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amongst the former some will be found intermediate between the Chinese, the Burmese and the Tibetan. This region promises to be the richest for ethnological discoveries of any that yet remains unexplored in Asia, or perhaps in the world. All the S. E. Asian tribes appear to meet in it. On the south the upper division of Burmah and the Chinese province of Yun-nan are known to contain many rude tribes akin to the Burmese and the Lau and all or most of the Turanian races who now occupy the lower basins of the rivers which descend through this region must have been derived from it. The great provinces of Sze-chuen and Kan-suh are also known to contain rude tribes, and the languages of even the more civilised communities of the latter are peculiar.* In the western parts of these provinces the Kham or Si-fan of Mongolian habits, and the true Mongol tribes of the Mongfan and Kukunor Tartars meet the Chinese tribes. In the S. the Mongfan are in contact with the most northerly tribe of the Irawadi basin, the Khanung. The civilised Chinese have pushed themselves into all the more open and fertile portions of the western Provinces. It is through the Province of Kan-suh that the great trading route lies which connects China with Western Asia, and the movements along which must in all eras have affected the distribution of the tribes of middle Asia."

In the Introductory paper (vol. iv. p. 441) and in the earlier chapters of this Part the terms Tibeto-Ultraindian and TibetoIndian are used as descriptive of these Ultraindian and Indian languages that are allied to Tibetan, but distinct from the derivative Tibetan dialects of the Himalayas. In the Introductory paper I remarked that the languages in question had distinctive features when compared with Tibetan, and that the Tibeto-Indiantribes were directly connected not with the Tibetans but with "a proto-Tibetan era when the present widely spread Tibetan race may have only been one of several rude trans-Himalayan tribes speaking dialects of an incipient Tibetan character or even of one nearer the Chinese." The proto-Burmans, it was remarked, "probably occupied some portion of the country on the bounda

According to Chinese writers some of the eastern Tibetan dialects approximate to the Chinese.

ries of China and Tibet. Many other intermediate languages may have existed and some are probably still preserved." In the earlier chapters of this Part the line between the UltraindoGangitic languages and the Tibetan was more broadly and distinctly defined. In chap. I. the former was marked out in the following passage. "The next Ultraindian formation was the Tibeto-Ultraindian which is distinguished from the Mon-Anam by its Tibetan or post-positional and inversive character. It embraces the Burman, the Karen, the Yuma dialects from Kyen to Kuki, the Manipuri, Naga, Mikir, Singpho, Mishmi and AborMiri. It also spread westward up the Gangetic basin and into that of the Sutlej; the Garo, Bodo, Dhimal, the Akha, Changlo and the other Himalayan languages, as far westward as the Milchanang and Tibberkad, belonging to this formation so far as they are not Dravirian, Tibetan or Arian, and so far as they do not preserve remnants of the Mon-Anam formation, the latter being slight on the north side of the Gangetic valley compared with the south or Vindyan. This Tibeto-Ultraindian formation I conceive must have originated at a very ancient period in eastern Tibet or the adjacent territory now Chinese, because it is intermediate between Chinese and Tibetan and more closely connected with the latter than the former."

The Si-fan vocabularies which we owe to Mr. Hodgson have partially removed the veil which hung over eastern Tibet, and my anticipation that the ethnology of this region when explored would prove to be of extraordinary interest, has been verified. Much remains to be ascertained before we can enter on a full investigation of the relation of the Si-fan dialects to the Tibetan and Ultraindian, but enough has been published to satisfy us of the important fact that the Ultraindo-Gangetic languages are more closely connected with the Si-fan than with the proper Tibetan dialects. It will now be convenient to distinguish the latter by the national name of Bhot and to use Tibetan as including both Bhotian and Si-fan tribes and languages. The term Tibeto-Ultraindian or Tibeto-Burman may be applied to the whole family-Tibetan, Ultraindian and Gangetic-and UltraindoGangetic to the southern branch, excluding the southern Bhotians.

I have not thought it necessary to rewrite the whole of this chapter. We may expect further information from Mr. Hodgson respecting the Gangetic and Si-fan languages, and with the present materials, it would still have remained fragmentary whatever shape had been given to it. It will be understood therefore that much of the chapter remains as it stood before I received the Sifan vocabularies, but wherever it appeared advisable in order to save repetition I have embodied the new data. In other cases the additions constitute separate sections or paragraphs. No great inconvenience can arise from the Bhotian and Si-fan branches being to some extent separately treated. There are indeed reasons in favour of such an arrangement. Bhotian is the only Tibetan dialect that has been investigated in detail and its influence on the Ultraindo-Gangetic languages is to a certain extent distinct from that of the Si-fan dialects.]

I. THE TIBETO-BURMAN FORMATION.

Sec. 1. THE GENERAL CHARACTERS OF BHOTIAN, AND ITS RELATION TO CHINESE AND SCYTHIC.

The phonetic and ideologic relation of the Bhotian to the Gangetico-Ultraindian languages in general, and to the Burman in particular, as that of which the grammar is best known, has been already considered. The result of our enquiries may be stated to have been that this relation is of two very different kinds and belongs to widely separated eras. A formation intermediate between the Chinese and the Bhotian, and, it may be added, having some Scythic affinities of its own, spread into Upper Ultraindia at a remote period, its native seat having been in all probability the adjacent province to the northward comprising eastern Tibet and a portion of N. W. China. Of this formation the Burman branch of the Ultraindian languages is the best known representative. But it is a comparatively recent or much modified form. The older form was less emasculated, its vowels were broader, and it used prefixes which gave it a dissyllabic rather than a monosyllabic form. The archaic formation spread down the Irawadi and is now best represented by the Naga, Manipuri and Yuma dialects. This form of Tibeto-Burman appears to have preceded the Burman even in the valley of the Irawadi; and the

other dialects of the same group retain its phonology more tenaceously than Burman. It also spread to the westward from the Asam valley to the head of the Sutlej, all the Gangetic band of Tibeto-Ultraindian dialects from Mishmi to Milchanang adhering to it to a great extent. This form has itself several phases. The earliest appears to have been broad, sonant and in its finals consonantal. The later show various degrees of vocalicism, the final consonants being softened or elided. In all the groups, and in some cases even in local subdivisions of the same dialect, the broad and strong phonology still co-exists to a greater or less extent with the soft and slender. The current and the old or written Bhotian (chap. iv. Sec. 1.), the different Abor dialects (ib. sec. 5), Burman when compared with Karen, Karen when compared with Khyeng and the other Yuma dialects, Gyarung when compared with Thochu or Bhotian, all illustrate the progressive emasculation of the phonology, and in most of the dialects archaic broad vocables are current along with slender ones. In the Gyarung-Burman or Eastern Tibet and Irawadi band the attenuation is most marked. In the Burman phonology the propensity to ellipsis, slender vowels and consonants,-as i for a, e for i, t for k, y for r—has received a peculiar development. This latest form is found most strongly marked in Burman itself which has become highly monosyllabic and attenuated. In Karen and some of the other members of the proper Irawadi group the older form is more persistent.

The history of the direct and exclusive Bhotian influence to the southward of the snows is quite distinct. It began by the migra tion of Bhotians across the Himalayan passes, the occupation of Bhutan, the partial occupation of more western districts, and the diffusion of Bhotian political and ethnic influence not only over the prior Himalayan tribes but partially also over those of the Gangetic plain and North Ultraindia. The Bhotian language was transported to this side of the snows. It partially communicated its forms to the Himalayan languages from Milchanang to Abor-Miri, and in a slighter degree to the Middle Gangetic (Dhimal, Bodo) and some of the North Ultraindian (Garo, Mikir, Naga &c.) It thus appears that the proper Bhotian influence on

the Indian and Ultraindian phonologies and ideologies was inconsiderable. It remains to enquire into the extent of its glossarial influence. The connection between the tribes and languages of Tibet and those of India, Ultraindia and Asonesia, appears also to render a brief enquiry into the trans-Himalayan relations of the Tibetan necessary for a satisfactory view of the ethnology of the Indo-Pacific islands. I shall proceed to this, in the first place.

The cis-Himalayan Tibetoid languages have distinct affinities with those of the Tatar and more northern hordes of Asia. There has evidently been more than one southern movement of the Tibetans in different eras. Tibet has always been exposed to the incursions of the nomadic Tatars, who have, in turn, spread themselves over the steppes between southern Tibet and the great Desert. The relations of Bhotian, in its present form, to the more northern languages, may therefore throw some light on the prehistoric changes which it suffered, and connect the Scythic revolutions in which they originated, with the ethnology of the provinces to the south of the Himalayas.

In preceding chapters it was remarked that Bhotian was so highly Scythic in its ideology that it might be considered as a non-harmonic member of the Scythic family. The phonology preserves a crude or Chinese character almost to the same extent as the Burman. The earlier form of Burman appears to have been harsh and sonant like the purer Bhotian and both are essentially monosyllabic and non-harmonic. In this respect they depart greatly from the Scythic phonology and especially from its more agglutinative varieties. But the basis of even the Ugro-Japanese languages is monosyllabic with very little disguise, and many of them preserve a strong sonant and aspirate tendency. It is probable therefore that at the remote period when the Ugrian formation first modified the earlier and more Chinese form of Tibeto-Burman, the former was equally sonant with the purer Tibetan. In the Ostiak and even in the Turkish vocabularies words frequently occur entirely Bhotian in character. Some of these are found little changed in Bhotian. For example the Ostiak log-ol, "hand", is evidently the parent of the Bhotian lag, the Turkish having the slender form r-lik. The Turkish syod

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