OF LANGUAGES. 



35 



of endearment. Equals prefer to address each other as 

 brother and sister. 34 This is a common mode of naming, 

 especially among nations who retain a certain amount of 

 caste or clan feeling. If it prevails among people who speak 

 a concrete language, the terms ' ' elder " and " younger 

 brother " or " sister " enable the speakers to combine the 

 expressions of deference or condescension even while admit- 

 ting or claiming equality. This is expressed when in South 

 India people call each other anna or tambi, &c. A remnant 

 of this custom exists in the form in which reigning princes 

 address each other when they call their equals in rank and 

 power brothers, sisters, and their inferiors by a more distant 

 term of kindred, as cousins. 



From this concrete mode of address, by means of the 

 words of relationship, to the practice of using an abstract and 

 now more common form of address, represented by the 

 pronoun, is a wide step ; but these terms of consanguinity 

 and the pronouns retain a certain affinity and connection 

 between each other, which manifests itself in the manner in 

 which both ignore or express gender. 



CHAPTER V. 



DIVISION OF LANGUAGES INTO CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT 

 LANGUAGES. 



According to the propensity towards concreteness and 

 abstractness given in the previous chapter, we propose to 

 divide all languages into two classes, into concrete and 

 abstract languages. Both divisions are in their turn 



(34) A Kashmiri addresses his superior as Huta sah> oh sir ; an equal as 

 Huta bd, oh brother ; an inferior as Hatd, holla. An elderly woman equal in 

 rank is accosted as Hata didd, oh mother ; one equal in age and rank as Hata 

 bimj, oh sister ; one who is older but inferior in rank as Hata maaj, oh mother ; 

 one who is inferior in rank without reference to age is addressed Hatai, 

 holla. A boy is called Hato nechivtja, oh son ; or Hato shuryd, oh child ; a girl 

 Hata koori, oh daughter. See : Asiat. Soc. of Bengal Journal, Vol. XIII, 

 page 565. 



