240 A Brief Note on Indian Ethnology. [March, 



data as their languages. Their physical and mental condition is exactly 

 pourtrayed in their speech, and he who can analyse it and separate the 

 foreign elements, has the key to the amount, and sources too, of their 

 civilization. 



I have said that the unity of the Arian race has been demonstrated 

 chiefly through lingual means. We have now similarly to demonstrate 

 the unity of the Tamiilian race, an interesting hut a difficult task ; for 

 there is an immense number of spoken tongues among the Tamulians, 

 whereof I have already ascertained not less than 28 in the limited 

 sphere of my own proposed inquiries ;* and all these, though now so 

 different as to be mutually unintelligible to the people who use them, 

 require to be unitised, while one of the highest authoritiesf on such 

 points fairly declares that he cannot tell what constitutes identity of 

 language. It is clear therefore to me that in this inquiry we shall 

 require all the helps within our reach, and that a copious vocabulary, 

 as well as a rudimentary grammar, of each tongue, will be indispensa- 

 ble. But the rudiments of grammar are to be had only with extreme 

 toil, as creations of your own, from the crude element of very corrupt 

 sentences supplied by unlettered children of nature ; and, in proportion 

 as all such grammars are likely to be deficient, in the same proportion 

 do copious vocabularies become more and more desirable. Besides, 

 summary vocabularies are apt to deal with generals, whereas particulars 

 embody the character and racy virtue of speech. But homebred words 

 are all very particular, and proportionably numerous ; while general 

 terms, if more conveniently few, are less characteristic and very apt to 

 be of exotic origin. Take the English general term to move ; it is 

 Latin and one ; but of the numerous sorts of especial motion (to hop, 

 to skip, to jump, to tumble down, to get up, to walk, to fly, to creep, 

 to run, to gallop, to trot), all are " genuine Saxon, by the soul of 

 Hengist." Moreover it should be remembered that general terms are 

 precisely those which rude races rarely understand or employ, and 



* I confine myself to the Aborigines of the mountains and the Tarai between 

 Kumaun and Assam, a rich and extensive field of research. But I hope that other 

 enquirers will, under the auspices of the Society, join me to complete the investiga- 

 tion. For the enumeration of the tribes see page 138. 



f H. H. Wilson's preface to the Mackenzie Papers. Wilson's scepticism is 

 somewhat wanton and affected : a sly hit at ignorance ? 



