EXPOSITORY INDEX TO THE MAPS. I.—MAP OF THE MONOSYLLABIC LANGUAGES. THE Monosyllabic languages are spoken exclusively in the south-eastern angle of the continent of Asia: their area is little inferior in point of extent to the whole of Europe. The various nations by whom these languages are employed all belong to one stock or family, and are distinguished, in a more or less modified degree, by the Mongolic type of physical conformation. The religion which has obtained the widest acceptance among this race is Buddhism, but other forms of belief are also received. The religion of Confucius, for instance, prevails to a considerable extent in China; and a rude species of idolatry, said in some instances to resemble that practised by the Esquimaux, is predominant among the wild, untutored tribes of the mountains, who still preserve their independence in the very midst of the civilised nations of this race. The Monosyllabic languages are referable, geographically and philologically, to three grand divisions, namely, the languages of China, the languages of the Indo-Chinese or Transgangetic peninsula, and the languages of Thibet and the Himalayas. I. LANGUAGES OF CHINA. CHINESE is the language of China, an extensive country, of which the entire surface forms a kind of natural declivity from the high steppeland of Central Asia to the shores of the North Pacific. The mountain chains which traverse this region are not remarkable for extent or altitude, the chief physical characteristic being the broad water sheds, with their corresponding fertile, alluvial valleys, whereby this large portion of the earth's surface is rendered a peculiarly fit abode for an industrial, agricultural people. Various dialects (according to Leyden, about sixteen in number) prevail in the different provinces of China, but they are merely local varieties of Chinese. Distinct languages are spoken among the mountain and forest districts by uncivilised tribes, who are supposed by some to have been the original possessors of the country. II. LANGUAGES OF THE TRANSGANGETIC PENINSULA. ANAMITE is predominant in a line of country bordering on the Chinese Sea, and extends inland as far as the westernmost of those longitudinal ranges of mountains of which, with their corresponding valleys, this peninsula is composed. The Anamite language is spoken, with little variety of dialect, by the Tonquinese and Cochin Chinese, two nations who evidently at no very remote period formed one people. In moral and physical characteristics they closely resemble the Chinese, and they are said by some of the neighbouring tribes to have been originally a Chinese colony. CIAMPA, or TSHAMPA, is still spoken in the very south of Cochin China by a people who, before their annexation to the empire of Anam, formed a separate and independent nation. CAMBOJAN is the language of Cambodia, a country in the south of the peninsula, lying between two parallel ridges of mountains, and divided into two nearly equal parts by the river May-kuang or Mekon. The Cambojans, who are akin to, if not identical with, the Khomen, are supposed to derive their origin from a warlike mountain race named Kho, the Gueos of early Portuguese historians. SIAMESE is more widely diffused than any other Indo-Chinese language; its various dialects prevail over more than half the peninsula, and are spoken, with little interruption, in a northerly direction, from Cambodia on the south to the borders of Thibet on the north. This wide diffusion may in part be accounted for by the early conquest of Assam by Siamese tribes. The dialect of the ancient Siamese or T'hay tongue, which is now conventionally designated the Siamese, is spoken in Siam, an extensive kingdom south-west of Burmah. LAOS, or LAW, is a Siamese dialect pervading the very interior of the peninsula; it is conterminous with Cambojan, Anamite, Siamese, Burmese, Chinese, and Shyan. The Laos people boast of an ancient civilisation; and their country, noted for the vestiges it contains of the founders of Buddhism, is the famed resort of Buddhistic devotees. SHYAN is another Siamese dialect, and is spoken to the north of Burmah, between China and Munipoor. AHOM, an ancient Siamese dialect, is not marked on the Map, because extinct, or only preserved in the books of the Assamese priesthood. It is remarkable that not a single trace of Hindoo influence, either Buddhistic or Brahministic, can be found in Ahom literature. KHAMTI, though the most northern of Siamese dialects, varies but little from the dialect of Bankok, the capital of Siam. It is spoken by a small mountainous tribe in the north-east corner of Assam, on the border of Thibet. SINGPHO is the language of the most powerful of the mountain tribes, and prevails in the north of the Burmese empire, almost on the confines of China. It is conterminous with Khamti and Shyan on the north and south, and with Chinese and Munipoora on the east and west. PEGUESE prevails in the Delta of the Irawady, to the south of the Burmese empire. regions lying between the eleventh and twenty-third degrees of north latitude, but chiefly to be found among the jungles and mountains on the frontiers of Burmah, Siam, and Pegu. Some of these tribes are designated red Karens, from the light colour of their complexion, a circumstance supposed to result from the great elevation of their mountainous abodes. KHYEN, or KIAYN, perhaps more generally called Kolun, is spoken by some wild tribes dwelling in North Aracan, and on various mountain heights west of the Irawady. These tribes are of more importance in an ethnographical than in a political or historical point of view. According to their own tradition, they are the aborigines of Ava and Pegu. It was the opinion of Ritter, that the Khyen and Karen tribes are descended from the mountainous races of the chains of Yun-nan, dispersed, probably since the Mongolic conquest of China, in a southerly direction. KOONKIE is a wild, unwritten dialect, said to resemble the Arakanese. It is spoken by the Kukis, a people who have been identified with the Nagas and Khoomeas. They dwell to the north of Aracan, on the frontiers of Munipoor and Cachar. MUNIPOORA is predominant in Munipoor, a small kingdom forming part of the northern boundary of Burmah. CACHARESE is spoken by a numerous tribe in a district of considerable extent, lying east of the Bengal district of Sylhet. This language is conterminous with Munipoora on the east, and Khassee on the west. KHASSEE is spoken on a range of hills forming part of the southern border of Lower Assam. The people to whom it is vernacular are called Cossyahs or Khasias. The interposition of Assamese (which is a Sanscritic language Monosyllabic languages has given rise to much conjecture; but it is now nearly allied to Bengali) in the area otherwise exclusively occupied by generally believed that the natives of Lower Assam originally employed a Monosyllabic dialect, but were led by their contiguity to Hindustan, and, by political and other circumstances, to adopt a language of that BURMESE is the language of the dominant people of the empire of Burmah. Including its cognate dialect, the Arakanese, it extends from the Laos country to the Bay of Bengal, and from Munipoor to Pegu: it is also predominant throughout the maritime province country. Upper Assam is still peopled by various tribes speaking Monoof Tenasserim, in the south-west of the peninsula, which is now British territory. ARAKANESE, as we have before observed, is an elder dialect of Burmese: it prevails through a narrow strip of country along the Bay of Bengal, from Chittagong to Cape Negrais. SALONG, or SILONG, is the name of an assemblage of small islands in the Mergui archipelago, between the Andaman Isles and the south-west coast of the peninsula. These islands are about one thousand in number: the predominant language is a peculiar one, and little is at present known concerning it; yet it is generally referred to the Monosyllabic class. KAREN is spoken in three diversities of dialect, by uncivilised tribes irregularly distributed over the syllabic languages. III. LANGUAGES OF THIBET AND LEPCHA is spoken by a tribe apparently of Tibetan TIBETAN is spoken by the widely-diffused race of Bhot, in Thibet, Bootan, Ladakh, and Bultistan or Little Thibet. This extensive range of country lies among the Himalayas, in the south-eastern angle of the plateau of Central Asia. The geographical position of the Bhotiya, and likewise some of their moral and physical characteristics, would appear to connect them with the nomadic nations of that vast plateau, if their language, which approximates in many respects to that of China, did not indicate their relationship to the Chinese; and this affinity, on the one side with the Chinese, and on the other with the Turkish, Mongolian, and Tungusian tribes of Central Asia, has caused this remarkable race to be regarded as the connecting link between these two great divisions of the human family. II.-MAP OF THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES. THE Shemitic languages are remarkably few in number, although (as is shown in the accompanying Map) they are spread over a vast portion of the world, extending from Persia and the Persian Gulf on the east to the Atlantic on the west, and from the Mediterranean on the north to an undefined distance into the interior of Africa on the south. There are, in fact, but three or, at most, four distinct Shemitic languages at present spoken: and although the history of this wonderful class of languages leads us far back into remote antiquity, yet a much greater diversity of dialect does not appear at any time to have existed. It has been shown in a previous memoir that the Phoenician, once pre-eminently the language of civilisation, was substantially the same as the ancient Hebrew; and this conformity of language between two races of different origin (the Phoenicians being a Hamite, and the Hebrews a Shemitic people) is a phenomenon which yet remains to be explained. The Shemitic languages now disused as mediums of oral communication, and which are therefore not represented on the Map, are the following: Samaritan, originally identical with Hebrew. Ancient Syriac and Chaldee, which, however, have their representative in Modern Syriac. Gheez, or Ethiopic, now superseded by its modern dialects, Tigre and Amharic. In perfection of physical conformation, the Shemitic race is considered by eminent physiologists to equal, if not surpass, all other branches of the human family. Yet their characteristics are by no means invariable. The Syrians, who still preserve their lineage pure and unmingled among the mountains of Kurdistan, have a fair complexion, with gray eyes, red beard, and a robust frame. The Bedouins, or Arabs of the Desert, are thin and muscular in form, with deep brown skin and large black eyes; the Arabs in the low countries of the Nile bordering on Nubia are black, while other tribes of this people dwelling in colder or more elevated situations are said to be fair. The Arabs in the valley of Jordan are reported to have a dark skin, coarse hair, and flattened features, thereby approximating to the Negro type. The Jews differ from the nations among whom they are located by a peculiar cast of physiognomy: in Cochin they are black, in the south of Europe they are dark, while in the north of Europe, and occasionally in England, they are xanthous, with red or light hair. The Shemitic nations have been most peculiarly honoured in being chosen as the race of whom, according to the flesh, the Messiah was born. To them also was given the knowledge of the one true God; and to the Hebrews in particular was committed the sacred trust of the divine oracles. Monotheism, although defaced by human inventions, is the religion of this race: the recognition of a false prophet prevails among the Arabs; yet, in common with the Jews, they acknowledge the existence of God. Two people of this race, the Syrians and Abyssinians, have embraced Christianity as their national religion. ARABIC, originally the language of a few wandering tribes in the desert of Arabia, is now one of the most widely-diffused of existing languages. It prevails in Arabia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Khuzistan, Egypt, Nubia, and Barbary. It is extensively employed as the language of religion and commerce on the eastern and western coasts of Africa, and it is supposed to penetrate far into the interior of that great continent. As might be expected from its vast extension, this language branches out into dialects as many in number as the countries in which it is spoken. EKHKILI is a modern dialect of Himyaritic, the southern branch of the Arabic language. It is spo ken by an uncivilised mountainous tribe of Hadramant, in the south-east of the Arabian peninsula. Ekhkili is of especial value in an ethnographical point of view, as it furnishes the link between the Shemitic languages of Asia and of Abyssinia. The ancient Himyarites are believed to have been Cushites, of the race of Ham. TIGRE, a dialect immediately derived from the ancient Ethiopic, is predominant in a small portion of the kingdom of Abyssinia. The resemblance still to be traced between Tigre and Ekhkili has corroborated the hypothesis that Ethiopia was originally peopled by a colony of Himyarite Arabs. AMHARIC is a more corrupt dialect of Ethiopic than ruins of these ancient cities, and the arrow-headed III. MAP OF THE MEDO-PERSIAN LANGUAGES. THE Medo-Persian languages form a branch or family of that great class of languages which has been variously denominated by ethnographers THE area of the Medo-Persian languages includes about one-tenth part of the entire surface of Asia: the countries now comprehended The physical conformation of the Medo-Persian nations, which is decidedly of the European type, corroborates the testimony PERSIC, although marked in the Map as predominant | PUSHTOO is the language of Affghanistan, a moun- KURDISH is the language of the Kurds, wild nomadic -tribes, known in history as the Carduchi and the OSSITINIAN is spoken by the Ossetes, a Median ARMENIAN is spoken by about one-seventh part of posed of mountainous chains, of which Mount Ararat IV. MAP OF THE SANSCRITIC LANGUAGES. LANGUAGES more or less allied to the ancient Sanscrit prevail through the whole of Hindustan. These languages are resolvable into I-The languages which appear to be derived immediately from the Sanscrit, and which are spoken by the Hindoos, properly so II. The languages of the Deccan, or southern parts of the peninsula.-The race to whom these languages are vernacular appear to The III. The languages of the wild, unconquered tribes of the mountains.-It is supposed that these tribes were among the original I. LANGUAGES OF SANSCRITIC ORIGIN. HINDUWEE, the most general language of the Hindoo the Kousulu, Bhojepoora, and several others, all of |