MARATHI LANGUAGE AND LITER ATURE. Marathi is one of the principal ver naculars spoken in India. It bears a close af finity to Sindhi and Gujerati and is spoken by about 20,000,000 people. There are several dia lects of it, named, respectively, Konkani and Dakhani. The latter is the standard dialect and circulates in the Deccan, the former in the coast region of the Mahrattas and shows a large admixture of Dravidian, while in the district around Goa (a Portuguese possession) it also contains many Portuguese expressions and phrases. Besides, Marathi as a whole has a rather strong infusion of both Arabic and Per sian words. All the same, modern Marathi has departed less from the original Sanskrit than most other Prakrits, being a' direct descendant from the Maharastri of the Middle Ages. A stock of its vocables are taken from Sanskrit itself, the so-called tatsamas. There are three genders in Marathi, the only one of the Pra krits that has retained this feature of Sanskrit. Konkani literature was destroyed by the Por tuguese inquisition.
Marathi literature is abundant. It took its inception with Namdev in the 13th century, who wrote descriptive and didactic poems of a re ligious cast. Tukaram, the most famous of
Marathi writers (A.D. 1609), published writings showing Vishnuic convictions. Mayur Pandit in the 18th century also wrote many poems, epic, lyrical and descriptive. Marathi lends itself most readily to rhyme, and there are current among the Marathi people many rhymed prov erbs, both pithy and fanciful. In prose not much of consequence has been produced, but of late, under English influences, much prose has been written by the Marathi in English, as well as in their own vernacular, but all of it is rather commonplace. The Marathis employ the De \ nnagari alphabet, the same as in Sanskrit.
Bibliography.— Godbole, W., (Selections from 1110 Poets' (Bombay. 5th ed., 1864) ; Joshi, B. Singh., 'Comprehensive Mara thi Grammar' (Poona 1900) : Maffei, A. F. Z., (Mangalore 1882); Manwaring, F., 'Marathi Proverbs Collected and Transcribed' (Oxford 1899) ; Mitchell, I. Murray, 'Chief Marathi Poets' (London 1892); Molesworth, J. T., and Candy, (Marathi and English Dic tionary' (2d ed., Bombay 1857) ; Ranade, M. G., of the Mahratta Power' (Bombay 1900).