SINHALESE TEXTS OF STORIES
The texts of a few of the stories in the second and third volumes are appended at the suggestion of Professor Dr. Geiger of Erlangen, who has expressed the opinion that they will be of interest to philological students, retaining as they do some old grammatical forms and expressions which elsewhere have been abandoned. They are fair examples of the Sinhalese tongue which is found in the villages, and the dialogues in particular give the language exactly as it is spoken in them. I regret that the size to which the work has grown compels me to restrict the number of stories thus given in Sinhalese.
In order that the texts should possess a representative character, stories by different narrators have been selected. The village orthography has been carefully adhered to except in instances where a consonant has been accidentally omitted, or has been duplicated in carrying forward part of a word to the next line. Where a missing letter has been thus inserted by me it is enclosed in square brackets.
The stories were written in pencil, always in unbroken lines, without separation into words and sentences, and without punctuation except an occasional full-stop. For convenience of reference, however, I have marked the dialogues and sentences as in the translations.
My acquaintance with Pāli and Eḷu is too slight to enable me to make special observations on the grammatical forms met with in the stories generally. I therefore merely note a few peculiarities, most of which I think are not included in Mr. Guṇasēkara’s Grammar.
In the nouns and pronouns a genitive form in ǣ or lǣ is often employed in both the singular and plural numbers. Thus, among numerous other instances, in the singular we have:—Diribari-Lakālǣ gedara, the house of Diribari-Lakā (i, 177, line 14); nændāmāmalǣ gedara giyāya, [they] went to the house of [his] mother-in-law and father-in-law (ii, 404, line 14); unnæhælǣ akkalǣ gedara siṭinawā mama dækkā misa, tamuselǣ dihāṭa nam giyē nǣ, except that I saw [he] is at the gentleman’s elder sister’s house, [he] did not go to your quarter, indeed (ii, 214, variant); mī pæṭikkilǣ gamaṭa gihin, having gone to the f. mouseling’s village (i, 310, line 2); rāssayǣ gedara, the rākshasa’s house (iii, 122, note); um̆balǣ gamaṭa, to your village; um̆mbalǣ gedara, your house; um̆balǣ piya-rajjuruwō, your father the king; as well as the titles of Nos. 127 and 216. In the plural:—Mewwǣ ingan kiyāpan, tell [us] the limits of these (ii, 241, line 5); um̆balǣ piya-rajjuruwanḍa enḍa bǣ, um̆balǣ piya-rajjuruwō, etc., your father the king cannot come, your father the king, etc. (i, 267, line 30); ayiyalǣ gǣnu, the elder brothers’ wives; mama dannē nǣ ēwǣ wagak, I don’t know anything of those [matters]; um̆balǣ mas, your flesh. (See also No. 207 below.)
Hoṭǣ (vol. ii, 214, line 24) is perhaps a special plural form. I was informed that the word garā, a kind of demon, has two plurals, garayō and gærǣ; I do not remember other instances.
As a termination, ǣ usually takes the place of a in such words as kawaddǣ,[1] kawdǣ, kīyaṭadǣ, kohedǣ, kohomadǣ, mokaddǣ, mokak welādǣ, mokaṭadǣ, monawadǣ; we have also such forms as, āwæn passē, bǣn̆dæn passē, damamuyæyi, giyæn pasu, issaræhæṭa, kapannēyæyi, nikæ hiṭapan, palāpannæyi, weyæyi, wunæyin pasu.
There are numerous instances in which a noun or pronoun as the subject takes an instrumental position, always governed by wisin or wihin, by; this is a common feature in Hindūstānī and Gujarātī also. In translating such sentences I have occasionally made use of the passive verb when it appeared to suit the context—(as in the last paragraph of No. 98)—in order to retain the preposition. I may here mention that the passive form with laba is practically never used by the villager; there are not half a dozen sentences in which it occurs in the stories. The following are a few examples of the subject in the instrumental position—or, rather, governed by wisin or wihin:—