THE ETHNOLOGY OF EASTERN ASIA.

BY

J. R. LOGAN,

GENERAL REVIEW.

SECT. 1. Introductory remarks on the ethnological importance of the races aud languages of E. Asia, the isolation of the tonic group, and its relation to the Tartarian and other harmonic languages.

THE ethnology of the Indian Archipelago and the more eastern parts of Asianesia has, on most sides, a double aspect, one of an African and the other of an Asiatic character. These, however, are frequently so blended that it is difficult to say which traits belong to the one and which to the other. Again, African and Asiatic ethnology have much in common, and they must have approximated more closely in archaic times, when all the races of the old world were nearer the same level of barbarity than they have been in historical times. In forming any estimate of the proportion between the ethnic traits in which the Asiatic immigrants into Indonesia agreed with the more ancient Indo-African occupants and those in which they differed, it is obvious that there are many sources of error if we confine our veiw to Asianesia itself. For several thousands of years negro and non-negro lines have run parallel to each other from the Andamans and Nicobars to Polynesia on the one side, and to Formosa and probably even to Japan on the other. In some regions the negro element prevails and in others the Indo-African. Here the one race are the exclusive occupants and there the other. In one island we see the two races living in proximity and independence; in another the negroes are wild wanderers in the forests; in a third they have ceased to exist as a separate people, and left no other physical trace of their presence save in the partially negro character which the Polynesian or Indonesian community has acquired. Even in Australia the Malayu-Polynesian element is strong, and there cannot be a doubt that it has penetrated into every part of Papuanesia. We must therefore go beyond Asianesia to find the African and Asiatic elements in a state of purity. We must seize the distinctive features of the two developments in their native regions, and furnished with this knowledge, we may tread with more certainty the labyrinth of Asianesian ethnology.

We shall begin with Eastern Asia, not only because the Asiatic races of the islands are the most developed, predominant and interesting, but because this course will enable us at once to investigate a most important problem in ethnology, a solution of which is not merely necessary for our Asianesian researches, but is greatly desired by ethnologists for the general progress of the science. It is well known that a large group of languages exist in S. E. Asia

which are distinguished by their tones, their monosyllabic character, and their consequent want of that power of phonetic composition and flexion which pervades European languages, and without which they would, with our ideologic notions and habits, cease to be languages, and become mere catalogues of words incapable of being formed into intelligent speech. The apparent isolation of this group excites attention not less than its singular character, and we are especially struck by finding that its peculiarities abruptly stop with the shores of the continent. The soft, highly vocalic, harmonic and consequently dissyllabic character which distinguishes the Malayu-Polynesian languages, becomes a phenomenon of extreme interest when we thus find that it presents a complete contrast to the adjacent languages of S. E. Asia, with the exception of those of the Malay Peninsula. In the great circuit from Sumatra to the Liu-kiu islands, the continental languages are throughout monosyllabic and strongly intonated. When we pass to the islands lying in front of them this character is entirely lost and another kind of uniformity takes place. But when we extend our observations beyond this circuit to the north-east and north-west, we find that the peculiar phonetic character of the insular languages spreads at both ends into the continent, meets in the interior behind the monosyllabic region, occupies the greater part of middle and northern Asia, and may be followed into Europe, Africa and America. The tonic thus form a compact group entirely surrounded by harmonic languages.

The physical facts present a somewhat different result. The tribes of the tonic languages are not physiologically separated from the surrounding tribes of the harmonic languages, but the range of the latter languages is far beyond that of the physical type of east and north Asia. Viewing the Tibeto-Chinese region as a centre we find that varieties of this type may be traced throughout its prolongation in a south eastern direction in the great Archipelago extending from the Bay of Bengal and the China Sea to the Marquesas islands and New Zealand, including the whole of the Indian Archipelago and Polynesia, while to the east a great portion of the north Pacific Ocean is occupied by tribes of the same type. It is continued on the north east by the races of the Peninsula of Koria and the chain of islands, including the Japanese group, stretching from the China Sea to Kamchatka. In America the prevailing type is the same variety of the Turanian that is found in New Zealand, China, Japan and N. E. Asia. In the latter continent the great Tangusian band runs up to the sea of Okhotsk and then sweeps westward to the Yenesei river. On the north, Mongolian races occupy a great tract behind China, and these are succeeded to the west by the Turkish races who have extended themselves to the eastern margin of the Mediterranean. The other tribes in the N. E. and N. of Asia are physically allied to the Tartarian family. On the east, the Tibetans and the abori

ginal races of eastern India complete the circuit of the Turanian nations, who thus appear to occupy the whole of Asia with the exception of the tracts occupied by African and quasi-African tribes, and a comparatively small region in the south west including Persia and Arabia, and, in later times, India. The allied Finnish and Hungarian races give them a still greater diffusion to the west. The physical evidences of a community of origin for the monosyllabic races and the Tartarian, Tibeto-Indian and lank-haired Asianesian races, are exceedingly strong, and almost conclusive of themselves.

The enquiry thus arises whether there are any natural phonetic laws which can explain the seeming contradiction between the linguistic and the physical facts. Is the apparent complete phonetical insulation of the Burmah-Chinese languages capable of being broken down, or have some languages always been tonic and others always harmonic? Can any natural causes be discovered adequate to explain the passage of the harmonic and essentially dissyllabic into the monosyllabic languages, or the latter into the former? If so, has the transmutation of the one genus into the other, taken place all round the existing monosyllabic circle, or only at one or more particular points? Was the monosyllabic region at one time of greater extent, and did the phonetic change occur at different points in it and beyond the present tonic boundaries? These are enquiries of the greatest ethnological importance, and demanding an amount of observation far beyond what we at present possess. Without seeking here to decide which is the more ancient form, I believe that the passage of the tonic into the harmonic is a natural one, while I am not aware of any law that will admit of the conversion of a polysyllabic into a monosyllabic language. The probability seems to be that the primitive Turanian language was mainly monosyllabic, and that the tribe who spoke it occupied some part of the eastern region of the Asiatic mountain land. Since all the existing monosyllabic races are placed in countries watered by great rivers that descend from the same district in this region, we may further believe that the seat of the tribe was at one time in some of the vallies of eastern Tibet. The preservation of the ancient phonetical character by their descendents along all these rivers, and its loss on all other sides, must be connected with the physical geography of the region. Wandering to the south and east along the great vallies of these rivers, regions would soon be reached far more favoured by nature than the cold and sterile home of the primitive families. Here population would rapidly increase, large communities be formed, civilization arise, and language take a fixed form. Meanwhile upon the families diverging to the north and west the nomadic habit would be impressed by the nature of the land in those directions, -no great fixed communities would arise, and each family and tribe, wandering and insulated, would be left to the un

checked operation of those natural laws which destroy monosyllableness. The latter character would no where be preserved save where fixed communities had grown up in an early epoch. But since that era a great succession of changes must have taken place. As civilisation advanced in Mid-Asia, and the means of rapid locomotion were acquired, isolation would cease. The expansion of strong tribes would no longer be necessarily a self division and a growth of new nations. Dominant races would arise in every region adjoining the great highways. There must then have ensued a great series of movements and displacements, tending not merely to disturb, but in many regions to obliterate, the primary distribution of nations. But as continuous floods or streams of foreign peoples have never been poured into middle Asia, its revolutions, even when incited by foreign causes, have led to no change in the fundamental ethnic character of the region. Even foreign governments and foreign religions have rather taken a native character than imposed their own.

The Turanian languages, as we shall find, although sufficiently distinguished from the monosyllabic group of S. E. and the inflectional family of S. W. Asia, present very considerable variations in their phonetic and ideologic character. It is evident that the present Tartarian races have not been the immediate progenitors of most of the more remote members of the family. The races of America and N. E. Asia, although physically most closely connected with the Chinese and some of the other nations of E. Asia, possess a linguistic development that allies them also to the races of S. W. Asia and Africa, and to the single European remnant of a similar development still found in Spain. Much of the advance of the Tartarian nations in all directions is historical. Before their expansion began, the ethnology of middle and northern Asia probably presented a linguistic development with traits more akin to those of the Africo-Semitic, Euskarian and Celtic on the one side and the American on the other. But although, in tracing the ethnic history of the Turanian development, the Tartarian nations may be found to occupy a different place in more ancient times, and the connection of some of the groups to the east and west be proved to be independent of them, their proximity to the monosyllabic family and their greater approach to it, linguistically, must always make them a most essential element in the investigation of the development of the languages of the Turanian races.

In enormous geographical extension and in amount of population, the Turanian family is the greatest on the globe. If philology can connect the various branches as closely as physiology has done, and thus demonstrate the reality of its unity, it will render one of the greatest services to ethnology. But the very hypothesis of so wide a dispersion of one tribe necessarily implies a vast lapse of time. If the Laplanders, the Tangusians, the Eastern Indians, the New Zealanders, and the American aborigines, are all the des

cendants of one Asiatic tribe we must ascend through thousands of years to the point of time at which they were united in that tribe; and a complete separation of the diverging emigrants during periods so great and in regions so different in every physical characteristic, that animal and vegetable life have no resemblance, must prepare us for an almost total obliteration of the primitive vocabulary. If anything of the ancient language has been preserved we must rather expect to find it in the mental and phonetic tendencies and habits which produced that ancient language itself. The linguistic faculty of each tribe will retain the direction which it received in the bosom of the original community, and continue to work in a manner analogous to that in which it produced the primitive language. But there will be little identity in actual words, and even in phonology and structure there will be much diversity. The proof of common descent will depend on the accumulation of ethnic facts of all kinds, and a great departure by a particular language in any direction will not militate against the conclusiveness of the entire body of the evidence. It is to be anticipated that particular languages may be selected which will exhibit striking differences, and which, if considered by themselves, it will be difficult or impossible to refer to a cominon origin." But it may also be anticipated that other languages of the family. will enable us to discover the natural laws by which these diversities have been occasioned, and thus lead to a reconciliation of both with the mother tongue and with each other. The general comparison which we intend to make, as accessary to the more immediate purpose of this paper, will prepare the way for the establishment of some of these laws, and, if it have no other result, will, we hope, at least help to awaken more general attention in this part of the Turanian region to the high ethnological importance of accurate observations of languages.

In our 2nd introductory essay we expressed our conviction that phonetic comparisons were of more value than merely structural,

The materials that have been accumulated for a a full linguistic review are meagre. Many languages of the Indian Archipelago and the adjacent regions have not been described at all. The amount of information which we possess of the others varies extremely. Not one has been thoroughly analyzed. The same remarks apply to the Continental languages. In America, Eastern Asia and Africa there are hundreds of languages of which we have hardly any knowledge or are entirely ignorant. With few exceptions the grammars and structural notices of those that have been most fully investigated are empirical or merely formal. Their method is not merely extremely narrow but in most cases is positively false. Instead of viewing each language as a great and complex natural phenomenon, and seeking to penetrate into the laws of its phonetic and ideologic organism by a scientific observation of the facts of all kinds through which these laws are manifested, each writer has come to the task predetermined to discover a repetition of European grammatical forms and nothing else. All we can do therefore for the present is to select a few of the principal tongues in each region, notice their leading characteristics so far as these have been ascertained, compare them with the other known languages of the region, and inquire how far the facts thus brought together prove or suggest alliances leading to a knowledge of the ethnological place of the different East Asian and Asianesian languages.