1877.] Oust — Non- Aryan Languages of India, 11 



wrote down some practical grammatical notices of this dialect,* which give 

 a far better insight into its structure and characteristics than any vocabulary • 

 this excellent service he rendered to several other languages spoken in the 

 neighbourhood of the Asam valley, in a manner well calculated to bring 

 out the salient features of each. The alphabet of the Changlo is the same 

 as the Tibetan, to which language it bears a close resemblance. A reprint 

 of Mr. B. H. Hodgson's scattered papers, revised and corrected by that 

 veteran scholar, has long been ready for the press, and one volume has 

 actually appeared : the second volume is anxiously expected, as it will 

 contain a reprint of the author's papers on the Kooch, Bodo, and Dhimal, on 

 the one hand, and of the Vayd and Bahing on the other, and we can state, 

 on the authority of Mr. Hodgson, that there is distinct evidence of the 

 existence of two classes of languages : one of them, represented by the 

 Vayu and Bahing, may be called the pronominalized or complex type : the 

 other, represented by the Newar, Lepcha, and others, is the non-pronomi- 

 nalized or simple type. By the term is meant the use of the pronouns in 

 the form of affixes and suffixes, the most familiar instance of which is known 

 to us in the Hebrew language. It is clear, therefore, that the present 

 classification of these languages is only provisional. 



The Himalaic group may be said to have no future before them, and 

 they only await the time to be improved off the face of the earth : under 

 ordinary circumstances it might have been expected that to one of the group 

 at least — notably the Newar — might have fallen the chance of becoming 

 the political language of the whole tract, and thus (like the South Saxon^ 

 and the patois of the Isle de France) developing itself into a national 

 language. But such can never be, for the intrusive Khass, or Parbatia 

 variety of the Aryan vernacular of India, under the name of Nepalese, is 

 already established at Kathmandu, the capital of the Gurkha dynasty. The 

 civilization and religion of the court and the nobles is Hindu, and as this 

 gradually extends, all that is Tibetan and Trans-Himalaic will be trodden down 

 by its powerful and vigorous rival, which receives its new ideas from India, 

 and not from Tibet. The non- Aryan languages are already affected by their 

 Aryan neighbour, and are charged more or less with loan-words, and in some 

 cases even the numerals have given place, and such a change made, that the 

 classification of the living language begins to be ambiguous. As an instance 

 of transition these languages will remain objects of interest, but no more. 



Proceeding onwards in a south-easterly direction we come upon new 

 languages, which, for the sake of sub-dividing a large subject, rather than 

 from any well-defined distinctive type of language, have been grouped 

 under the head of Lohitic, a fanciful and inappropriate name from one of 



* The vocabularies and grammatical notices alluded to are to be found in the 

 Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society. 



