ETHirOIOaT OF THE IKDO-PACTFIC ISLANDS, 33 



The most marked feature of the Dmvirian system of pronouns 

 and parliclea ia its combination of Chinese and Tibetan roots with 

 a Scythic phonology and structure and willi some Scythic roots 

 that are not Chinese. In its cruder and less agglutinative archaic 

 form, of which Australian is partially a representative, its true 

 ytlflce appears to ho between Chinese and Scythic. The mdicfll 

 affinities of the system with Tibeto-Ultraindian are close and 

 unequivocal. In roots the two are the same, and both are 

 Scylhico-Chinese, and much more Chinese than Scythic. The 

 Dravirian and Australian forms do not appear to have been 

 directly derived from Tibeto-Ultraindian* They havo several 

 marks of independent derivation from an E. Asiatic source, 

 Chinese and Scythic. The historical connection with Chinese 

 must be of extreme antiquity and altogether pre-lndian, for the 

 general character of Draviro-Australian is inconssstent with the 

 supposition that the Chinese formation itself waa the first to spread 

 iuto India and become the basis of the Dravirian. This would 

 involve the assumption that before the barbarous Draviro- Aus- 

 tralians spread to Asonesia an original Chinese formation had 

 been modified by an intrusive Scyt?iic one iu India. The con- 

 nection is mainly with the Kwan-hwa or proper N. E, Chinese 

 and not with the western. The supposition that Dravirian pro- 

 ceded Tibetan in Tibet and is simply the product of the oldest 

 Scythico-Chinese current from Tibet into India, Ultraindia and 

 Asonesia, would make the close connection with Tibeto-tJlti'a- 

 iiidiati a direct historical one, for the latter would thus be in great 

 measure a form of the archaic pre-Indian Dravirian in which, 

 after the separation of Dravirian, the Chinese element had increased 

 from contact wiih K^van-hwa and the Scythic proportionally 

 diminished. But the Tibeto-Ultraindian languages themselves 

 oppose strong facts in phonology, glossary and ideology to such a 

 hypothesis, and Dravirian has direct western affinities — Caucaso- 

 African, Iranian and Ugrian — which would of ihemselves render 

 it more probable that the formation was transmitted to India 

 round the Tihetsm region to the westward, and not across it, 

 Tiie affinities between the Draviro-Austi-alian and the Tibeto- 

 Ultraindiaii systems are the necessary result of their both being 

 Scvthico-CtiincsCi but Srythio and Chinese uie each of vast 



