The Ethnology of India, 9 



Words which may almost be taken as unfailing tests in classifying lan- 

 guage ; for instance, the first few numerals, the names for the com- 

 monest parts of the human body — as hand, foot, nose, eyes, mouth 

 head, &c— the names of the commonest family relations — father, 

 mother, brother, sister — sun and moon, fire and water — the personal 

 pronouns, and one or two others. I shall try to add to this paper 

 some of Mr. Hodgson's lists. I do not know that they are all the 

 best selected words, but they are uniform lists of different languages 

 in parallel columns, and will enable any observer to determine on the 

 spot whether the savage he has caught, prima facie, seems to belong 

 to one or other of the classes represented in the columns. I shall 

 also make a smaller list of English words, a translation of which I 

 would recommend to be sent with each account of a tribe or race, 

 speaking a language in any degree peculiar. 



It should be observed that it may not un frequently happen that 

 men who seem to speak but a rough jargon of some well known lan- 

 guage may, on close observation, be found to use peculiar terms for 

 some of the most familiar objects, and that these latter may be inva- 

 luable as containing the remnants of their original language, all but ab- 

 sorbed in another which they have for the most part adopted. Especially 

 will such words be valuable, if they can be in any degree identified with 

 those in any of the Aboriginal Vocabularies. 



Grammatical structure is somewhat more difficult of observation, and 

 so far as I know, the general structural character of all the modern 

 Indian languages is in a considerable degree similar. I mean that 

 there is no such radical difference of formation as there is between 

 Hindee and Arabic. But those who can give a little attention to the 

 subject, might supply small grammars of declension, conjugation, and 

 derivation, which would be eminently useful. And on the Eastern 

 Frontier, the distinction between Indian and Indo-Chinese grammatical 

 forms might probably be readily marked. 



3. Religion. There is so much similarity in the religions of so 

 many rude tribes, that there may be doubt whether such worship as 

 that of the Sun, Moon, and the lord of Tigers represents a wide spread 

 religion, or merely a coincidence of very obvious ideas repeated again 

 and again ; but it is worth noticing these ideas, in the hope that some 



