32 On the Mongolian Affinities of the Caucasians. [No. 1. 



whether the Circassian language is distinguished, like the Gyarung, 

 by a very ample employment of those prefixes which, as more or 

 less employed, characterise so many of the Mongolian tongues, and 

 which are dropt in composition, like the Ea suffix. Thus, tarti, a cap, 

 in Gyarung, is compounded of ti the root, and tar* the prefix : but, 

 if we join a noun or pronoun to this word, the prefix disappears, and 

 "his cap," for example, is warti, compounded of the wa above-men- 

 tioned and the radical ti. In like manner taimek, a leaf, when com- 

 pounded with shi, a tree, drops the ta prefix and becomes Shaimek, 

 as tape, father, becomes !Ngape, my father.f Eosen, should this 

 paper fall under his eye, or Latham perhaps, whose quick eye will not 

 fail to catch it, will be able to tell whether the same peculiarity dis- 

 tinguishes the Circassian tongue. For myself I doubt not it will so 

 prove, because the rule for nouns is but another phase of the rule 

 for pronouns. 



In the meantime, the striking grammatical analogies^ I have 

 pointed out stand in no need of further elucidation, and these analo- 



* Ta, the common form, becomes Tar, differentially as Timi, fire ; Tirmi, man, 

 Root Mi, used in both senses. In Tirmi, Tarti, Warti, we have the ra particle 

 which remains in its conjunct form as a medial, whilst the usual prefix ta disap- 

 pears. The ra too would disappear in a compound of roots if not needed to differ- 

 entials and mark the special sense of such roots, or one of them, or if the root 

 commenced with other than a labial consonant, its prefix being servile. 



•f- It has been queried whether the polysynthetic words of the American tongues, 

 quoad their principle of construction, as to which there is so much doubt, be not 

 compiled from radical particles only. Judging by the method of forming ordinary 

 compounds in Gyarung and its allies, I should say, Yes, certainly they are to a 

 great extent, though not exclusively, for the cumulative principle ill brooks control, 

 revelling in reiterations and transpositions of root alike, and of its servile adjuncts 

 though clearly, as to simple compounds, constantly observing the rules of contrac- 

 tion and of substitution noted in the text. In the Gyarung sentence Tizekaze 

 papun, he summoned them to feast, the word for to feast shows the root repeated 

 twice, and each time with a separate servile, though we have here only one verb, not 

 two verbs, and in Kalarlar, round, still no compound, we have the root repeated, 

 but yet with a servile, though only one, being the prefix ka. In such cases that ser- 

 vile is usually omitted as kaka, sky ; pyepye, bird ; chacha, hot. 



% Those analogies might now be largely extended did health and time permit. 

 Take the following instances : Tam-bas, father ; imbas, my father, in Uraon. Sam- 

 pa, father; ampa, my father, in Kiranti. Ku-kos, child; ing-kos, my child, Ura- 

 on. Tarn, sam, ku, serviles, replaced by the pronouns, compare Maylayan sam- 

 piyan, san-diri, kan-diri, ka-manus, k'anak, &c. 



