ETHNOLOOT OF THE TNDO-PACIFIC I3LAWDS. 



Scjillic 01' pro-Scythic comlllion, when it \ras still bcatoU in enBieri 

 or central Asia. In the kUer case they woulJ rank vviih ilic pro- 

 nouns. 



While the roots are largely allied to the Scytlik-, and especially to 

 the more western and contnil languages— tlgriari, Samoiede—ihey 

 are not in general derivatives from Scythic. The strucfuro of the 

 vocables is proper to the Di-aviro-Austmliari system, and the forms 

 of the roots are frequently each as are found in other ancipnt 

 familiea of hinguage. In genera! they are to be considered ha 

 equally archaic in the Draviiian and Ugiiuii families, and musl of 

 them appear to have hecn current in the monosyllabic eondiiion 

 of the Dravirian mother tongue. Many vocables proper to a 

 considerably advanced civilization are of this clasa, and we must 

 conclude that the Dravijian-speaklng race which advanced into 

 Ii-ania from the north east and spread over India, was one of 

 the oldest civilised peoples of Asia, and that this family of lan- 

 guage was probably the first of the proper Scytliico-Iranian stock 

 to become dominant on the shores of the Indian Ocean. To the 

 same great movement from the intcriour of the continent on the 

 south western lands a portion of the Scythico-Dravirian vocables 

 found so abundanlly in the Caucasian and Sera itico- African 

 languages is probably to he ascribeil. The Asonesian vocabuhiries 

 contain numerous Scythic, and especially Ugro-Samoidic, roots 

 atid varieties of roots that are not now Dravirian, hut a large pro- 

 portion of these appear to belong to the Dniviro- Australian era 

 and to be referable to the same long continued movement. In the 

 next chapter we shall find that it also aflected the Tibetan langua- 

 ges, western and eastern, — throngli them, fii later ages, tlie Ukrain- 

 dlan andGangetic, — and, still later, the Malayu-Polynesian throu<rh 

 the Ultraindo-Oangetic. Hence of two Ugrian forms of the same 

 root found in Asoncsian vocabularies, it becomes possible to trace 

 one to the primary Draviro- Australian immigrations, an/l the 

 other to the Gangetico-Ultraindiun that immediately preceded the 

 Arian era of India. 



The preceding inferences will be beat illustrated by taking a few 

 terms from different classes and examining the aiiiaities of the 

 prevalent Dravirian roots. 



