There is often omission to mark the long vowels, many of which, however, are shortened in the pronunciation of the Kandian villagers. As regards spelling, I have noted the following variations of the word gos, having gone:—gosin, gosin̥, gohin, gihin, gihun, gihun̥, guhin, gusin, gehun, gehun̥, ginun̥.
I also here mention the marked avoidance of the use of the personal and possessive pronouns of the third person, and of the guttural n̆, the palatal ñ, and the cerebral ṇ, as well as the employment of the binduwa in the story No. 207, “The Turtle Prince,” for all forms of mute n when followed by any consonant. Its use in this manner in this story, as well as in others sometimes, may indicate the origin of the curled form of the attached semi-consonantal n of all classes, which originally appears to have been a degraded form of the binduwa written hurriedly and united by an upstroke to the next letter. The abandonment of the first two forms of n is, I venture to think, an advantage in every way, since the class of these letters, and especially of the first one, would rarely be mistaken in Sinhalese, whatever form be used, and every step towards simplification of the alphabet under such conditions is an improvement. On the other hand, the class of t or ṭ, d or ḍ, is never mistaken by these villagers, except in the word katantaraya (which is sometimes written kaṭantaraya) and in another word or two; but la usually takes the place of ḷa, and sa of s’a.
In his Sumero-Accadian Grammar, Mr. Bertin has classified the grammatical elements of a sentence under seven headings:—s, the subject; o, the object; i, the indirect object; r, the reason for the action; c, the complement, or manner of the action; d, the determinative of time (dt), place (dp), or state (ds); and v, the verb, with or without pronouns and particles; together with q, any qualificative which explains or specifies these elements, as the words, ‘of honour,’ in the expression, ‘sword of honour.’
With this classification, the ordinary formula of the arrangement of a complete sentence in Sinhalese is, dt—dp—s—r—ds—i—o—c—v. In the stories, however, the order of the components is most irregular, and very rarely quite accords with this, although most of the sentences partly adhere to this sequence. I have not met with all the elements in one sentence, partly because of the constant omission of the pronouns. The accompanying few examples show the want of uniformity in the arrangement; their order follows the position in which s occurs:
- s—dt—ds—v—c. Ibbā hat-awuruddak weli welī hiṭiyā diya nætuwa, the turtle a seven-year having dried and dried up, stayed water without.
- dt—qs—qi—r—o—v. Ewiṭa e nuwara rajjuruwō wena nuwarawalwala rajunḍa kæmaṭa enḍa liyun æriyāya, at that time the city king to other cities’ kings for the eating to come, letters sent.
- dt—s—ds—o—v—i. Ewiṭa berawāyā issara wāgēma salli illuwāya gamarālagen, at that time the tom-tom beater, in the former very manner, money asked-for from the gamarāla.
- dt—r—qs—o—v. Me dawaswaladīma, maha rajagen yuddayakaṭa udaw illā, wena raja kenek liyun ewwēya, during these very days, from the great king for a war assistance having asked, another king letters sent.
- r—dt—s—v. Ē kumārikāwaṭa dæn bohoma dawasaka hiṭa pissurōgayak sǣdilā, for the princess, now many a day since, an insanity having been developed.
- dt—c—i—s—v—o. Etakoṭa hīnen gǣniṭa dēwatāwā kīwā, “Toṭa, etc.,” then, by dream, to the woman the dēwatāwā said, “For thee, etc.”
- dt—qo—i—v—qs. Īṭapassē rajjen palātakuyi ætek-baraṭa wastuwayi dēwinnānseṭa dunnā kumārayāge piya-rajjuruwō, after that, from the kingdom a district and to a tusk-elephant-load wealth, to the queen gave the prince’s father-king.
- i—o—v—s. Ē kumārayanṭa kǣma uyalā-dennē mal-ammā kenek, to the princes food having-cooked-gives a flower-mother.
- i—ds—o—v—s. Ē kumārayāṭa, masuran haddāhak dīlā, kumāriyak genat-dunnā rajjuruwoyi dēwinnānseyi wihin, to the prince, masuran seven thousand having given, a princess having-brought-gave the king and queen (by).
The following transliteration has been adopted in these texts, being the same as in the translations of the stories, with the exceptions æ, ǣ, and ṣa.
| Initials: | අ a, ආ ā, ඉ i, ඊ ī,උ u, ඌ ū, එ e, ඒ ē,ඔ o, ඕ ō, ඖ au, ඇ æ, ඈ ǣ. | ||||
| Gutturals: | ක ka, | ඛ kha, | ග ga, | ඝ gha, | ඞ n̆a. |
| Palatals: | ච ca, | ඡ cha, | ජ ja, | ඣ jha, | ඤ ña. |
| Cerebrals: | ට ṭa, | ඨ ṭha, | ඩ ḍa, | ඪ ḍha, | ණ ṇa. |
| Dentals: | ත ta, | ථ tha, | ද da, | ධ dha, | න na. |
| Labials: | ප pa, | ඵ pha, | බ ba, | භ bha, | ම ma. |
| Semi-vowels: | ය ya, ර ra, ල la, ව wa, ළ ḷa, ං n̥. | ||||
| Sibilants, etc.: | ශ śa, ෂ ṣa, හ sa, හ ha. | ||||
| Semi-consonants thus: | n̆g, n̆ḍ, n̆d, m̆b. | ||||
[1] A form, kawaddā, may indicate the intermediate stage; I think it occurs only once. [↑]