MADRAS JOURNAL 



OF 



LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 



NO. 7. NEW SERIES. 

 April— Sept. 1858. 



I. Vocabulary of the Dialect spoken by the Kotas on 

 the Nilagiri Hills by the Rev. F. Metz. 



I am not aware that any thing has been written about 

 the language of the Kotas who occupy the seven villages on the 

 Hills, called Kotagherry, and must have settled on these 

 mountains at the same period or not long after the time, when 

 the Todas, the so called Aborigines of the Hills, chose them 

 as a pasture for their large herds of Buffalos. It is very 

 probable that the Kotas lived among the Todas or in the 

 neighbourhood of them before their immigration to the 

 Hills, and that they supplied the latter with grain and 

 jewels, in return for which they got all the Buffalos which 

 died, at the time when both tribes inhabited some mountains 

 to the North East of the Hills, and that the Kotas followed 

 their acknowledged masters the Todas, on account of the rich 

 harvest of Buffalo carcases by which they were sure to find 

 always a good subsistence. 



The dialects of the Todas and Kotas are so near to each 

 other that both parties can converse with each other in their 

 own language, but when the Badagas came up, they found 

 it necessary to acquire the language of the new settlers, be- 

 cause they were superior both in numbers and civilization. 



Vol. xx. o. s, Vol. iv. n. s. 



