258 8. E. Peal—A peculiarity of the river names in Asam.  [No. 4, 
A peculiarity of the river names in Asam and some of the adjoining 
countries.—By 8. E. Peau, Sibsagar, Asam. 
Some years ago the prevalence of Di or Ti, as a prefix to river names 
in Asam, induced me to draw up a list of such, in the hope that some clue 
might be found that would explain the frequent recurrence of it. 
It soon became evident that this Di, Ti, meant “ water’? in many of 
the hill dialects, and that the second part of the word was the true name 
of the river, in many cases descriptive; thus, the Tisa of the Naga hills 
means, Ti = water, Sa = young, the “ young river.” 
Di and Ti was also frequently seen as a suffix; thus, Ai ti = mother 
water, Rapti, Tapti, Kampti &c.; occasionally softened to thi, as in 
Yung-thi, La-thi, Mi-thi. 
More extended search revealed the peculiarity in most of the countries 
adjacent, with traces of it as far as western India. In the Naga hills, there 
are several variations, Ti, Tsi, Di, Dsu, and Chi, among Kacharies, Doi, 
Lushais Tui, and over the Malayan peninsula Tsi and Si, as in Si-tang, 
Si-mun, Sigtin, although both Ti and Di also are occasionally met with. 
In China we see it under various forms, as Tse, e. g- in Yang tse 
Kyang, and as Tsi, Tchi, Tchu, Sui and Chu, which latter is also so prevalent 
over Tibet, Chu being Tibetan for water. This latter is also common all 
along our northern frontier, “‘ Lang chw” being in fact the upper Indus. 
Northwards, among the restricted Turanians, we get the Turki Su for 
water, and the Mongolian Us-su, no doubt related to the Tibetan Chu and 
Chinese Sui. 
Following the course of the great Turki Mongolian invasions, from 
the north-east, we find this same word for water, more or less attached to 
rivers through Persia (as Sui) and Asia Minor (Siai, Soui, Su), emerging 
in European Turki as Su (there are two Kara-su rivers alone, falling into 
the gulf of Salonica, kara = black and su = water). Obviously these 
names are more or less of a generic character, the black water, the white 
water, &¢., being common in most countries. Returning eastward to 
Asam, where the Di is so very prevalent, it is noteworthy that the Doi of 
the Asamese Kacharies seems related to the Da and Dah of the aborigi- 
nals of western Bengal and Central India. Passing westwards from Asam, 
we see the Tista, Di-pok, Di-onai, &c. in Bihar ; Seti and Di-wa are also names 
of the Gogra; and Di-ngrai, a branch of the Arun in Nipal, is an almost 
exact repetition of the Ti-ngrai of eastern Asam. 
Among the tributaries of the Ganges we have the Dioha, Rapti, and 
Gum-ti.* Again we have the Di-saun R. B. of the Bitwa (Jamna), the 
Narbada is the Kun-di, and we have the Tapti, Rapti, Dasti, Dire, &e. T 
* There is another Gumti in Hill Tipperah, 
