104 Toda Vocabulary, [no. I, new series, 



of their common life and occupation, I find it very difficult 

 to discover words for abstract terms, without which I cannot 

 have a religious conversation with them, so I help myself 

 with Badaga words, which most of them understand. The 

 Todas do not trouble themselves much about religion. Theirs 

 is a very convenient one. Heaven is nothing else but a place 

 where they will have plenty of Buffaloes and as no Toda has 

 any doubt about his going to heaven, he thinks that 

 the occupation in the other world viz. feeding Buffaloes does 

 not require any preparation. 



On this account I find their language very poor and in- 

 sufficient to convey the truth of the Gospel to them. 



Most of their verbs have only one tense, and they 

 help themselves by adverbs of time to express the future and 

 past tenses. 



I also find that there is a slight difference in the dialects 

 of the different tribes of the Todas. For instance one tribe has 

 an Sh where another has an S or a TJi (like the English,) 

 which another again changes into S or T. I write their language 

 in Canarese characters. In printing the Gospel of Luke in the 

 Badaga language, we were obliged to take up some of the old 

 Canarese characters, which are not in use now in the present 

 Canarese. In the Toda language I helped myself by adding 

 marks in some characters to shew the peculiar Toda sound. 

 For instance, the Tli I have given with ^ to distinguish it 

 from and as their Kh is pronounced like the German or 

 rather Swiss Ch I mark this sound by so to make it different 



from so. In many cases the Ph is like the English F 9 which 



