232 



ETHNOLOGY OF "fUE INBO-PACIFIC ISLAJTDS, 



Wfien we test tlie Chino-Tibetan numerals by their relationship 

 amongst themselves and |^ iUg cm-rent defini lives, they are found 

 to be leas regular and homofjenoiis than many of the other systems 

 of Aasa, Afi^ica and Asonciia. Many of the Scythic and N. E, 

 Asian eystcma are Jess disorg-nnised. But in these, irref^Hlarities of 

 the same kind occur, and tlie Chiuo*Tibetan system, if considered n9 

 only the last remnant of several dialecta i]mt exited from a \ovy 

 remote era and borrowed from each other, will lake its place with 

 those Scythic ones which have been most changed by a ijimilar 

 cause. The liability of numerals to bo displaced hy the roots and 

 forms of olhcr dialects i* fully illustrated in the sections on the 

 Dmviro-Atistralian, Semilico-Afncan, Indo-European and N. B. 

 Asian numerals, and even in the limited Tibetan field we have 

 found some examples. Thus inGyarung 2 has one Bhotian form, 

 nes, in 2, and another, yet, in 8 ; while 4 has a native variation 

 di, in 4, the Takpa form p\\ in 40, and a tliird variation, or, in 

 8, Manyak has one variation of the Chinese 4 in 4 re, but pre- 

 serves the common Cbino-Bhotian form in 8 zi, and 40, zyi j it 

 has a ]ieculiar form of the Chinese 1 in 1 ta, but possesses the 

 Chino-Tibetan in 10, chi» 



The archaic Chinese numeral systems were evidently closely 

 related to tlie archaic Scythic or proto-Scythic. They were not 

 mere derivatives of the Scythic nor the converse. They go back 

 to the period when the Asiatic systems were little dispersed geogra- 

 phically, and some of the extant forms resemble those of the 

 remoter Seythoid languages — as those of N, E, Asia, — and those 

 found in formations of which the connection with Scythic is very 

 archaic, — as the Caucasian and Dravirian. 



The roots are all or nearly all carrent as definitives, and both the 

 definitive and numeral syatpms of Chinese proper are remarkable for 

 the secondary rank' which the labial holds. But there are strong 

 grounds for believing that in the primary e)%s of the ChiDCse 

 glof^arie?, as in those of the more advanced formations, it hold at 

 least an equal place with the denial &c The Austra!o-Kol, the 

 African, the Dravirian, the Scylhic and N, E. Asian, and the 

 Chinese, illustrate various stages in the decadence of the labial. 

 The monosyilabic dialects that have been transmitted in the basis 



