94 



ETHNOLOGY OF THE J >f DO-PACIFIC ISLANDS. 



niid Aiiflnnian islanrL-rs, if compared wiih tliose of the oth*n' hurr- 

 Uiiffes of thfi Old World, will |>rol»a()|y enable m to ascerlatn u iih 

 wliat mcps the Indiims were most intimntely connected prior to 

 the iutruision of ihe Ariansi. . So far as I luivf; jjitliorto been able 

 to cany sucb a comparison, tlu^ result k strongly in favour of a 

 groat influence having been exerted on tlift vocahuliiries of India 

 ilunng pre- Brail mi iiic aj^cs, by Iranian, Semitiii, CtitiCisian and 

 Seyfhic mitious, or by rmtioiiB of one or more of lliese races who-se 

 vocabuhiries had borro«*ed frotu those of the other races* It i^ 

 ijoi ii.timded to assert that a Serniiic or even a Scvlliic formation 

 prevailed over Irania as far as the Indus, prior to the Iiido-Eiiro- 

 [tean. That nm^t depend on other than merely glos'^arial consi- 

 dwation. Whcftier or not llie formation of Ea^it Irania remained 

 Dravirian, more or less inodifitjd by Scythic infinence, iintrl it was 

 dspplaeed by Avian, does not affect the condu^ion that, from this 

 (»roviiice, words of a more weslern and northern derivarrof), were 

 iransmitled by its inhes to India, daring the fjreat interval between 

 the Australian and the Arian epoch«, Tlierc h no f^round to hetit-ve 

 llmt the Caucasian tribes were e\'er lliemselves nomadic and dlfla- 

 sive — allhotigh other tribes of the same family were — or thut 

 purely Semitic tribes speaking pui'ely Semitic languages wert; 

 ever durably established as far to the eastward as the Indu«i. 

 The more important raodificaiions which the Dravirian formation 

 h:is undergone since iho Anatralinn era are not of a Caucasian 

 or Sell] i tic character, bnt of a Scylhic and Scvthico- Iranian- 

 Whatever changes the vocflhularies of cBstern Irania underwent, 

 and however much its tribes were modified physical ly and in 

 civilisation, the linguistic basis would appear to Itave remained 

 I'aiihful to the Scythico-Dravirian tvpe. The probability 

 therefore is that the Dravirian vocabularies derived those 

 Western and Asiatic terms of art and civilisntion, wh:ch are 

 posterior in origin to the Australian era, mainly from Scythic, 

 8eythico-Irani»n and Trani:in tribe?, that successively dominated 

 \u the biisin of the Indes. This is tkr from excluding Semitic 

 iiiHiience, direct or transmitted, for most of the eastern branches of 

 The Irfttdan race, particularly the tribes near the Ijidus as the 

 Atghiins and Beluchi?, are physically highly Semitoi 1. 

 The first class of W. voeabulurics after the Sanskritic, with 



