210 11. N. Cufet — Languages of the Indo-Chinese [Nov. 



dead words, must cease to be styled monosyllabic. Mere juxtaposition, 

 moreover, is not agglutination, and further, admitting that Chinese has 

 rudimentary traces of agglutination, it is the extent, to which this princi- 

 pie ai^pears to be the rule, rather than the exception, of each language, 

 that must decide the order to which the language belongs. All the Indo- 

 Chinese languages admit and incorporate words from the Pali, an inflexion- 

 al language, and the degree to which they break up these loan-words, and 

 alter them, is a test of the genius of the language in assimilating discor- 

 dant materials. It has been known by published works in Euroj)e for 

 more than a century. There are dictionaries by Hough, Judson, and Lane ; 

 grammars by Judson, Latter, and Carey ; vocabularies by Leyden, Bucha- 

 nan, Latham, Sir G. Campbell, and Hunter ; miscellaneous treatises by 

 Mainwaring, Chase, Towers, Phayre, and Low ; and a famous treatise by 

 Schleiermacher, on the influence of writing upon a language. This is a 

 strong vernacular, likely to complete the absorption already commenced of 

 all its weaker neighbours, and worthy to do so. The whole Bible is trans- 

 lated into Burmese. 



" Ascending the river Irawadi, we find in the mountains separating 

 Burmah from China an unruly race called Kakhyen or Kaku, known in 

 the valley of Assam as Singhpo (which merely means ' a man') or Ching- 

 paw, Highlanders, pagans, and savages at a decidedly low state of civiliza- 

 tion, though living in villages, and agriculturists. In Dr. Anderson's 

 * Expedition to Western Yunan,' published in 1871, and his ' Mandalay to 

 Momien,' published in 1876, we read of his long detention among these 

 inhospitable tribes in 1868 and 1875, during two unsuccessful attempts to 

 pass from Bhamo into Yunan. He recognized the physical resemblance 

 betwixt them and the Karens, which is confirmed by their language. He 

 gives a vocabulary of the Kakhyens, which he (perhaps incorrectly) de- 

 scribes as monosyllabic, spoken in an ascending tone, every sentence ending 

 in a long clear ' ee.' The Roman Catholic Bishop Bigandet, who visited 

 this tract, identified them with the Singhpos described in our report of last 

 year, and other tribes in the Assam valley, and noticed their resemblance to 

 the Khyens and Karens. The pronunciation is soft and easy : the con- 

 struction of sentences simple and direct ; there is no written character. 

 Few Kakhyens, except the chiefs, could speak Burmese, but some could 

 speak and write Chinese. 



" Dr. Anderson found another tribe, blended in daily life with the 

 Kakhyens, the Leesaws, who were perfectly distinct in every respect, and 

 whose language was akin to the Burmese. 



<' Here we come upon the gates of China, and the channel of a future 

 traffic, consecrated by the blood of Margary. We shall know more soon of 

 the Kakhyens, We have vocabularies of them and the Leesaws, by Ander- 

 son ; of the Kakhyens by Bigandet, Robinson, and Logan, 



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