THE ETHNOLOGY OF EASTERN ASIA. 



3 



ginal races of eastern India complete the circuit of the Turanian 

 nations, who thus appear to occupy the whole of Asia with the 

 exception of the tracts occupied by African and quasi-African 

 tribes, and a comparatively small region in the south west including 

 Persia and Arabia, and, in later times, India. The allied Finnish 

 and Hungarian races give them a still greater diffusion to the west. 

 The physical evidences of a community of origin for thr mono- 

 syllabic races and the Tartarian, Tibeto-Indian and lank-haired 

 Asianesian races, are exceedingly strong, and almost conclusive of 

 thcmselv&. 



The enquiry thus arises whether there are any natural pho- 

 netic laws which can explain the seeming contradiction between 

 the linguistic and the physical facts. Is the apparent complete 



Ehonetical insula^on of the Burmah-Chinese languages capable of 

 eing broken down, or have some languages always been tonic and 

 others always harmonic ? Can any natural causes be discovered 

 adequate to explain the passage of the harmonic and essentially 

 dissyllabic into the monosyllabic languages, or the latter into the 

 former ? If so, has the transmutation of the one genus into the 

 other, taken place all round the existing monosyllabic circle, or 

 oidy at one or more particular points ? Was the monosyllabic region 

 at one time of greater extent, and did the phonetic change occur 

 at different points in it and beyond the present tonic boundaries? 

 These are enquiries of the greatest ethnological importance, and 

 demanding an amount of observation far oeyond what we at 

 present possess. Without seeking here to decide which is 

 die more ancient form, I believe that the passage of the tonic into 

 the harmonic is a natural one, while I am not aware of any law 

 that will admit of the conversion of a polysyllabic into a mono- 

 syllabic language. The probability seems to be that the primitive 

 Turanian language was mainly monosyllabic, and that the tribe 

 who spoke it occupied some part of the eastern region of the 

 Asiatic mountain land. Since all the existing monosyllabic races 

 are placed in countries watered by great rivers that descend from 

 the same district in this region, we may further believe that the seat 

 of the tribe was at one time in some of the vallies of eastern Tibet. 

 The preservation of the ancient phonctical character by their des- 

 cendents along all these rivers, and its loss on all other sides, must 

 be connected with the physical geography of the region. Wan- 

 dering to the south and east along the great vallies of these rivers, 

 regions would soou be reached far more favoured bv nature than 

 the cold and sterile- home of the primitive families. Here popula- 

 tion would rapidly increase, large communities be formed, civilization 

 arise, and language take a fixed form. Meanwhile upon the 

 families diverging to the north and west the nomadic habit would 

 be impressed by the nature of the land in those directions, 

 — no great fixed communities would arise, — and each family 

 and tribe, wandering and insulated, would be left to the un- 



