OP LANGUAGES. 



61 



of a language. As in concrete languages the concrete 

 or special terms " elder brother " and " younger brother " 

 are used, and an abstractor general term " brother " does 

 not exist, so also is the " We" expressed either in a special 

 or in a general sense. The abstract languages admit in the 

 dual and plural only one general temi for " we," but the 

 concrete languages vary from them and acknowledge the 

 difference in the pronoun we by special expressions. Strictly 

 speaking there are two separate kinds of " we." It 

 either includes the speaker and the party addressed, or 

 excludes the party addressed and includes that spoken of. 

 " "We two " is either " Thou and I " or " He and I," the 

 plural ' 1 we" signifies in the same manner " You and I " 

 and " They and I." Every language which contains such 

 inclusive and exclusive terms of " we, " indicates by their 

 presence its concrete tendency. The Hottentot idioms are 

 rich in such distinctions ; this fact is a sure sign of the 

 Hottentot dialects belonging to the concrete and not to the 

 abstract class, which includes Egyptian and Hebrew. This 

 primitive distinction has disappeared from many concrete 

 languages, but its existence in a large number entitles us to 

 the supposition, that it was originally an expression common 

 to all concrete idioms, but that it eventually fell into disuse 

 with some of them. The presence of abstract terms as 

 " brother" and k£ sister," dch and dchoth in Hebrew, bhrdtri 

 and svasri in Sanskrit, is countenanced by the existence of an 

 abstract " we," nachnu and vayam. 



Among others it survives to this day in Asia in the Mand- 

 chu, 73 Bahing, 74 Gujarati, 75 and the Dravidian 76 languages. 



(73) We inclusive is be, we exclusive musi. 



(74) The Dual incl. is gosi, the Dual excl. gosuJcu ; the Pliir. incl. goi, and 

 the Plur. exel. goku ; see : Journal Bengal Asiat. Soc, Vol. XXVI, page 498, 

 in B. H. Hodgson's Comparative Vocabulary. 



(75) Plur. incl. dpane, excl. ame. 



(76) In Tamil : Plur. incl. nam, excl. " ndngal ;" in Malayalam : Plur. incl. 

 nam, excl. nammal (nafigal) ; in Telugu : Plur. incl. manamu, excl. mSmu ; in 



