ee 
The es of the 1 a Himalayan Tibeto-Burman languages 
ca cos 
Cxvi Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, [November, 
I take the opportunity now presented to me of again express- 
ing my gratitude to my friend and assistant, Dr, Sten Konow, 
for his invaluable help. Each one of the three eats sections 
presented to-day comes from his pen. Besides these he has 
written Parts I and III of Vol. III. 
I think that, when itis published, Dr. Konow’s pines on the 
Tibeto-Barman languages of the Himalaya will be found of more 
than ordinary interest. Following the lines maria ind down 
by B. H. Hodgson, he has been able to separate out a remarkable 
group of what he calls ‘‘ Pronominalized”” Tibeto-Burman langu- 
ages. These extend from Kunawar in the Panjab in the West, 
pronominalized cognate languages. Their chief peculiarity lies in 
the great freedom—-almost without limit--with which they employ 
pronominal suffixes, in the conjugation of the verb. This pecu- 
liarity, and several other remarkable facts (including ¢ we close 
resemblance of the forms of the earlier numerals) nabled 
Dr. Konow to show that these languages, although Tibaky-feaiaags 
at the present day, are built up on a substratum of an entirely 
different linguistic family—the Munda. The Munda ee. at 
present occupy the central hills of India, and traces of their 
ence are chharsaas even in the Aryan languages of the Hastern 
Munda languages with Khasi oly with Mén-Khmér, aed, se a 
ultimately with the languages of the Pacific even as far as Easter 
Island, opens out questions of wide ethnological interest. 
speech might reveal some secrets as to the ethnolovical relationship 
of the Bhils themselves. But this hope has, I regret to say, come 
to nothing. The Linguistic Survey shows that all the Bhils speak 
various forms of an “Arya n language closely akin to Gujarati. 
The vocabulary sometimes shows slight traces of Dravidian influ- 
ence, but these few words may easily have been borrowed from 
neighbouring Dravidian tribes, and there is nothing to show that 
they bcari to the original stock of the language. 
an languages of the Hast and Central Himalaya,—- 
Khas Kurs of Népal, Kumauni, and Garhwali,—the sections 
ing with which are now com ple te in manuscript, show some 
interesting results from the collision between Aryan and Tibeto- 
Burman forms of speech, The Aryan languages we know, from 
history, to have been brought by immigrants from Rajputana. 
The old Aryan language of the Khasas seems to have died out. 
