t- TI1K PIGMIES. 



" native of North Andaman is as utterly unable to make himself 

 " understood by a native of South Andaman, as an English pea- 

 " sant would be by a Russian." It is not, therefore, a question of 

 simple dialects, but in reality of distinct languages. Yet these 

 languages have a common origin and structure ; they are all agglu- 

 tinative. Should they have any affinities with others, which 

 Messrs. Man and Temple consider as doubtful, it might be with 

 the languages of Australia or of the Dravidian and Scythian groups, 

 which they resemble in a few peculiarities, such as the use of 

 post-positions instead of prepositions ; the use of two forms — one 

 inclusive, the other exclusive — for the first person of the plural, 

 and, in general, in the agglutinative structure of words. Heading 

 over these few sentences one is naturally reminded of the connec- 

 tion already noted by philologists among others by our eminent 

 colleague, Mr. Mauky, as existing between the Dravidian and Aus- 

 tralian languages. ( l ) To these Messrs. Man and Temple add 

 a third philological group which has probably preceded the two 

 others. Everything in fact tends more and more to prove that the 

 Negrito race, of which the Mincopies are the purest repres- 

 entatives, is the fundamental negro element of all or very nearly 

 all the Dravidian tribes and of those who, though not speak- 

 ing a language classified under that name, resemble them in 

 physical characteristics. ( 2 ) If this is really the case, are we not 

 entitled to believe that the substratum of this linguistic family 

 will be found in the Mincopie languages ? At all events, it is an 

 interesting problem to solve, and we heartily wish that Messrs. 

 Man and Temple may pursue researches which have already led 

 them to such curious results. 



Though scattered from the Andaman Islands to the Philippines, 

 the Negrito tribes have retained, in a remarkable manner, nil their 

 exterior and osteological characteristics. It is otherwise with re- 



(1) La Torre et V Homme, 3me edition? p. 504 J M. Ma cjey is moreover 

 inclined to connect these two groups of languages with the Medo- Scythian, 

 which was probably spoken, he says, by the native tribes of Media and Susiana. 



(a) I have dwelt on this question in a paper in the Revue (V Ethnogra- 

 phy Vol. 1. 



