ETHNOLOGY OF THR IN' DO-PACIFIC ISLANDS. 



189 



" liffhif' preaerres the original of tlie Bhofcian hold in the same 

 Bouaut foriu. Ugriaii aud TurkiaK retain Bonaut forms ofaii 

 ancifini root for rivei-f^ which has become softened in the prt?- 

 valent Tatar, Tibetan, XJltraiudiau and Asoneaian gloaaologies 

 (Comp. Ugr. ju-fl^n, Tm'k., eug, Turk., Mong. w-sim, chun, 

 Tibeto-Indoneaiaa chang, sung &c.) The Ugrian log, fiarse" 

 (also lo) is more sonant than tho derivative Himala}'o-Burmaii 

 and Indonesian forms rang, ra &c. In tho less omasculated Indo- 

 European voeabidariea, the sonant forma of tho ancient Tnranian 

 roots are frequentlj"- retain. There can be no doubt that the 

 Cliinese and Chiuo-Ultraiudian or Mon-Anani formation was also 

 originally highly sonant, but the strong glossarial affinity of 

 Bhotian to the Ugrian alliance ren<Iora it clear that the sonant 

 character of Bhotian was immediately related not only to the 

 aroliaic • Chinese but to tlio Scytbic, and through it, to the arcliato 

 Indo-European. It ha^ a greater range of final consonants even 

 than tlie moat conaouantal and sonant of the known Chinese 

 dialects, the central and southern. At the period when the 

 Tonic Dictionaries were compiled— the 6th or 7tb centuries of the 

 Christian era — tho phonology of the Kiang provinces waa more 

 emasculated than the written Bhotian. The latter probably 

 preserved an example of very archaic CJiinese phonologies, anterior 

 it may be to the development of the- harmonic phonology and 

 when the mofher dialects of Scythic, Indo-European and all of 

 other formations consisted of crude, monosyllabic and tonic roots*. 



The Bliotian phonology is much cruder and more archaic than the 

 Scythic or that of any of the other harmonic formations. When 

 t!ie formation separated from the common stock the latter was little 

 in advance of the Chinese, monosyllables andhomophous abounded, 

 agglutination was feoblo or only beginning to affect the form of 

 vocables, the defluitivcs and other particles were not concreted 

 with substantial words or with each other. The Bhotian phono- 

 logy contrasts so strongly with tne highly hannonic Scythic that 



• Since cliap. III. woa published tlie Rev. Mr Eilgkin in his Gram mar of I ho 

 Shanghfti dialect has shown that tlio sjanaitt ten dencies of some of the middle atid 

 drjuUiern ]uii[?uagt*9 are more decided tlmn previoug (Jrammars had led u3 to be- 

 lieve. In H eulSeqaent sectioiv the resnlta vl Air Edgkin'a oriffSnal und Important 

 eoiiuiriesliito th* phonologiea of the CUiiifiae diolecta wllJ he uoticed. 



