háge lilli alli yelli méle, vodega kria naduve horasu volage dura vottura, sári kuna, konji tumba, appara yója hyinge, yetate hinge báge yétete, hyage yéka há illei bóda illare, illadlóle avana adu yéndu yéna yáru tinane kudidane voragine yleddane naggedane áltáné peculiar sound súmagiru, sappe niru nudi dane, nátádine illi inge ange yenge mele, móke kálake naduve valli ulle dúra kitta konja tumba yettani yepadi ipadi ipadi yepadi yenna aina ille vánda illavitta ava adu yédu yenna áru rombuve éke The difference of the several dialects of the hill tribes consists not exactly in the idiom of the languages, but The Todas also have some slight difference in their pronunciation according to the different districts they Long nirigiti uddame udda udda uddya • The th English is more especially Burmese : the rest is generally true of the northern tongues, which, even when they possess an ABORIGINES OF THE EASTERN GHATS. To the Secretary of the Bengal Asiatic Society. SIR, -Pursuant to my purpose of submitting to the Society, upon a uniform plan and in successive series, samples of all the languages of the non-Arian races of India and of the adjacent countries, I have now the honour to transmit six more vocabularies, for which I am indebted to Mr. H. Newill, of the Madras Civil Service, at present employed in Vizagapatam. These six comprise the Kondh, Savara, Gadaba, Yerukala, and Chentsu tongues. In forwarding them to me, Mr. Newill, a very good Telugu scholar, has noted by an annexed asterical mark such words of these tongues, and particularly of Yerukala, as coincide with Telugu. He has also remarked that many of the Chentsu vocables resemble the U'rdu. Having, as you are aware, a purpose of submitting to the Society an analytical dissection of the whole of the vocabularies collected by me, I shall be sparing of remarks on the present occasion. But I may add to M. Newill's brief notes a few words, as follows: The Chentsu tribe, whose language, as here exhibited, is almost entirely corrupt Hindi and U'rdu, with a few additions from Bengali, affords one more example to the many forthcoming of an uncultivated aboriginal race having abandoned their own tongue. Such relinquishment of the mother-tongue has been so general that throughout Hindustan Proper and the Western Himalaya, as well as throughout the whole of the vast Sub-Himalayan tract denominated the Tarai, not excluding the contiguous valley of Assam, there are but a few exceptions to this the general state of the case; whilst in the Central Himalaya the aboriginal tongues are daily giving way before the Khas language, which, though originally and still traceably Tartaric, has been yet more altered by Arian influences than even the cultivated Dravirian tongues. The very significant cause of this phenomenon it will be our business to explain by and by. In the meanwhile the fact is well deserving of this passing notice, with reference to the erroneous impression abroad as to the relative amounts of Arian and non-Arian elements in the population of India-an impression deepened and propagated by the further fact, still demonstrable among many of these altered aborigines, of the abandonment of their creed and customs, as well as tongue, for those of the Arians. We thence learn the value, in all ethnological researches, of physiological evidence, which, in regard to all these altered tribes, is sufficient to decide their non-Arian lineage, and to link them, past doubt, with the Himálayan and Indo-Chinese conterminous tribes on the east and north. It should be added, however, that, in a sheerly philological point of view, it becomes much more difficult to determine who are the borrowers and who the borrowed from, when both are non-Arians, than when one is Arian and the other non-Arian; and that, for instance, and in reference to the present vocabularies, we can decide at once that the Kondh numerals (save the two first) are borrowed from the Arian vernaculars, whereas it is by no means so certain that the Gadada and Yerukala numerals are borrowed from the Telugu and Karnata respectively, merely because they coincide; and so also of the pronouns where the same coincidence recurs. All such questions, however, are subordinate and secondary; and if we succeed in determining with precision—by physiological, lingual, and other helps—the entire Turánian element of our population, we shall then be able to advance another step and show the respective special affinities of the several cultivated and uncultivated Turánian tribes of India to each other and to certain of the tribes lying beyond India towards Burmah and Tibet, with at least an approximation to the relative antiquity of the successive immigrations into India. A word in defence of these vocabularies, of which the utility has been impugned, and impugned by special comparison with brief grammatical outlines. When I commenced this series of vocabularies I expressed as strongly as any one could do the opinion that their utility must be circumscribed; and that the ethnology of India would only then be done complete justice to when every branch of II VOL IL |
0 Reviews Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified Write review |