ETHNOLOOV OF THK INDO-PACIFIO ML AMDS. 



215 



earlier periods of the mutual mfluence of the two families a^r 

 their separation, and occupation of distinct provinces. 



The Tibetan system of pronouns and other definitives is Chino- 

 ScjH;hic, and in its basia very archaic and, as a whole, not referable 

 exclusively to any of the eiistiug Chinese or Scythic languages as 

 its parent. The roots are in general Cliineae and Chino-Scythic 

 and such as probably all existed in ancient Chinese diaJecta. 

 Their forms are of an intermediate kind, the root sometimes ap- 

 pearing bare where in Scythic it would liave a postfixed definitive, 

 but in general the system presents compoiiods similar to those of 

 the cruder and lese agglutinative Scythic languages. While some 

 of the forms of the particles are similar to the most prevalent 

 Chinese and Scythic, others aro more ai'chaic, resembling remote 

 Ugrian and N. E. Asian varieties. The pronominal roots are cur- 

 rent Chinese, with the exception of the Bhotian 2d pronoun whicli 

 is a broad form, eimikr to the 3d and to the broad forms of the 

 allied Scythic 2d and 3d. The Sokpa chba has not the current 

 slender and sibiknt Mongolian, Tatar or TTgrian form, but one 

 more akin to the Yakuti and Samoiede, and closely connected 

 through tbe correaponding forms of the 3d pronoun with the 

 Chinese broad form of the 3d pronoun tlia. It is probable that 

 similar archaic Chinese forms were also common in the archaic 

 Scythic dialAits and that they have been retained in some of the 

 Tibetan ones. If Sokpa be an intrusive Mongolian dialect in a 

 comparatively recent age it may have acquired rather than bestow- 

 ed its broad 2d and 3d pronouns when it came in contact with the 

 Tibetan languages. Tho 3d has the %ami and Thochu broad 

 form of the Chinese dental root, tha, the current Mongolian roots 

 in other dialects being ede, ene. (Comp. the Quang-tung deng 

 " that", Bhot. dc, re). But one of them has egun and the Bhoto- 

 Himalayan kbo, khufw &c is the same form. If the Bhoto-Hi- 

 malayau vocabidaries had been much influenced by the Sokpa or 

 other Mongolian it might have been infeiTcd that these pronomi- 

 nal affinities were the result of tho advance of the Mongolians 

 into the Tibetan province. But as tho general glossaries of tbe 

 Bhoto-Himalayan tongues have few distinctively Mongolian affini- 

 ties it may be concluded that the pronouns and dotinllives are 

 archaic ia Bhoto-Himalayan as in Scythic. The Bhotian system 



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