পৃষ্ঠা:অসমীয়া ব্যাকৰণ আৰু ভাষাতত্ত্ব.djvu/২৩

Now sufficient data for philological consideration of our language. But we have got the remarks of a celebrated traveller of later times indicating is general nature. Huen Tsang (629 A.b.) who visited the country of Kamarupa wrote',-“Their language differs a little from that of Mid- India, What this keen observe meant by this will probably be from the following onsiderations : | The philologists have divided the Indo-Aryan languages of India into three goups-(1) Midland, (2) Intermediate and (3) Outer, accor- ding to their special linguistic characteristics. (1) The Midland group com- prises Western Hindi of the Gangetic Doab and the eastern part of the Punjab, It was in this country that the hymns of the Rig-Veda were composed. (2) Round this country there is a band of territory where mixed languages, the Intermediate group, prevail. This includes Gujrati, Marwari, Central Punjabi, Nepali and Eastern Hindi of Oudh and the country to its south. (3) Round the Intermediate group is the belt of outer languages. These include on the north Kasmiri, Western Punjabi and Sindhi, on the south Marathi and on the east Bihari, Oriya, Bengali and Assamese. | "An attempt has been made to solve this problem by distinguishing two main periods of Aryan immigrations. According to the ingenious | hypothesis of Dr. Hoenle, which has also obtained the support of Dr. Grierson and Sir Herbert Risley, the linguistic and anthropological experts of the Census of 1901, the earliest wave of immigrants came from the West, and spread ihenselves over the greater part of western and northern India before the arrival of the second wave. The later settlers probably came across the northern frontier, and, entering the Punjab like a wedge, thrust the early comers outwards in three directions. The languages of the Outer band represent the speech of the earlier immigrants, and the language of the Midland the speech of the later immigrants. As time went on, the people inhabiting the middle band, through the expansive power of superior culture and more vigorous and larger forces, overcame or drove back on all sides representatives of the earlier immination. Thus we find in the territories of considerable area intermediate or mixed forms of speech formed by a fusion of the two varieties of Aryan speech. | 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 traws of the original Outer language become more and more prominent. In the same way the languages of the Outer band were forced further and further afield. There was no room for expansion to the west, but to the south it flowed over the Maratta country and to the east into Orissa, into Bengal, and last of all, into Assam. 1 Beal's Siyuki-Vol. I, p. 196. Dr. Grierson in Encyclopedia "Soul of India" by G. Howells, p. 20. Britanica, Vol. xiv, P. 488. See also--