more than from fifty to sixty families. I have not yet been able to obtain satisfactory vocabularies of the languages of these last-named three tribes, but they will be procured on the first opportunity. I regret that there are so few words of the Mrú and Sak languages given, but as some time might probably elapse before more could be procured, I considered it best to forward them in their present state. MEMO. Scheme of vowels, &c., &c., a to be sounded as a in America. I have endeavoured to express the sounds of the Khyeng and Kamí languages as near as I can, but there are a few which I could not exactly convey through any combination of European letters. N.B. In the next or Tenasserim series of words the system of spelling followed is the common English. I have not deemed it prudent to alter it. These words were taken down by Dr. Morton, not Captain Phayre, as above inadvertently stated. Valuable as they are, they lack the extreme accuracy of Captain Phayre's series, and hence I have not extended my comparisons over them. as the word mi for man. The Kamis themselves understand the word in the latter sense—a very significant circumstance quoad affinities. Ka prefix is interchangeable with Ta (Ka-va or Ta-va, a bird in Kami, and so in most of these tongues), and Ta varies its vowel like Ka; and thus, in Gyarúng, Tir-mi, a man, answers to Kimi, a man. Ex his disce alia. |