1846.] on the Kuladyne River : — Arracan. 71 



neck, and wear no head-dress. On first seeing them I felt convinced 

 that I had fallen in with the original type ; the etymon, as it were, of the 

 Bengali. Though repeatedly asked whether they had any tradition 

 of having come from Chittagong, they invariably replied they had none. 

 On this however much stress could not be laid, as from the wandering 

 and miserable life they lead, no tradition could well extend among them 

 above a couple of hundred years. I consequently turned to their lan- 

 guage, and found it presenting the marked characteristics of the dialects 

 of Trans- Gangetic India, being monosyllabic, and having affixes to express 

 the various relations of its parts of speech, and even not possessing the 

 euphonic inflexions which sometimes occur in the Khumi. If the Kyaus 

 are an archaic type of the Bengali, as their extraordinary physiognomi- 

 cal similarity and their marked estrangement from the tribes around 

 renders to my mind most probable, it goes far to prove that the original 

 dialect of Bengal was monosyllabic and consequently rude ; and that its 

 nature and structure has been entirely revolutionized by the polished 

 polysyllabic languages of Hindoostan. The Kyaus' ideas of worship 

 are very rude and simple like that of the rest of the hill tribes. They 

 erect upright stones in different portions of their village, which they 

 consecrate to the Nats, or spirits of the hills. 



With reference to the dialect of the Kyaus, not having had the same 

 time at my disposal, or the same means of making enquiries into it, as 

 I had for that of the Khumis, my remarks are necessarily more scanty. 

 The Kyaus dialect, as has been already remarked, is monosyllabic, and 

 possesses affixes. 



Ka is the nominative affix, chiefly used with a noun, in construction 

 with a verb in the present tense ; in which case the verb dispenses with 

 its own affix of time. This idiom is singular, as it shows that the time 

 of the nominative case, and that of the present tense are the same. 

 TkHe, or fk'tau are future and present affixes. The two finals te and 

 tau, I suspect to be nothing more than expletive. In this dialect as well 

 as in that of the Khumis, the future and present tenses are the same. 



Mau, affix of the interrogative mood, occurs last in a sentence after all 

 others. It may also be applied directly to a noun without the inter- 

 vention of the substantive verb, as sipa " child," and mau interrogative 

 from sipa mau " child ?" t. e. " Have you any children ?" This is one of 

 abundant instances of how crudely ideas are expressed among a rude 

 people. 



