INTRODUCTION II Assamese words, Meaning Derivation, Lecha or Necha =a skcin of thread. Suhuri =whistling. Sar =a hart. Gklachne (=woot) from lakyn (root ruk or lak=to plat, to spin) : | lchcsis (=spinning). L.-lana (=wool). L-Su-Sur-us (=a whispering or whistling). V.--Sarabha (=a kind of deer : | Ath. IX. 5.9) from S.-Siras (head and Sragg (=horn). L. Cervas (=a horned animal, hart). Gk.Kerdos (=horned) from Koros | (=a horn). A.S.--heora. Eng.hrt. hd fied srnganas. has Some of these words came probably through Pali and Prakrt if not through Sanskrit. | I am quite aware that many of the resemblances I have pointed out in the above list will turn out to be accidental. The resemblances are likely to diminish or disappear in the light of further research. At the same time I am pursuaded that all the resemblances, I have noticed, will not be found to be the result of accident. The fact is that coincidences exist : and whatever may be their nature or value they will at least draw the attention of scholars to this subject and serve as an aid to further, more extended, and more searching inquiry. From this point of view I do not consider this unscientific, although, 1 admit, resemblance of words is of much less philological value than gammatical forms for the deter. mination of lingual affinities. | in) GRAMMAR Pronunciation :-Turning now to grammar we find that Assamese pronunciation is, in several particulars, peculiar and unlike that found in the modern vernaculars of Eastern India. | (a) The corebrals:-Assamese has really no cerebral. The Sanskrit cerebrals are pronounced in Assamese half cerebral and half dental, rather more dental than cerebral. “The cerebrals are entirely secondary, being a specially Indian product and unknown in the Indo-European period, They are probably due to aboriginal, especially Davidian influence". Some scholars including D. Hernle and Beames (I. 232-234) are, however, of opinion that cerebrals of some kind belong to the original stock of the Aryan phonetic system. It is a well-known fact that the (so-called) dentals of all the Aryan languages of Europe; especially of England, when referred to the standard of the Indo-Aryan (true) dentals are not real 1 Macdonell-vedic Grammar, 3 8.
