide, butI think that I have shown that this " spontaneous nasaliza-tion " spoken of by Professor Bloch and Professor Turner hasnot arisen spontaneously in the modern vernaculars in theirpresent stage of development, but is an inheritance from theoldest times, and that we have documentary evidence of itsexistence from the days of the Asoka inscriptions through allthe stages of Prakrit down to the present date. Moreover,it has nothing to do with the quantity of the vowel nasalized.I t is true that in the modern languages the nasalizationgenerally occurs with long vowels, but this is merely

1 La Nasaliti eyi Indo-Aryan, p. 67.

'388 NASALIZATION IN THE 1ND0-ARYAN LANGUAGES

a coincidence of two different lines of development. Neitherhas any causal connexion with the other. In the earlierstages of the Indian languages, these nasalizations never, andcould never, occur with a long vowel, a state of affairs exactlythe contrary to that which we now find existing. But thenasalization is there all the same, and is associated not withany vowel-change or vowel-quantity, but with the simplifica-tion of Sanskrit conjunct consonants.