132 Sif&n, and Horsok Vocabularies. [No. 2. 



Sprach (known to me alas ! only at second hand) will know what I 

 mean when I solicit their attention to the accompanying Gyariing 

 vocabulary, as bearing on the face of it evidence that in the Gyariing 

 tongue almost all the words in their ordinary* state are dissyllables, 

 whilst I can assert positively from my own knowledge of the lan- 

 guage that the two syllables may be resolved into a monosyllabic 

 root and its affix, or into a repeated monosyllabic root. Now these 

 features (which by the way are very noticeable even in the small 

 samples accessible to me of the Circassian tongue) Humboldt has 

 denoted as special characteristics of the Malay o-polynesian languages ; 

 and they are certainly most conspicuous attributes of the Gyarung 

 tongue. Thus, in the first column of the Gyarung vocables there 

 are thirty-five words, whereof not less than thirty-one are dissyllables 

 and only four monosyllables, and the dissyllables are all resolvable 

 into a monosyllabic root and its customary prefix (Ta, mutable into 

 Ka), save those (Pyepye, Nyenye) that are formed by reduplication 

 of the radical. 



That Pye, bird, and Nye, cow, are roots, any one may prove for 

 himself by turning to their Tibetan and Chinese equivalents ; and 

 that in the Gyarung tongue the root is in these instances repeated 

 to constitute the current term or integral word is self-apparent. 

 That, again, in Gyarung Ta is the common and almost indispensable 

 prefix, and is mutable into Ka> both liable to euphonic changes of 

 vowel, to suit that of the radical, the vocabulary also demonstrates, 

 testably to any extent by its predecessors of the allied tongues. 

 And if it be urged, as in truth it may be, that the above constitution 

 of the vocables belongs in essence to all the continental tongues, as 

 Humboldt's sagacity divined it did to all the insular ones, the more 

 frequent use of the prefix and consequent dissyllabism being all that 

 is excessively Gyarung, I have still to produce another Gyarung 



that there are historical or traditional grounds for supposing this very region to be 

 the common nest and original seat of the Chinese and Tibetan races. See Klaproth's 

 Tabl. Histor. and Memoires relatifs a l'Asie and Remusat's Recher. sur les Lang. 

 Tart. 



* I say ordinary state because when all the apparatus of composition attaches, 

 they become polysyllabic. See the sequel, and mark the consequence as to the 

 monosyllabic test. 



