VIII up to the sixteenth century was same as that Assam. But owing to the arrival of numbers of people from Behar, specially due to the oppression of Moha, medan rulers in that country and owing to the revival of Sanskritic learning and Mohamedan rule, the language which formerly looked up to Assam for its standard being based on the Kamrupi Prakrt, gradually turned its face westward . So that, when in the beginning of the seventeenth century the centre of Assamese culture and power shifted to the extreme cast, the severance bec complete. Bengal cut off her allegiance to Assamese and adopted the language that was forging ahead in West Central Bengal. It was a new language different from the language of old Bengal in the follo. wing points ( a ) ; ( 1 ) Giving too much prominence to the palatals and cerebrals, ( 2 ) Preference of the palatal “শ” over the lingual and dental sibilant. ( 3 ) Transference of the stress aerent from the penultimate ( which is generally the second ) to the first syllable. ( 4 ) Importation of new grammatical forms from Behar and Orissa, which displaced the Assamese forms. ( 0 ) Substitution of Sanskrit and Persian words for Assamese words. ( 6 ) Introduction of a final “এ" in almost all the case affixes and in other grammatical formations. These have been delt upon at some length in this book,
