The Ethnology, of India. 25 



common tradition and consent of the country makes it clear that they 

 came as conquering immigrants to their present position at a compara- 

 tively recent period, and their pastoral habit renders their migration 

 easy. Their language, so small a body may well have almost lost 

 daring their wanderings among Dravidians. They may be anything 

 Caucasian, and from anywhere ; ordinary Aborigines they are not. It has 

 been said, that in their speech some words have a resemblance to the 

 Brahui dialect, but personally they do not seem to resemble Brahuis, 

 they are rather like Greeks. 



The points of structure which I have given, as common to all the 

 Aboriginal languages, are, it will be observed, of the widest character. 

 And this brings me to the fact that by the test of language the 

 Aboriginal tribes may be divided into two great classes, having very 

 few vocables in common. The first great division is that of the tribes 

 speaking dialects radically allied to the civilised languages of the 

 South, commonly called the Dravidian languages. These then I shall 

 call the Dravidian Aborigines. There is no doubt that the wild tribes 

 of the southern hills speak wild and primitive forms of the southern 

 languages. The Carambers seem to be ancient Tamil speakers, the 

 Maleasurs of the Western Ghats approach nearer to the Malayala. 

 The Burghers and Kotahs speak a primitive Canarese, the Ramooses, 

 a language which seems to be for the most part Telagoo. 



The Gond language is as clearly Dravidian as Telagoo or Tamil, and 

 the Gonds are so. considerable a people that the Gondee might almost be 

 added to the list of regular languages of the southern type. The 

 name Khond is so like Gond that, next neighbours as they are, one 

 would almost suppose the words to be the same. They are said to be 

 different, but at any rate the Khonds also are shown by their language 

 to be clearly Dravidian. More distant is the tongue of the Oraon 

 tribe, to whose physical characteristics I have already alluded, and who 

 are now found among tribes of the other division (to be presently 

 noticed) in the Chota-Nagpore territory. But the radicals and main 

 features of the Oraon language leave no doubt that they are of 

 Dravidian stock — a circumstance which does not suprise us, as we 

 learn that they are comparatively recent immigrants from the west 

 into their present locations. East of them again, in the Rajmahal 

 hills, we have the last of the Dravidian tribes (so far as has yet been 



