350 Aborigines of Southern India. [April, 



Aborigines of Southern India. — By B. H. Hodgson, Esq. 



To the Secretaries Asiatic Society. 



Gentlemen, — In prosecution of the steps already taken by me and 

 recorded in our Journal, for obtaining ready and effective means of com- 

 paring the affinities of all tbe various aboriginal races tenanting the 

 whole continent of India, I have now the honour to submit a comparative 

 vocabulary of seven of the Southern tongues. Five of them belong to 

 the cultivated class of these tongues, viz. Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, 

 Carnataca, Tulava ; and two to the uncultivated class, viz. Curgi and 

 Todava. The former are given both in the ancient and modern form, 

 and care has been taken to procure the genuine vocables instead of those 

 words of Sanscrit origin which are now so apt to be substituted for 

 them, especially in intercourse with Europeans. I am indebted for 

 these vocabularies to Mr. "Walter Elliot of Madras, whose name is a 

 sufficient warrant for their perfect accuracy. 



In regard to these cultivated tongues of the south, among which we 

 are led by history and reason to look for the prototype of all the abori- 

 ginal languages of the continent,* Mr. Elliot observes that the aptitude 

 of the people at present to substitute prakritic words for aboriginal ones 

 is such a stumbling block in the search for affinities as it requires pains 

 and knowledge to avoid ; and he instances (among others) the common 

 use of the borrowed word rakta for blood, in lieu of the native term 

 nethar, by which latter alone we are enabled to trace the unquestionable 

 ethnic relationship of the Gonds, (even those north of the Vindhia) 

 with the remote southerns speaking Telugu, Cannadi and Tulava. 



On the subject of the local limits and mutual influence at the present 

 day of the cultivated languages of the south upon each other, Mr. Elliot 

 has the following remarks : — " All the southern dialects become consi- 

 derably intermixed as they approach each other's limits. Thus the 

 three words for egg used indifferently by the people speaking Canarese, 

 (matte, tetti, gadda) are evidently obtained, the first from the Tamulian, 



* Journal, No. 197, for November last. The Himalayan languages form an 

 exception to this assumed general prevalence of the Tamulian type of speech. See 

 Journal for December 1847, and December 1848. 



