78 
L. A. Waddell— Place and Biver-Names in Sikhim, , fyc. [No. 2, 
centuries which have elapsed since migrating from Tibet, have acquired* 
a dialect which differs in many ways, but chiefly in pronunciation, from 
the polite speech now prevalent at Lhasa. One feature of this difference 
is the tendency, shared in common with the Tsang-pa Bhotiyas of Nepal, 
and already noticed, to insert a final n where such does not appear 
in Tibetan, The country has thus come vulgarly to be called D£n-jong, 
instead of De-jong, and the people generally call themselves Den-jong- 
pa, i. e., 1 the people of Den-jong.’ And the Lepchas in accepting the 
name imposed by their conquerors usually pronounce it Ren-jong— r 
being with them frequently interchangeable with the letter d. 
The etymology of the modern name of ‘ Sikhim * is not at all so 
clear. It is generally alleged by the Lepchas and Bhotiyas to be a 
Parbatiya name, applied to the country by the conquering Gorkhas. 
As the great majority of the Parbatiya words are derived almost direct¬ 
ly from the Sanskrit, I venture to suggest that the most probable deriva¬ 
tion is from the Sanskrit Sikhin = crested: this would charac¬ 
terize the leading feature of the approach from the Nepal side—a long 
high ridge, with Kanchinjunga 28,000 feet and Kabur 22,000 feet in 
its middle, separates this country from the Gorkha territory ; and being 
shut off from Bhotan by another high ridge, the intervening narrow 
tract which constitutes Sikhim presents within itself an unusual number 
of ridges (crests) running more or less in N. to S. direction, transverse 
to the vista from Nepal.f 
Many of the place-names merely denote halting places or stages 
presenting a rock-shelter or a clearing in the jungle with water-supply 
near, and occasionally pasture. These sites, being on lines of commu¬ 
nication and always near a water-supply, occasionally develop into 
villages. These names were probably given by Tibetan merchants 
or other travellers such as priests or monks. The process of such name¬ 
giving might arise through a pioneer merchant or other traveller, 
narrating the stages of his journey into ‘ the rice country ’ (Dejong) and 
his successors adopting his stages and nomenclature. Such a traveller 
might be supposed as saying that, on crossing ‘ the level track pass ’ 
* In some instances the difference appears due to preservation of ancient forms 
of speech rather than a new development, or corrupt dialect. 
t This name is not at all likely to be related to Skt. Wfi, seTc , to wet or moisten, 
for the climate of Sikhim does not appear to be more moist than that of the ad¬ 
joining portion of Eastern Nepal. Nor does the conjecture seem tenable that it is a 
Parbatiya translation of one of the vulgar forms of the Bhotiya name for the 
country, viz., ‘ Demo-jong * or ‘ the happy country ’ from sukhi, happy; as the 
name is never spelt or pronounced with u, and the country was, and still is, a mos t 
inhospitable one. 
