484 Transactions. — Miscellaneous, 



mat, Pegu = ?»y^ the Ka dialect mot. The word iu the Burmese 

 proper is ???7/tfoi ; and iu Aracau myitsi : but the Palaong (S.E. 

 of Bhamo) use metsi. Between the Burmese proper and the 

 Siamese are the Karens, two of whose dialects (Sgau and Pwo) 

 give me; a third closely allied is the Thouug-lhu = may. Taking 

 Muneepoor as a centre, we have the Koreng, mil: ; Songpu, 

 mhik : Luhuppa, mik : North Tankhul, amieJia : Khoibu, mit : 

 Maring, mit : Kapwi, inik ; Maram, mik. The Siamese has no 

 cognate word, but it is a very remarkable thing that one of the 

 Siamese (or Thay) tribes which fought its way into Assam, and 

 settled there, has the form pure as the Polynesian, viz., matta. 

 We now pass into Assam through the varieties of Jili ; Singpho, 

 mi; Kakhyen, mi; Deoria Chutia, mukiiti. In Assam, to the 

 East, are the Mishmi tribes, in one dialect of whose speech (the 

 Mijhu) we find mik ; in Central Assam, the Mikir = mek. Of 

 the Naga forms, (among five dialects showing no affinity,) the 

 Mithan yields mik ; Tablung, mik. Entering Nepaul, one 

 division, the Kirata tribes, (Kirata proper,) gives mak ; the 

 Limbu, mik ; the Lepcha spoken in Sikim yields amik. Among 

 those peoples called the Broken Tribes are Vaya, mck ; Chepang, 

 mik; Dhimal, mi; Bodo, moijon ; Garo, mikran. The Magars, 

 who inhabit the lower levels of the Himalayan slopes, use mi 

 (in Murmi) ; so also the Gurung on the higher slopes have mi. 

 The Bramhu, a dialect of a degraded people, gives mik; the 

 Nepaul proper in its purest form being mikha. The Pahri, one 

 of the Broken Tribes, has mif/hi ; but others of these tribes, 

 the Darahi and Kuswar, while using ankhi for " eye," (of 

 Sanscrit derivation,) call the head uind. In Bengal, at Aracan, 

 the dialect used by Moslems, (called Puuiuga,) uses mata for 

 head ; the Hindu dialect, (called Eossawn,) uses miistok. In 

 Central India, the Sontal call the eye met, while the word for 

 head with the Pakhya is mtmto, and the Tharu is mmli. I am 

 aware of the affinity between the last few words for "head" 

 and the Sanscrit word for " face," etc., but shall not in this 

 paper touch the subject of the Aryan languages. 



We now pass across the Indian frontier into Thibet — the 

 land of the Bhot, or Bhotiya. To the south, near Nepaul, 

 we find that the Serpa word is mik, and in other dialects mi. 

 The rude tribes (called barbarians by Chinese) in the south-east 

 of Thibet use, in the Changlo, minij ; iu the Gyarung, tai-mek. 

 In Eampnr (Milchan) we find mik ; while a provincial dia- 

 lect (Theburskud) has me ; and the Sumchu is mi. In the 

 eastern Bhot of the Takyal it is mido ; and in the proper 

 Thibetan dialect, as at Ladak, it is written miij, and pronounced 

 mik. If we pass from the Indian frontier, across Afghanistan, 

 to Persia, we find that in Persian mata is the face, and that in 

 Arabic mata is also the face. This, in the widespread speech of 

 the Arab, carries us to the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian 



