1856.] Aborigines of the Nilgiris. 513 



is nothing but a commutative equivalent of the Khas instrumental 

 sign le. A Khas of Nepal invariably says, hy me struck, for I struck, 

 and me struck for I ivas struck ; and moreover there is still the 

 strongest presumptive proof, internal and external, that this, the 

 present preterite, was a primitive aorist and the only tense in Khas. 

 Those who are fully conversant with the spoken Prakrits of the 

 plains can testify that the same traits still cleave to the vernaculars 

 of the so-called Arian class of tongues in the plains — traces, I 

 conceive, of primitive Turaniauism as palpable as are to be found in 

 the secondary terms (bhat-e#a£, m&v-dal (vide infra), kapra-Zatfta, 

 &c.) of the Prakrits, and which their grammarians can only explain 

 by calling them tautological sing-song. That all such terms are 

 really genuine samples of the double words so common throughout 

 the Turanian area, and that the latter member of each term is 

 Turanian, I trust by and by to have time to show. Meanwhile and 

 with reference to the Tartar substitute for the voices, here are a 

 few examples. 



By me struck, = I struck, active voice. 



Tibetan, Ngagi dung : Newari, Jing daya : Hayu, Gr'ha toh'mi : 

 Khas, Maile kutyo : Urdu, Main ne kiita. 



Me struck = I was struck, passive voice. 



Tibetan, Ngala dung: Newari, Jita dala: Hayu, Go toh'mi; 

 Khas, Manlai kiifcyo : Urdu, Mujh ko kuta (subaudi, usne). 



The languages which employ conjunct suffix pronouus have a form 

 precisely equivalent to the latter, e. g. Sontal dal-eng, and Hayu 

 toh'-mum = struck me. And observe that Sontal dai to strike 

 reproduces, not only the wide spread da vel ta root of the north, 

 but also the 1 of Newari dala,* as to which see remarks on the 

 transitive and preterite sign aforegone, and Urdu mir-ddl with 

 its comment. 



* Observe also that Jita dala reproduces the objective sign, ta vel da, above 

 spoken of. Compare latacfo and Cicero t. As a transitive sign of verbs it is most 

 widely diffused, and nearly as widely are ka vel ga, and pa, vel ba, vel va. Sa vel 

 cha is a very widely diffused neuter sign which also can be traced indubitably to 

 the 3rd pronoun used to denote the object — in this case, the agent himself or 

 itself. The French forms, Je leve and Je me love, &c. very well serve to indicate 

 the latter form, though not the former of Turanian verbs. 



3 x 



