60 Dr Prichard's Anniversary Address 



layan Peninsula, and the stock from which the Malays of the 

 Eastern Archipelago originated. If this observation should be 

 confirmed by future and more ample investigation, it would lead 

 to an important result in ethnology, as it would not only esta- 

 blish a connection between the native tribes of the two Pen- 

 insulas of India, so termed, but would bring nearer to the 

 centres of human migration the stock of that family of people 

 who have spread themselves over the most distant islands of 

 the great Pacific. 



I shall take this opportunity of observing that many late 

 writers appear to be under a mistake, who speak of the abori- 

 ginal tribes of the Dekhan, as belonging to races who ap- 

 proximate in physical characters to the Negroes or to the 

 Papuas. There are great varieties in the stature and bodily 

 constitution of different tribes inhabiting the various climates 

 and localities of that great country. Some are diminutive and 

 of dark complexion. These are principally the natives of low 

 districts near the great rivers. But even these have no re- 

 semblance to the African type ; and the Tudas of the Nil- 

 gherry hills are a remarkably fine and handsome people, as 

 any one may be convinced who looks at the beautiful por- 

 traits of individuals belonging to this race, which are to be 

 seen in the rooms of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great 

 Britain. 



Some difference of opinion has arisen respecting the origin 

 of the languages of Northern Hindustan. They have been 

 long supposed to be dialects of the Sanskrit, nearly in the 

 sense in which French, Italian, and Spanish, are termed 

 dialects of Latin. This was believed at one time to be the 

 case of all the Indian languages ; but since the idioms of the 

 Dekhan have been recognised as belonging to a different 

 family, the modern dialects of proper Hindustan, including 

 the Hindi, the Punjabi, and the Bengali, have still been re- 

 garded as legitimate descendants of the ancient language of 

 the Brahmins. It has been contended, however, by Dr 

 Stevenson, that these northern languages are in their funda- 

 mental structure barbaric or un- Sanskrit (if such a word may 

 be tolerated), and that the Sanskrit portion has been added 

 to them as a foreign element, nearly as it is supposed to have 



