[ iii ]
labials, and certain combinations of these—beginning from the throat and proceeding outwards As to why we have here two septenaries of vowels and five septenaries of consonants is a question which could possibly be answered by one who had sufficient knowledge of world-evolution to be able to say why the present human race has two hands and two feet and five senses of knowledge and five organs of action, and five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot, &c. The question can only tantalise us. But we can vaguely see that if these sounds of the Samskrit alphabet were multiplied systematically and permuted and combined, we should obtain a scheme which would cover all the languages of the earth, and bring into line all the very various-seeming sounds which constitute the several alphabets of these. F. i., taking the linguce-radicals, क, ख, ग, घ ङ, we find that ख, is the aspirate of क, that the guttural of this ख, wiz, ख़, kh, has been appropriated by the Persian race and language and has disappeared from Samskrit; that ग, is only a deepening of क; and that घ is the aspirate of ग; that the guttural of क i. e., q, and of ग, i. e., gh, again, have disappe- ared from Samskrit and been appropriated by the Arabic race and language; that ङ , is the nasal ofग, as now pronounced, and that the nasals of the other letters, क, ख, घ, &c., &c., are not present in Samskrit, but may possibly be present in some of the so-called savage languages, as < snorts ' and ' grunts ’ of various kinds.
This process of elimination, of the disappearance of sounds and letters, may be witnessed as being in progress even today. In Samskrit the vowels ऋ. ऋ. लृ, लृृ, have practically disappeared from use ; their onter written form is preserved, but for all practical purposes of pronunciation they have merged into र and ल.
