The Ethnology of India. 9 
words which may almost be taken as unfailing tests in classifying lan- 
guage ; for instance, the first few numerals, the names for the com- 
monest parts of the human body 
head, &c.—the names of the commonest family relations—father, 
as hand, foot, nose, eyes, mouth, 
mother, brother, sister—sun and moon, fire and water—the personal 
pronouns, and one or two others. I shall try to add to this paper 
some of Mr. Hodgson’s lists. I do not know that they are all the 
best selected words, but they are uniform lists of different languages 
in parallel columns, and will enable any observer to determine on the 
spot whether the savage he has caught, primd facie, seems to belong 
to one or other of the classes represented in the columns. I shall 
also make a smaller list of Hnglish words, a translation of which I 
would recommend to be sent with each account of a tribe or race, 
speaking a language in any degree peculiar. 
It should be observed that it may not unfrequently happen that 
men who seem to speak but a rough jargon of some well known lan- 
guage may, on close observation, be found to use peculiar terms for 
some of the most familiar objects, and that these latter may be inva- 
luable as containing the remnants of their original language, all but ab- 
sorbed in another which they have for the most part adopted. Especially 
will such words be valuable, if they can be in any degree identified with 
those in any of the Aboriginal Vocabularies. 
Grammatical structure is somewhat more difficult of observation, and 
so far as I know, the general structural character of all the modern 
Indian languages is in a considerable degree similar. I mean that 
there is no such radical difference of formation as there is between 
Hindee and Arabic, But those who can give a little attention to the 
subject, might supply small grammars of declension, conjugation, and 
derivation, which would be eminently useful. And on the Hastern 
Frontier, the distinction between Indian and Indo-Chinese grammatical 
forms might probably be readily marked. 
3. Religion. There isso much similarity in the religions of so 
many rude tribes, that there may be doubt whether such worship as 
that of the Sun, Moon, and the lord of Tigers represents a wide spread 
religion, or merely a coincidence of very obvious ideas repeated again 
and again; but it is worth noticing these ideas, in the hope that some 
