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PREFACE
The present Introduction is mainly intended for High School and College students and presupposes no knowledge either of Ardha-Magadhi or of Sanskrit. A general acquaintance with the latter will, however, help the students greatly in mastering the language much more rapidly and thoroughly. This book, particularly in its first and third parts, will be found useful also to advanced students of this language.
The book is divided into three parts, each of which is further divided into chapters or lessons. The first part dealing with the Phonology of the language, is so arranged as to group together the different changes under linguistic categories and yet keep them as simple as possible. The rules of general application are clearly separated from those of limited extent. The major portion of this part printed in big type is intended for the elementary students and is written in the simplest language with ample illustrations and exercises, which are, however, only illustrative and can be easily supplemented with words from the rules. All matter printed in small type in this part is meant for the teacher and students of linguistics who may look for some amount of scientific explanation of the facts given and which will help them in collecting new facts of similar nature. Linguistic terminology is used in this part to save the students from confusion arising out of apparently contradictory statements; and transliteration is used throughout. If necessary the first and the fifth chapters may be entirely
