OP THE HUMAN FAMILY. 401 



language, and a common civilization, with a preponderance of the blood from 

 aboriginal veins. If this be true, the novel spectacle is presented of a conquering 

 and cultivated people of the Aryan lineage forced to yield their language to a 

 people whom they had subjugated, and to become transferred linguistically to an 

 inferior family. 



Several interesting questions are presented by the system of consanguinity and 

 affinity of the people speaking the Gaura language, the most important of which 

 is, whether or not it is Turanian. It is certainly not Sanskritic. With the excep- 

 tion of three, and perhaps four, terms of relationship, the nomenclature is drawn 

 exclusively from the Sanskrit. It has the apparel of the system of consanguinity 

 of the latter people without its form, and the question is whether its form, origi- 

 nally Turanian, has been modified by Sanskritic influences, or whether it was origi- 

 nally a system differing from both. The weight of the evidence is in favor of the 

 first hypothesis. Where two radically different languages become consolidated by 

 natural processes into one resulting language it does not follow that the system of 

 relationship would be imposed by the people who contributed the great body of 

 the vocables ; but, on the contrary, it would be more apt to be furnished by the one 

 that conferred the grammar, since the grammatical structure of the newly developed 

 language would represent the preponderance of the blood. It has before been 

 shown that the Sanskrit system of relationship is descriptive. The Gaura system 

 is classificatory. And although it is much less elaborate and discriminating than 

 the Turanian, it embodies several of its fundamental conceptions, and perhaps it 

 may be satisfactorily explained as originally Turanian, but modified into its present 

 form by the overpowering influence of the Sanskrit element arrayed against it. 



In the Table will be found the Hindi, the Bengali, the Gujarathi, and the Mara- 

 thi, exhibiting fully and minutely the system of relationship which now prevails 

 amongst the people speaking these dialects. They are the most important of the 

 nine idioms, and, without doubt, these schedules exhibit substantially the form 

 which prevails in the five remaining dialects. To illustrate fully the Gaura system, 

 the others need examination, since each may retain some one or more features of 

 the original system which the others have yielded, and thus from all together the 

 original form might be satisfactorily ascertained. A sufficient number of the radical 

 features of the Turanian system are present, taken in connection with the history 

 of these dialects, to render extremely probable its Turanian origin. 



Gaura System of Eelationship. 1. Hindi. 2. Bengali. 3. Gujarathi. 4. 

 Marathi. 



It will be sufficient to present the Gaura system as it now exists among the 

 people speaking one of these dialects. But inasmuch as its characteristics can 

 neither be shown by means of the indicative relationships, nor by indicating the 

 points of difference between it and the Tamilian, it will be necessary to take it up 

 with some degree of detail. After the system has been once explained, the points 

 of agreement and of difference between it and the systems which are found in the 

 other dialects can be readily shown. 



1. Hindi. The Hindi will be adopted as the standard form of the Gaura system 

 of relationship. The four schedules, however, are in such full agreement with each 



51 April, 1870. 



