814 REPORT— 1903. 



This increase can he due only to one or both of the following causes : — 



1. That there has been a considerable conversion of Hindus to Islam, and that 

 a regular propaganda has been at work in this direction. 



2. That there are causes at work among Muhammadans themselves which tend 

 to produce a higher rate of fertility among them. 



As to the iirst suggestion, there is certainly some conversion of low-caste 

 Hindus to Islam, due to the fact that the convert acquires a higher social position, 

 and frees himself from the degradation which inevitably attaches to his being a 

 member of a degraded caste. But the result of recent inquiries tends to negative 

 the theory that there is any well-defined missionary propaganda at work among 

 the Indian Muhammadans. On the other hand the action of some of the reformed 

 sects which have been produced among Muhammadans in recent years requires 

 examination. 



As to the second suggested cause there is some evidence that physical causes 

 tend to make the Muhammadau more fertile and more long-lived than the Hindu. 

 The former have been recruited from a more vigorous race, such as the Arab and 

 the Central Indian tribes. They discourage infant marriage and the celibacy of 

 widows. They permit a more varied and invigorating diet, particularly as regards 

 the use of meat. 



6. The Ethnology of Early Italy and its Linguistic Relations to that of 

 Britain.^ By Professor R. Seymour Conway, Litt.D. 



The general body of scholars and historical students know so little of the scanty 

 and obscure remains of the Italic dialects, that is, of the languages akin to Latin 

 spoken in Italy before the extension of the Roman dominion over the peninsula, 

 that no one has yet felt surprised at their geographical distribution. Yet a glance at 

 the map of their territories will show that it demands explanation. There are practi- 

 cally only three dialects : 1, Latinian {i.e. Latin and Sabine) ; 2, Oscan ; 3, Umbro- 

 Volscian, though the distance between their areas has deterred scholars from classing 

 TJmbrian and Volscian together in spite of the complete identity of their charac- 

 teristics in the inscriptions. How then did they become geographically separate, 

 and how did Latinian wedge itself in between the areas of so many other idioms ? 

 There must be some historical causes behind these curious phenomena. 



Some clue to the answer is to be found in a set of facts not hitherto observed, 

 viz., the use of different suffixes by difterent tribes to form their ethnica, i.e. the 

 names of communities derived from names of places in their respective district. 



There are only six or seven suffixes used for this purpose in ancient Italy : of 

 these three only (for various reasons) are significant for ethnology — viz. -CO-, 

 -NO-, and -TI- (generally -ATI-). 



i. The ethnica in -CO-, like Volsci, Heniici, Osci, are all, save for a small 

 batch in Umbria, confined to the plain country along the west coast, and all 

 occur in marshy districts. The word VoLsci means ' marshmen.' Further, there 

 are some ethnica in -CINI, i.e. with -NO- superimposed on -00-, the result of a 

 conquest by some -NO- folk, all in similar districts. Since Etruscan is not an 

 Indo-European speech, the names Etnisci, Tusci, Falisci, though denoting 

 Etruscans, must have been made by the -CO- folk, who are clearly Indo- 

 European. Volsci contains the same stem as Gr. eXor , 0(p)sci that of Lat. opus. 



ii. The -NO- ethnicon is extremely common throughout Italy, but its fre- 

 quency in comparison with the others varies remarkably in the difterent districts ; 

 in that of the Hirpini they number- 92 per cent, of the known ethnica. in Latium 

 proper only 52 per cent., in Umbria only 31 per cent. If, then, as there is reason 

 to believe, this suffix marks a particular race at a particular epoch, this i-ace was 



> Published in fuUin Rivista (Vltalia (1903, Agosto) under the title ' I due strati 

 della popolazione indo-europea dell' Italia antica.' 



- These statistics are based on the collections of the place-names of ancient Italy, 

 given for each of the dialectal areas in my Italic Dialects (Camb. Univ. Press, 1897), 



