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JOURNAL, K.A.S. (CEYLON). [Vol. IX. 



early mixture of the Veddas with the Sanskrit-speaking 

 people of India. Mr. Max Miiller* confirms the frequency of 

 Sanskrit words in the Vedda language ; more than half the 

 Vedda words, according to him, are, as in the Sinhalese itself, 

 mere corruptions of the Sanskrit. Mr. E. Tylort also, who 

 considers the Sinhalese an Aryan tongue, holds the Vedda 

 language for a Sinhalese dialect, although with a mixture of 

 Dravidian (Telugu) words. Therefore he finds a striking 

 contradiction in that probably a non-Aryan, aboriginal tribe 

 speaks an Aryan language. This he calls a perfectly unique 

 instance in ethnology. Later on! he repeats his thesis in the 

 following words : " Their legends as well as their language 

 make a mixture of Aryan blood along with Aryan language 

 probable ; whilst bodily characteristics show that the race of 

 Vedda belong chiefly to the native pre-Aryan type. 



Mr. HartshorneJ has again recently asserted, in direct 

 opposition to Mr. Tylor, the entire absence of a distinct 

 Dravidian element in the Vedda language, and allows in it 

 only approaches to the Sinhalese, to the Pali, and to the 

 Sanskrit. Mr. Cust§ contends for the reverse, objects to the 

 idea of any admixture of Pali or Sanskrit, and holds the 



* Max Muller. Address to the First Meeting of the Aryan Section of 

 the Oriental Congress of 1874, cited by Childers, I. c, vol. 8., p. 131, 

 note. 



f Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, 1870. New series, 

 vol. 2, p. 96. 



X Hartshorne, I. c, p. 417. " Besides the words which indicate an affinity 

 with Sinhalese, there are others which are allied with Pali and with Sanscrit, 

 and an important residue of doubtful origin ; but it is worthy of remark 

 that from beginning to end the vocabulary is characterised by an absence 

 of any distinctly Dravidian element, and that it appears to bear no resem- 

 blance whatever to the language spoken by the Yakkas of the East Nipal. 

 A similarity may, indeed, be traced here and there between a Wedda word 

 and the equivalent for the same idea in modern Tamil, Malayalam, or 

 Telugu ; but the cases in which comparison is possible are so rare, that 

 these apparent coincidences may be fairly considered to be merely 

 fortuitous." 



§ R. Cast. A Sketch of the Modern Languages of East India. London, 

 1878, p. 63. 



