________________
266
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1898.
Its connection with the general language of the North-East Frontier Hills comes out in the words noted in these pages for numerals and currency, proving it to be highly instructive for the present purpose, despite the essentially Indian character of its surroundings.
The Kachari indigenous numorals only run as far as ton, thus, as given by Mr. Endle: -
Kachari Tadigenous Numerals.
Lowland.+7
Highlansl.
Garo.
. shê, si... ... ... gini, gni ... gatan, tin ...
biri...
bonga
64
sè, söf, sê ... no, noi, gnê ... tâm, gọtâm ...
bri, broi ..ba... ...
rà, di ... sni, sini zat, ját skô, sik 8
zi, zö, ji .. kuri, ek'uris
dà ... sini ...
så, sha gnt git“âm bri banga
dak ...sni ... chet
sku chi, chik'ung
...
shugů...
When counting directly beyond ten, the Indian numerals are used, as may be speu from a sentence on p. 66: -
dàn-fii-ầu pandra båêk'urî t'àkà mangan month-each-in fifteen or one-score rupee get
(translated) get fifteen or twenty rupees a month. But the Kach iris have borrowed the Indian scale of quartettes (gandas), so popular for reckoning cowries,50 and this enables them to count as far as 43 in their own numerals. Here we have that link in Kachari with the Western tongues and habits, which explains so much that is puzzling in the curious Manipuri method of reckoning sel and already discussed; while we have also in Kachari an all-important link with the Eastern tongues and habits in the full use of numeral coefficients, employed Chinese and Naga (not Burmese and Shân) fashion.
Borrowing the Assamese word jakási (= gandd), which they have turned into zakai (a'l'ai on p. 42), the Kachâris express 15 by zuk'ai-t'ám-(coeff.)-túm, i.e., three quartettes and three. Forty-two they express by sak'ai-2-(coeff.)-nè, i. e., ten quartettes and two. The
41 S and xin Kachiri and Garo often equal ch, ch', 1. j' in the surrounding tongues. 18 The GAro is essentially a mere dinlect of Kachari or Bodo.
* Pago 60. Indian kiri, & score. We can now trace the wanderings in the Hills of this well-known term frou. karl, through Assamese k'urt, to
(1) Tippera, kuru ; Chin, kar, krut. (2) Chin, Manipuri, kul; Kachin-Singpho, k'un. (3) Chin, kal; Tippera, k'al. (4) Chin, Tippera, ko, go, gdi.
(5) Lhota and Angimi Naga, (me)ka, kuoü, kui; Cbin, kwe; Kachcha Naga, (en) kai 30 File arte, p. 371.
51 Page 12
