54 



ON THE CLASSIFICATION 



usages are found frequently ; thus among the Abipones, who 

 abolish all appellative words which bear any affinity with 

 the names of deceased persons. 62 Many more examples of 

 this kind could be quoted without difficulty. 



The terms of kinship hitherto considered excluded sex, 

 but there exist some concrete languages which include it. 

 These latter formations indicate undoubtedly a progress. 

 If sex alone besides relationship were expressed, such 

 words would have assumed an abstract appearance. The 

 circumstance of their still retaining age proclaims their 

 concrete nature. 



Eank and position are, as noted before, closely connected 

 with and inseparable from seniority. The eldest brother 

 is, in the absence of another elder member of the family, 

 eo ipso its head. The eldest sister enjoys a similar distin- 

 guished position, especially where the laws of inheritance 

 favor the female line. The precedence granted to seniors 

 lowers the position of juniors. Even language does not treat 

 both with the same regard. While distinct terms are 

 conceded to the elders, the juniors of both sexes have 

 either only one name in common, or when they enjoy the 

 privilege of having special terms assigned to them, these 

 terms themselves bear often the impression of a later origin. 

 Thus the Tamil word for younger brother Tambi, is, accord- 

 ing to the well-known native explanation, composed of the 

 possessive pronoun tarn and the adjective pin " after " (the 

 Telugu pirn in pimmata afterwards), and it stands for pin 

 pirandavan, he who is born afterwards, an expression cor- 

 responding to the Sanskrit anuja. Separate terms for " elder 

 brother " and " elder sister," together with common ones for 



(62) See : Dobrizhoffer's Abipones, II, pages 203-4. " The Abipones do not 

 like that any thing should remain to remind them of the dead. Hence 

 appellative words bearing any affinity with the names of the deceased are 

 presently abolished. Hence it is that our vocabularies are so full of blots, 

 occasioned by our having such frequent occasion to obliterate interdicted 

 words, and insert new ones." Among the natives of Australia and of 

 Tasmania a similar custom prevails. 



