58 Dr Prichard's Anniversary Address 



may be judged by only recollecting that the late Mr H. T. 

 Colebrooke, one of the most distinguished scholars whose 

 names are known in connection with Indian literature, ap- 

 pears really to have supposed all the languages of India to 

 have been derived from the Sanskrit, and to be nothing else 

 than degraded or much corrupted Prakrits, or popular dialects 

 of that ancient speech. It was first shewn by Mr Ellis, in 

 his preface to Campbell's Grammar of the Telugii, that this 

 opinion was very erroneous, and that the principal languages 

 of the Dekhan, the Tamul, the Telugu, the Malayalam or 

 Malabar, and the Tulava, as well as the Karnataka, the idiom 

 of the central table-land of the Peninsula, are all dialects of 

 one primitive speech, which is quite distinct from the San- 

 skrit. All these idioms are languages of the civilised na- 

 tions. The memoirs of General Briggs and other recent 

 philologists, comprise further researches into the history and 

 languages of the rude hill-tribes, such as the Bhils, the Tudas, 

 and the Curumbars of the Nilgherry hills, and other races 

 inhabiting remote and secluded tracts ; and the general opin- 

 ion seems to be, that all such races are akin to the Tamulian 

 or aboriginal Deckhany stock. The notion, which formerly 

 prevailed in India, respecting the Bhils and the other hill- 

 tribes, was different from this, and may still be true to a certain 

 extent. The Bhils were supposed to be the descendants of 

 outcasts and runaways, or persons who had at different times 

 made their escape to the mountains, in order to elude the 

 penalty of crimes, or avoid persecution or tyranny in the 

 low countries. In such a country as Hindustan, divided in- 

 to numberless petty sovereignties, each under the sway of 

 its tyrannical despot, and where the institutions of society 

 are otherwise most oppressive, there must be a great number 

 of persons continually driven to seek refuge beyond the reach 

 of the reigning tyrant. In most half-civilised countries 

 something of this kind is observable. I have been assured by 

 Dr Andrew Smith, one of the best-informed and most en- 

 lightened travellers who have lived among the people of 

 South Africa, that in that country every tribe of the native 

 races, who have submitted to social regulations, however im- 

 perfect, and have acquired some wealth by the cultivation of 



