PREFACE xxv
comparative philology are the arguments recently adduced by Professor Max Walleser 1 to refute the at present accepted theory regarding the merger in Sanskrit of the three vowels a e o into a, and to show that Sanskrit preserved as late as the seventh century A. D. the labio-velar consonants. One point is of special interest, as it confirms a view in which I differ from Professor Liebich, 2 the question of the priority of the Taittiriya Pratifakhya to Panini ; it is made most probable that the distinction between a and a as connected with the openness of the former and the closed character of the latter vowel was not noted by the Rk or Taittiriya Pratifdkhyas but by the Atharva Pratifakhya, the Vajasaneyi Pratifakhya, and Panini. Liebich's argument against the priority of the Taittiriya Pratifakhya to Panini rests merely on the identity of certain Sutras in both texts and the use of pragraha for pragrhya. The latter appears to give no possible indication of relative position in time ; it may be a local variant, which accords with other evidence as to the provenance of the text ; the former fact is most naturally explained by the certainty that Panini's work embodies much earlier material, which was made use of also by the Praticakhya, unless Panini simply is the debtor to the Praticakhya.
In an exhaustive analysis of Yaska's etymologies 3 Dr. Hannes Skold has suggested that certain of the suggested derivations are only explicable on the ground that Yaska was familiar with and used a Middle Indian (Prakrit) speech. Beside this suggestion may be placed the opinion recently expressed by Professor H. Liiders, 4 that the language of Acoka's Chancery was ' eine Art Hochsprache ', while the actually spoken speech was much further advanced and probably had reached the stage represented in the literary Prakrits, though it is candidly admitted that the latter point cannot be said yet to have been established. Nor, it may be added, are Skold's proofs regarding Yaska free from much doubt. But the more important issue is whether the matter is really to be viewed in the light suggested, of a contrast between actually spoken language and a Hochsprache. It is rather, it appears to me, a matter of class speeches ; Yaska spoke Sanskrit
1 ZII. v. 193-202 ; Zur Aussprache des Sanskrit und Tibetischen (1926).
2 Zur Einfuhrung in die indische einheimische Sprachwissenscha.fi, ii. 47. " The Nirukta, pp. 128 ff. * ZII, v. 259. '
