258 S. E. Peal — A peculiarity of the river names in Asam. [No. 4, 



A peculiarity of the river names in Asam and some of the adjoining 

 countries. — By S. E. Peal, Sibsagar, Asam. 



Some years ago the prevalence of Di or Ti, as a prefix to river names 

 in Asam, induced me to draw up a list of such, in the hope that some clue 

 might be found that would explain the frequent recurrence of it. 



It soon became evident that this Di, Ti, meant " water" in many of 

 the hill dialects, and that the second part of the word was the true name 

 of the river, in many cases descriptive ; thus, the Tisa of the Naga hills 

 means, Ti = water, Sa = young, the " young river." 



Di and Ti was also frequently seen as a suffix ; thus, Ai ti = mother 

 water, Bapti, Tapti, Kampti &c. ; occasionally softened to thi, as in 

 Yung-thi, La-thi, Mii-thi. 



More extended search revealed the peculiarity in most of the countries 

 adjacent, with traces of it as far as western India. In the Naga hills, there 

 are several variations, Ti, Tsi, Di, Dsu, and Chi, among Kacharies, Doi, 

 Lushais Tui, and over the Malayan peninsula Tsi and Si, as in Si-tang, 

 Si-miin, Sigiin, although both Ti and Di also are occasionally met with. 



In China we see it under various forms, as Tse, e. g. in Yang tse 

 Kyang, and as Tsi, Tchi, Tchu, Sui and Chu, which latter is also so prevalent 

 over Tibet, Chu being Tibetan for water. This latter is also common all 

 along our northern frontier, " Lang chu" being in fact the upper Indus. 

 Northwards, among the restricted Turanians, we get the Turki Su for 

 water, and the Mongolian Us-su, no doubt related to the Tibetan Chu and 

 Chinese Sui. 



Following the course of the great Turki Mongolian invasions, from 

 the north-east, we find this same word for water, more or less attached to 

 rivers through Persia (as Sui) and Asia Minor (Siai, Soui, Su), emerging 

 in European Turki as Su (there are two Kara-su rivers alone, falling into 

 the gulf of Salonica, kara = black and su = water). Obviously these 

 names are more or less of a generic character, the black water, the white 

 water, &c, being common in most countries. Returning eastward to 

 Asam, where the Di is so very prevalent, it is noteworthy that the Doi of 

 the Asamese Kacharies seems related to the Da and Dab of the aborigi- 

 nals of western Bengal and Central India. Passing westwards from Asam, 

 we see the Tista, Di-pok, Di-onai, &c. in Bihar ; Seti and Di-wa are also names 

 of the Gogra ; and Di-ngrai, a branch of the Arun in Nipal, is an almost 

 exact repetition of the Ti-ngrai of eastern Asam. 



Among the tributaries of the Ganges we have the Dioha, Eapti, and 

 Gum-ti.* Again we have the Di-saun R. B. of the Bitwa (Jamna), the 

 Narbada is the Kun-di, and we have the Tapti, Eapti, Dasti, Dire, &c. T 

 * There is another Gumti in Hill Tipperah. 



