পৃষ্ঠা:অসমীয়া ব্যাকৰণ আৰু ভাষাতত্ত্ব.djvu/২২

অসমীয়া ব্যাকৰণ আৰু ভাষাতত্ত্ব that from there a body of Aryan settlers marched towards Greece, Italy, Germany and other European countries and became the parent stock of the Greek, Italian, Teutonic, Celtic and Salvonic races, while a consi- derable body moved towards the East and South and settled in Persia, Afghanistan and India. This body separated into two main streams, the immigrants entering Persa became the ancestors of Zoroastrians and those coming into Afghanistan and India f the Hindus. In the course of time they forgot their neighbours and became quite distinct peoples. Even the settlers entering India in different times became strangers to each other. “The literary records of the latest times of this invasion show us one Indo-Aryan tribe complaining of the unintelliable speech of another and even denying to it the right of common Aryan-hood". The accepted theory is that horders of Aryan settlers came over the north- western mountain passes into Inda and drove back the earlief inhabitants, the Kolarians and Dravidians, from their homes and introduced their language in the land they occupied. | “The language of all the earliest records of India, whether literary or inscriptional, is Indo-European in character. That is to say, it is related to Greek and Latin and to our English tongue and not to the earlier forms of speech which it supplanted in India. The Aryan tribes who continued, perhaps for generations or even for centuries, to swarm over the mountain passes into Southern Afghanistan and the Punjab, or through the plains of Beluchistan into Sindh and the Valley of the Indus, must, no doubt; have spoken a variety of kindred dialects. The history of languages everywhere shows that this is invariably the case among primitive peoples. It shows, too, that, in the course of time, when a community becomes settled and civilization advances, the dialect of some particular district, which has won special importance as a centre of reli- gion, politics, or commerce, gradually acquires an ascendancy over the others and is eventually accepted by general consent as the standard language of educated people and of literature; and that when its position is thus established, its use tends to supersede that of the other dialects.... | “In India, such a standard or literary language appears first in the hymns of the Rig-Veda, the most ancient of which probably date from a period at least 1200 years before the Christian era. This Vedic” Sanskrit is the language of priestly poets who lived in the region now known as Southern Afghanistan, the North-Western Frontier Province, and the Punjab; and it difiers from the later Classical” Sanskrit rather more, perhaps, than the language of Chaucer from that of Shakespeare". | The language of the earliest inscriptions of Assam so far discovered is Sanskrit with a sprinkling of ast here and there It does not supply 1Dr. Grierson in Encyclopaedia Britanica” Vol. xiv, p. 487. Ancient India,by Rapson, PP. 9 & 10.