1849.] A Brief Note on Indian Ethnology. 241 



hence by the adoption of such words in a summary ethnological voca- 

 bulary we shall probably miss the real import of words, and with it the 

 power of comparing one language with another, since different respon- 

 dents are not at all likely to give real equivalents or identical terms, 

 unless the precise import of what is asked be thoroughly apprehended. 

 There is yet another snare incident to vocabularies of a few general 

 terms, even when of obvious meaning, to wit, that in the case of any 

 general term you may get a word expressive merely of sex, age or other 

 incidental distinction, from one respondent, and a word expressive of 

 some other such distinction from another, as ox, bull, cow, heifer. The 

 only safe plan therefore is to take specific terms, and a sufficient number 

 of them, reserving abstract terms merely to illustrate grammatical 

 structure, or the mental condition of the tribe you are investigating. 

 Now, the long and perfect dispersion and insulation of the several 

 members of the Tamulian body have led to an extremity of lingual 

 diverseness which, as contrasted with the similarity of their creed and 

 customs, is the enigma of their race ; and for the reasons assigned it is 

 an enigma which assuredly no (Edipus will solve except by dint of words. 

 In Hindi and Urdu, though structure is the same, vocables make a 

 difference which is broad and clear, owing to the evidently foreign ele- 

 ments of the diversity. Not so, however, in the Tamulian tongues, in 

 which there is very little of foreign element : all is homogeneousness in 

 the vocables, and from its sameness of kind is less open to distinct se- 

 parability. A summary comparative vocabulary was framed some years 

 back by that able and zealous enquirer, the Rev. Mr. Brown, and it has 

 been extensively filled up with the dialects of the mountaineers round 

 Assam. But, in applying this vocabulary to the uses of the present 

 Essay, I have found it quite insufficient to the ends in view ; to raise, 

 not to solve, doubts ; and in reference to this question of the adequacy 

 or otherwise of a very limited number of words even of a primitive 

 character, I request particular attention to the fact, that the popular 

 opinion of the decisive nature and effect of such words, propagated by 

 that able polyglottist, Abel Remusat, has been lately shown to he far 

 from decisive by Schott, whose observations on the subject may be seen, 

 in lucid epitome, in Prichard's Physical History.* Mr. Brown's words 

 are scarcely of that kind which Remusat justly laid stress on as " pre- 

 * Vol. IV. p. 395, and the following. 



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