184 MAN: PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



On the other hand it is a mistake to suppose that all languages 

 in the Indo-Chinese linguistic zone have undergone 



gSst^Types. tms enormous extent of phonetic decay. The in- 

 defatigable B. H. Hodgson has made us acquainted 



with several, especially in Nepal 1 , which are of a highly conserva- 

 tive character. Farther east the Lepcha (properly 



Lepcha. 



Rong) of Sikkim presents the remarkable peculiarity 

 of distinct agglutination of the Mongolo-Tiirki, or perhaps I should 

 say of the Kuki-Lushai type, combined with numerous homo- 

 phones and a total absence of tone. Thus pano-sa, of a king, 

 pa7io-sang, kings, and pano-sang-sa, of kings, shows pure agglutina- 

 tion, while mat yields no less than twenty-three distinct meanings", 

 which should necessitate a series of discriminating tones, as in 

 Chinese or Siamese. Their absence, however, is readily explained 

 by the persistence of the agglutinative principle, which renders 

 them unnecessary. 



A somewhat similar feature is presented by the Angami Naga, 



the chief language of the Naga Hills, of which 

 Naga S si~ech. Mr R - R McCabe writes that it is " still in a very 



primitive stage of the agglutinating class," and 

 "peculiarly rich in intonation," although "for one Naga who 

 clearly marks these tonal distinctions twenty fail to do so 3 ." It 

 follows that it is mainly spoken without tones, and although said 

 to be "distinctly monosyllabic 4 " it really abounds in polysyllables, 

 such as merenama, orphan, kehutsaporimo, nowhere, dukriwdch'e, 



1 Ethnology, p. 325. 



' 2 Col. G. B. Main waring, A Grammar of the Rong (Lepcha) Language, &c., 

 Calcutta, 1876, pp. 128, 9. 



3 Outline Grammar of the Angami- Naga Language, Calcutta, 1887, pp. 4, ;. 

 It may be mentioned that Khassi also, which may be regarded as a stock 

 language with no clear affinities, structural or lexical, to any of the surrounding 

 Assamese tongues, is an isolating form of speech with prefixed formative ele- 

 ments and aspirates, but no tones. " The percentage of words common to the 

 Khassi and the rest of these mountain dialects is extremely small," while 

 "equally great is the dissimilarity in many other points of grammatical detail," 

 says Mr H. Roberts, author of a good Grammar of the Khassi Language, Kegan 

 Paul Series, 1893. On the astonishing number of distinct languages in the 

 whole of this region see Gertrude M. Godden's paper " On the Naga and other 

 Frontier Tribes of North-East India," in Jonrn. Anthrop.,L>ist. 1897, pp. 165, 6. 



4 Ibid. p. 4 . 



