184 Languages of the various tribes inhabiting the [March, 



the comparison. For, in the migration and intercourse of nations and 

 tribes, nothing is more common than the permutation of letters and 

 the borrowing of words, causing an appearance of affinity where in 

 reality none exists. It is, therefore, only to an essential affinity in the 

 structure and genius of languages (coupled with verbal coincidences) 

 that we can appeal for certain evidences of a common origin. 



Setting out from the establishment of a certain jiumber of separate lan- 

 guages as species, we may adopt the tests of affinity proposed in Adelung's 

 Mithridates, and proceed to comprehend in the description of one family 

 such as have more coincidences with each other than diversities ; and 

 refer to the same class, such families as exhibit any coincidences at all 

 that are not fortuitous, imitative (that is, from onomatopoeia,) or 

 adoptive. But, these tests depend so much on the progress of our 

 knowledge in the study of each language, that the results must unavoid- 

 ably be liable to great uncertainty and fluctuation where our acquaint- 

 ance with the languages is superficial, so that we can reasonably expect 

 nothing more than an approximation to an arrangement completely 

 methodical. 



The writer, therefore, whose attention has been but lately drawn to 

 the languages of Asam, and whose opportunities for studying them 

 have been but few, begs here distinctly to disavow any intention of at- 

 tempting to trace the languages he treats of to their sources, or to ex- 

 plain their affinities. So important an undertaking, may be much more 

 rationally expected from the united labors of many than from the feeble 

 efforts of a single individual. Yet it is obvious that the task never can 

 be accomplished unless efforts are made by individuals for communi- 

 cating such information as they may have opportunities of acquiring 

 and though the writer may have failed in laying open the real nature 

 of each language, he would indulge the hope that there is yet such a 

 foundation laid, as will eventually secure its being done. 



Proceeding now to the examination of the languages spoken in Asam, 

 and by the tribes bordering on the valley, the one that naturally claims 

 precedence is the Asamese. 



It is the language usually spoken by the entire population of the 

 valley, and in most cases, is the only medium of intercoure used between 

 them and the people of the hills. 



,With the exception of the Bengali, there is probably no derivative 



