296 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



agglutination, which by this means binds together the idea and 

 its relations in their outward expression, just as they are already 

 inseparately associated in the mind of the speaker. Hence it is 

 that such assonance is not confined to the Ural-Altaic group, 

 analogous processes occurring at certain stages of their growth in 

 all forms of speech, as in Wolof, Zulu-Xosa, Keltic (expressed by 

 the formula of Irish grammarians : " broad to broad, slender to 

 slender "), and even in Latin, as in such vocalic concordance as : 

 annus, perennis ; ars, iners ; lego, diligo. In these examples the 

 root vowel is influenced by that of the prefix, while in the 

 Mongolo-Turki family the root vowel, coming first, is unchange- 

 able, but, as explained, influences the vowels of the postfixes, the 

 phonetic principle being the same in both systems. 



Both Mongol and Manchu are cultivated languages, employ- 



Mon oi and * n & mo< ^ me< ^ forms of the Uiguric (Turki) script, 



Manchu which is based on the Syriac introduced by the 



Christian (Nestorian) missionaries in the yth cen- 

 tury. It was first adopted by the Mongols about 1280, and 

 perfected by the scribe Tsorji Osir under Jenezek Khan (1307- 

 1311). The letters, connected together by continuous strokes, 

 and slightly modified, as in Syriac, according to their position at 

 the beginning, middle, or end of the word, are disposed in ver- 

 tical columns from left to right, an arrangement due no doubt to 

 Chinese influence. This is the more probable since the Manchus, 

 before the introduction of the Mongol system in the i6th century, 

 employed the Chinese characters ever since the time of the Kin 

 dynasty. 



None of the other Tungusic or north-east Siberian peoples 



possess any writing system except the Yukaghirs of 



*T*I 



Yukaghirs tne Yasachnaya affluent of the Kolyma river, who 

 were visited in 1892 by the Russian traveller, 

 S. Shargorodsky. From his report 1 , it appears that this symbolic 

 writing is carved with a sharp knife out of soft fresh birch-bark, 

 these simple materials sufficing to describe the tracks followed on 

 hunting and fishing expeditions, as well as the sentiments of the 

 young women in their correspondence with their sweethearts. 



1 Explained and illustrated by General Krahmer in Globits, 1896, p. 208 sq. 



