748 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 
Aryan blood. At any rate, the admixture must be considerable 
on account of the tribal custom, as among the Nairs of the south- 
west coast, of taking temporary Brahman husbands for their 
female relatives. 
From the time of Bishop Caldwell’s “Grammar of the Dravidian 
Languages,” in 1856,* to the publication of Dr. Fraser’s work, 
*“ An Aboriginal Language,” in 1892,* almost all writers on the 
Australians, who heme freated of the language, have remarked 
more or less strongly upon the resemblance—in some instances, 
the apparent identity—between them and certain features of the 
Dravidian languages. 
It is not within the scope of this address to do more than to 
note that some of the more striking features of the Australian 
languages. The fundamental character is that of agglutination, 
the numerals are restricted to two, three, rarely four, and more 
rarely five. There is an absence of an article, of numbers, and 
of gender, unless in rare cases, when, for instance, a postfix 
nbiached to a totem name indicates that a female bears it.T 
The verb of the inflexional languages is represented by the aid 
of postfixes, and by the same means nouns may be declined in a 
variety of cases. 
When compared with the Dravidian the Australian languages 
show a more primitive character, but there is a resemblance in 
structure, and, in some few points, even an apparent identity, as, 
for instance, in the first and second personal pronouns. But this is 
not much more than could be said as to analogous resemblances or 
identities with other languages of the same great ‘“ Ursprache,” 
to which both the Australian and the Dravidian tongues belong. 
Bishop Caldwell{ directed attention to the personal pronouns, 
upon which so much stress is laid, and pointed out that the root 
“ni” is identical with the Dravidian and the Behistun-Scythian 
pronoun; so also is the “ni” of the Horpa dialect of the 
Thibetan nomads, with which the Australian ‘‘nunnia,” “ngounie,” 
and “ nginte” may be compared.§ 
Dr. Bleek also writes much to the same effect.|| 
More recently Dr. Fried. Miller,{] than whom no one can speak 
with higher authority in linguistic matters, says that no scientific 
objection can be taken to a statement that the Australian as well 
as the Dravidian languages belong to that family which Professor 
Max Miieller has termed Turanian, but that there is no founda- 
tion for saying more, and that even the statement that the 
Australian languages are all derived from one primitive tongue 
must be regarded atk caution. 
* vin, p. 51. ies { XXV, XXVIII. § vil, p. 316. lv, p. 89. 
| xul, p. 248. 
