Aboriginal Tribes of India. 341 



not you ; 4. Different words are used as adjectives in their 

 application to animate and inanimate objects ; 5. The passive 

 voice of verbs is formed by auxiliaries, such as to suffer, to 

 fall, to get, to take, to eat ; 6. In the languages of India each 

 sentence is divided into two parts, viz., the subject and the 

 verb ; the latter is invariably placed at the end of the sen- 

 tence. In the same way, remarks Dr Host, the affirmative 

 branch of a sentence is preceded by the negative ; the effect 

 by the cause ; the inference by the reason, and the conse- 

 quence by the condition, — all of which indicates a radical 

 form and construction essentially different from the Sanscrit. 



Dr Stevenson winds up his dissertation on this subject, by 

 arriving at the same conclusion, viz., " That Bramanical in- 

 fluence has modified grammatical structure, and introduced 

 into the northern group of Indian languages some affixes for 

 those in former use, especially in the inflexion of nouns, need 

 not be denied, but the general structure of all of them has 

 remained unaffected. There is as little analogy in the con- 

 struction of a Hindu or Mharatti sentence to the syntax of 

 the Sanscrit, as there is in that of an English or French 

 sentence to that of the Latin." 



The next question, then, is to consider to what great class 

 these Indian languages belong. We are naturally disposed to 

 place them in the position indicated by the physiology of the 

 people, and in support of this conclusion we have the follow- 

 ing testimony. The peculiarity of the plural, which has 

 been pointed out, belongs to the Manchou and Mongolian 

 tongues, and also to the Malayan, an offset of the same fa- 

 mily. " The peculiarity of structure of the Indian languages 

 belongs equally," says Dr Rost, " to those of Northern Asia. 

 Of this the position of the pronoun affords proof; also the 

 same use of an affix, to supply the places of the inflexions in 

 the Sanscrit and its derivatives the Greek and Latin. The 

 Mongolians and the Indians use special personal pronouns 

 to denote respect ; they also use a distinct relative participle 

 in lieu of a relative pronoun. 



" In short,*' observes Dr Host, " the same rigorous struc- 

 ture of sentences pervades the whole class of Indian lan- 

 guages and those of Upper Asia, and which cannot be better 



VOL. LI. NO. CII. — OCTOBER 1851. Z 



