Indian Antiquary Vol 14

SR No.: 032506
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 418
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[APRIL, 1885.
killed than speak falsely ; lying is your occupa- tion, and this is why the Almighty God has sent a calamity like us upon you."
Such was the Draconic code of the Mongols,
and such also the stern virtue of the race, which like the rigid creed of the English Puritans, was a terrible ally against the frivolity and lack of principle on the other side.
ON THE DESCENT AND SPEECH OF THE TRANSGANGETIC PEOPLE. This is an interesting paper, and worthy of peninsular tongues, along with the Chinese and attention for its relations both to its special theme Tibetan, on the other. And the movements that and to certain points in the general study of have carried the Burmese and Siamese southward, language upon which it touches. The author and crowded the Tibetans westward, up the course introduces his subject by pointing out the natural of the higher Brahmaputra, behind the Himalayas, nexus of interest which leads us on from the are, we are told, to be ascribed with probability institutions of India to their extension over to the growing extension of Chinese power. The neighbouring parts of the earth, and then to northern group is divisible into an eastern and a matters concerning the older history of the popula. | western sub-group, Chinese-Siamese and Tibeto. tions to whom they were communicated. A con- Burman, the latter having on the whole the more sideration of the geographical conditions of primitive character. There are perplexing diverFurther India shows him that the history of sities in the way of more detailed classification; emigration in that peninsula is governed by the and to account for them the author seems disposed river-courses; and he assumes that the successive to call in that deus ex machina of the classifier in waves of population will have followed one another difficulties, the influence of neighbouring tongues downward from the central uplands of the interior, of a wholly different stock. Doubtless it would each driving its predecessor to the lowest coast- be better to let the problem simply pass as one line, or crowding it out of the fertile and desirable I yet unsolved. valleys into the bordering mountains. We find, The leading common characteristic of all these then, in the Peguans, Cambodians, and Annamites tongues is, as every one knows, their monosyllabism the remains of prior settlements, expelled from and their lack of grammatical structure, the place their first seats by the intrusive Siamese and of which is to a certain degree supplied by a fixed Burmese; and supporting indications are claimed order of arrangement of the words composing a to be discovered in the traditions of the various Bentence. As regards lexical evidence, Professor peoples, and the changes of location of their Kuhn considers the common origin of the capitals. The south-western parts of China, also, languages in each of the two chief groups above are occupied by tribes that appear to be plainly distinguished to be proved by the agreement of related with the Siamese and Burmese. North of | numerals within the group, and the diversity of Yun-nan, again, are the original seats of the the groups by their discordance with one another Tibetans, and not far away, on the middle course in the same respect. It must be confessed, how. of the Hoang-ho, is the theatre of the earliest ever, that the comparative table of numerals in Chinese history. It is the question, then, whether the northern group, given by him in a note, is any linguistic signs of relationship are to be very far from convincing; as, on the other hand, traced among the four peoples thus inferentially for reasons to which he himself alludes (and which brought into geographic neighbourhood.
are abundantly illustrated, for instance, in Ameri. Professor Kuhn here gives a sketch of the can Indian languages), discordant numerals need history of investigation among the transgangetic not be disproof of relationship. The laws of ar. languages. A complete bibliography of the sub. rangement in the sentence are looser in the Tibeto. ject, prepared as an intended supplement to the Burman sub-group, which also makes freer use of present paper, he has decided to reserve for auxiliary particles ; and the order followed is by publication in another form. But he regards it no means the same in all the languages. But this as an unquestionable inference from the facts difference, we are told, should not be regarded as already made accessible, that the languages of having grown out of an original agreement, but south-eastern Asia fall into two groupe, cor- rather out of a condition of greater freedom of responding with the division of the peoples stated arrangement; and this must be held to involve above: namely, Annamite and Peguan and the former possession of a fuller grammatical Cambodian on the one side, and the rest of the apparatus. The suggestion is a very ingenious
» Tabakat-i-Nasiri, pp. 1079 and 1081,
Reprinted from the American Journal of Philology, Vol. V. No. 1. Ueber Herkunft und Sprache der trans
gangetischen Völker. Festreda ... gehalten ... 25 July, 1881, von Ernst Kuhn. München, 1883. 4to, p. 22.