1856.] Aborigines of the Eastern Ghats. 39 



Aborigines of the Eastern Ghats. 



To the Secretary of the Bengal Asiatic Society. 



Sir, —Pursuant to my purpose of submitting to the Society, upon 

 an uniform plan and in successive series, samples of all the lan- 

 guages of the non-Arian races of India and of the adjacent coun- 

 tries, I have now the honour to transmit six more vocabularies, for 

 which I am indebted to Mr. H. Newill of the Madras Civil Service, 

 at present employed in Vizagapatam. These six comprise the Kondh, 

 Savara, Gradaba, Yerukala and Ghent su tongues. In forwarding 

 them to me, Mr. Newill, a very good Telugu scholar, has noted by 

 an annexed asterical mark such words of these tongues, and parti- 

 cularly of Yerukala, as coincide with Telugu. He has also remarked 

 that many of the Chentsu vocables resemble the Urdu. 



Having, as you are aware, a purpose of submitting to the Society 

 an analytical dissection of the whole of the vocabularies collected 

 by me, I shall be sparing of remarks on the present occasion. But, 

 I may add to Mr. Newill' s brief notes, a few words, as follows': 



The Chentsu tribe, whose language, as here exhibited, is almost 

 entirely corrupt Hindi and Urdu, with a few additions from Bengali, 

 affords one more example to the many forthcoming of an uncul- 

 tivated aboriginal race having abandoned their own tongue. Such 

 relinquishment of the mother-tongue has been so general that 

 throughout Hindustan Proper and the "Western Himalaya, as well 

 as throughout the whole of the vast Sub-Himalayan tract deno- 

 minated the Tarai, not excluding the contiguous valley of Assam, 

 there are but a few exceptions to this the general state of the case, 

 whilst in the Central Himalaya the aboriginal tongues are daily 

 giving way before the Khas language, which, though originally and 

 still traceably Tartaric, has been yet more altered by Arian influ- 

 ences than even the cultivated Dravirian tongues. The very signi- 

 ficant cause of this phenomenon it will be our business to explain by 

 and bye. In the meanwhile the fact is well deserving of this pass- 

 ing notice, with reference to the erroneous impression abroad as to 

 the relative amounts of Arian and non-Arian elements in the popu- 

 lation of India, — an impression deepened and propagated by the 



