University of Calcutta. Journal of the Department of Letters

Very few would be moved by the study of the Old Tamil Sangam literature or of the Old Kannada and Telugu inscriptions as documents for the reconstruction of Primitive Dravidian : but many would be attracted by the rich store-house of romance and culture presented by the originality and variety of Old Tamil literature or by the feast of faith laid out in the poems of Manikkavagakar in the Deväram [...] THE STUDY OF NEW INDO-ARYAN 7 The internal strength of the Aryan speech the prestige of Sanskrit as representing the oldest phase of Indo-Aryan hitorical links with the West in ancient and medieval times and the influence of Persian have all contributed to guard the native or original character of Indo-Aryan ; while the action of English at the present day is once again contributing to reno [...] The complexity of human speech sounds and the various modifications of it as the result of development or of the influence of substrata (not contemplated by the alphabets and consequently so easy to be ignored) —these are now being realised through the establishment of Scientific Phonetics as the cornestone of the structure of linguistic investigation. [...] The resuscitation of the original personalities behind the name Chatuiideisa and the untangling of the knot of their text is one of the problems of paramount importance in Bengali phlology and belles-lettres and is also of significance for New IndAryan studies in general. [...] The ' yeas ' become nays.' The struggle of these two is reflected in the antithesis but in the process of the struggle which Hegel called the dialectic a third element is formed from the interpenetration of the opposites resulting in a synthesis which is more than a reversion to the old.