11 12 Observations on the Language of the Goands. [Nov. 



races inhabiting the northern and southern portions of India, or whe- 

 ther the people using the southern language at one time occupied the 

 whole extent and were gradually driven southwards by the pressure of 

 a new race of invaders from the north. The isolated existence of a 

 cognate dialect of the south, among a wild tribe inhabiting unapproach- 

 able forests and fastnesses considerably to the north of the present 

 range of these languages, is in favor of the latter supposition. But a 

 single fact affords too narrow a basis on which to build so important a 

 hypothesis. 



The opinion of Mr. Colebrooke regarding the derivation of the Hindi 

 or northern dialects from Sanscrit, has not found favor with Oriental 

 philologists, and seems no longer tenable. But its influence on all the 

 languages now in use, whether in the north or in the south bears incon- 

 testible evidence of the sway of a people vastly superior in power and 

 civilization to the aboriginal races. All the written characters now in 

 use, as has been proved by James Prinsep, have been derived from that 

 source, and the very number of the letters, their classification and 

 arrangement, are the same in all the languages of the north and of the 

 south, except the Tamil, the most remote of the southern dialects. It 

 is not only singular in wanting the regular series of aspirated conso- 

 nants, but the number of simple consonants and vowels likewise falls 

 short of those of all the others. It has besides, letters to express 

 sounds peculiar to itself, and others which receive new powers by redu- 

 plication.* This fact would seem to indicate the gradual retrogression 

 of the great southern race to the extreme verge of the peninsula, where 

 it preserves the most distinctive marks of its original character. But 

 whether this was owing to the growth of the power and . the extended 

 conquests of the Hindi tribes or to the silent progress of the Brahmani- 

 cal faith and literature, or, as is most likely, to both of these combined, 

 — remains to be ascertained. 



In looking at the comparative list of words it will be observed that 

 a considerable number of Goand wordsf are derived from the northern 

 stock, as was likely to happen from the influence of the surrounding 

 dialects. But the same effect is observable even in Telugu and Cana- 



* Thus double rr and double dd become tt, double bb becomes pp, aud double ss serves 

 for ch. 

 t As Boy, Girl, Hone, Ass, Goat, Twenty, Fifty, 6c c. 



