174 Ὁ" REPORT—1850. 
India, and cannot, as stated by Dr. Stevenson, be pronounced without diffi- 
culty by any but by a native of the province in which the language containing 
them is spoken. These sounds are unknown in Sanscrit. 
He is disposed to think that the Sanscrit of the languages spoken in the 
northern group owes its present grammatical construction to the gradual 
adoption of the forms of speech of the abnormal nations, this construction 
being universal throughout India, even among the Hill tribes, and so different 
from the rules of Sanscrit construction, that it is impossible to conceive the 
one to be derived from the other, The similarity of words and formation of 
sentences in the language of the Todas on the Nilgirry Hills, and that of the 
Gonds on the Nerbudda, is very remarkable; and it is stated on good autho- 
rity that some American missionaries who had long resided in Mysore could 
understand and make themselves understood when they spoke the Canarese 
language among the Gonds at Amarkantak. The identity of the Gond lan- 
guage with those of the South of India has been proved by myself in com- 
paring 350 words of Gondi, Telingi, Mharatti, Marwari, and Guzeratti to- 
gether, and of these scarcely one word occurs that is not common to one 
or more of those languages. 
The peculiarity of construction of all these languages differing from the 
Sanscrit, consists,—1st. In the termination and in the conjugation of the verbs. 
2nd. In the preposition of the Sanscrit, and the languages derived from it, 
becoming in India a postposition. 3rd. Jn the several meanings of the plural ; 
being inclusive and exclusive, such as, We—including the person spoken to 
and the speaker that is— You and J, only ; while another plural form signifies 
We ourselves, only and not you. 4th. Different words are used as adjectives, 
in their application to animate and inanimate objects. 5th. The passive voice 
of verbs is formed by auxiliaries, such as to suffer, to fall, to get, to take, to 
eat. 6th. In the languages of India each seutence is divided into two parts, 
viz. the subject and the verb; the latter is invariably placed at the end of 
the sentence. In the same way, remarks Dr. Rost, the affirmative branch of 
a sentence is preceded by the negative; the effect by the cause; the infer- 
ence by the reason, and the consequence by the condition,—all of which in- 
dicates 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 Bramanieal influence 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 construction 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 following 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 family. “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 place of the inflexions in the Sanscrit and its deri- 
vatives the Greek and Latin. The Mongolians and the Indians use special 
personal pronouns to denote respect; they also use a distinct relative parti- 
ciple in lieu of a relative pronoun. 
“Tn short,” obseryes Dr. Rost, “the same rigorous structure of sentences 
