202 Report on Writing Indian Words [No. 8, New Series, 



But this sound* is by no means peculiar to the Dravidian 

 dialects. It is found to prevail equally throughout the abori- 

 ginal Indo-Chinese tongues of the Himalayas and Tibet 

 Hodgson refers to it repeatedly. " The second z" he observes, 

 presented by me by zy and equal to the French j in jeu, is 

 the same with the Tamil zh of Ellis and Elliot. It is a very 

 prevalent sound and equally prevalent is the French uor eu in 

 jeu aforesaid. Neither is ever heard from an Arian mouth,"&;c.*f* 

 Even among the aborigines, he adds, the influence of 

 Arian vocables is gradually bringing them into disuse. And 

 this is also the case in the South, where from the same cause, 

 they have gradually disappeared from the Telugu and 

 Canarese. 



It becomes a matter of interest therefore, to observe the 

 expedient employed in these two dialects, to replace the absence 

 of this characteristic sound, in words of common origin. 



The following 



* Pref. to Gloss, p. xv. 



t Hodgson, Aborigines of the Nilagiris in Journal Af. Soc. Bengal, XX V\ 



