ON THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES OF INDIA. 175 
pervades the whole class of Indian languages and those of Upper Asia, and 
which cannot be better explained than it has been by Gablenz in his ‘Gram- 
maire Mandchou,’ p. 276. ‘On y place toutes les expressions modificatives 
avant celles auxquelles elles s’appliquent ; ainsi l’'adjectif avant le substantif; 
le régi avant le mot qu'il régit; le régime direct et indirect avant le verbe; 
Yexpression modificative avant l’expression modifiée ; la proposition incidente, 
conditionelle, circonstantiale, hypothetique, et causale avant la proposition 
principale.’ ἢ 
Almost all these peculiarities differing from the Sanscrit construction are 
participated in by the languages of Thibet and Burma, which Dr. Rost con- 
siders to be the connecting link between the languages throughout India and 
the Chinese. 
In confirmation of the opinions of Rost and Gablenz, I find Professor 
Westergard of Copenhagen, in writing to a friend in London so late as Sep- 
tember 1846, observes, “I never entertained any doubt of these [the Indian ] 
languages being of Scythian descent, aterm which I adopt from Rask for the 
stock of languages usually called Tartar, and which I prefer as a more general 
name to be adopted in speaking of the Fins, the Mongols, and the Deckan or 
southern languages of India.” Professor Rask, alluded to by Professor 
Westergard, who passed some years in the South of India, was an excellent 
Sanscrit scholar, and was also well acquainted with the Tamili, writes in 
like manner:—“{ am of opinion, that not only are many words of the 
southern group of languages (in India) common to those of Upper Asia, but 
that the construction of the whole of them differs essentially from the San- 
scrit, and is based on the languages of Northern Asia.” 
The supposition, that all the aborigines are derived from the stock of 
Northern Asia, meets with strong additional confirmation when we find a 
very prevalent opinion to that effect confirmed by tradition, as in the ancient 
poems of Chand and others of the bards of Rajputana, who describe the 
Gujers and the Jats as of the Tacshac or Scythian race, in common with the 
Gackers since converted to Mahommedism, which are spoken of as the 
bravest of the opponents of Mahmud of Ghizny, in the tenth and eleventh 
century, in the Punjab, and on the banks of the Indus. When the remote 
period of the Hindu invasion is considered, which cannot by any possibility 
be less than thirty-two centuries ago,—when there are so many proofs from 
tradition and history that they found India peopled by races of hunters and 
herdsmen,—when we find these races still existing in every part of India, and 
living in a state of predial slavery in towns as a portion of each village com- 
munity, and in the hills claiming the right of the soil though dispossessed of it, 
—we cannot fail to recognise the fact of their being a wholly distinct people 
from the Hindiis. To establish with any degree of certainty, however, their 
origin, may well be deemed a difficult task. In my endeavour to do so, I 
have, I think, shown that the whole of those who have been described as 
aborigines must belong to one great family ; that they in many respects re- 
semble the character of the great Scythian horde; that they are also found to 
partakeof the featuresof the same race, and that all the Indian languages differ- 
ing in construction from the Sanscrit (the language of the Hindus), assimilate 
not only in grammatical form, but also in words with the Tartar tongue. 
While writing this paper I have met with a singular coincidence of lan- 
guage and physiological character in the remarks of Dr. James Bird, the 
President of the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great 
Britain and Ireland. That gentleman read some time since a paper before 
the Ethnological Society, on the affinity of the language of the Gonds, the 
ee ng all the aborigines of India, and the mountaineers east of the Hima- 
. N 
Soo 
