One may partition, according to their degree of development, these
tongues into four groups,—the Ougrian group, that comprises the
Ostiak, the Samoyede, the Yogoul, and divers other dialects of Siberia
: the Tartar group properly so called, which comprehends the
Mongol that occupies in it the lower rung, the Ou'igour, the Mand-
chou, and the Turkish, whose position is on the highest: the Japonic
group, to which belongs the Corean; and the Finno-Ougrian, that
embraces the Suomi or Finlandic, the Esthonian, the Lapponic, and
the Magyar; all which latter tongues are superior to those of the preceding
groups, as concerns the grammatical system and ideology.
The Finno-Ougrian family prolongs itself into Worth America,
where we encounter its most widely-spread branches in the most
boreal latitudes. And in like manner it is to he noted, that the Es-
kimaux race, and the septs thinly scattered over those frozen countries,
approximate in their type to that of the Ougrian.
The idioms spoken in the entire sub-Arctic region present the
same uniformity, therefore, as the fauna of this region.18 Indeed, we
know that animal species are found to he very nearly the same along
the boreal latitudes both of the Old and the Yew world.
Whilst one body of the great Indo-European migration from Asia
was advancing by detachments into our temperate countries, another
corps descended through the defiles of the Hindoo-Kosh, and by the
basin of the Indus, into the vast plain of the G-anges; and spread
itself hit by bit over the whole peninsula, of which this river laves the
northern provinces. This is what we .are taught not merely by the
traditions of the Hindoos, but, also by the study of the languages
spoken in this peninsula. In fact, while we encounter, at the north
of Hindostán, idioms emanating from -the Sanscrit family, we meet,
further to the south, with an “ ensemble” of tongues, absolutely
foreign to it, as well in vocabulary as in grammar.
These languages appertain all to the same family, and they are
denominated, after the Hindoos, by the epithet of Bravirian or Dra-
vidian. Hence, the Arian tribes had been preceded in India by populations
of a wholly distinct family; in the same manner that the
sisters of the former had encountered in Europe another race, different
likewise from themselves. And, what is remarkable, the two
categories of languages spoken by the autochthones of Europe and
the indigenous peoples of Hindostán belong, in classification, to linguistic
families having many traits in common.
The Dravidian tongues subdivide themselves into two groups; one
18 Agassiz, “ Sketch of the Natural Provinces of the Animal World, and their relation to
th e different Types of Man”—in N ott and Gliddon’s Types of Mankind, 7th edition, 1856,
pp. lx .—xiii.
the northern, and the other southern. The first embraces the languages
spoken by the dispersed native tribes, whom the descendants
of the invading Aryas have repelled into the Yindhya mountains,
viz: the Male or Badjmahali, the Uraon, the Oole, and the Khond
or Gonde. The second comprises the Tamoul or Tamil, the Telougou
or Telenga (called also ICalinga), the Talava, the Malayalam, and the
Carnatic or Carnataka. As the populations at the south of the peninsula
have preserved, during a longer time, their national independence,
and even have attained a civilization of their own, one can
understand that the idioms of the southern group must be far richer
and more developed than those of the northern group. Nevertheless,
despite this inequality of development, one discovers, in a striking
manner, the same characteristics in the whole of these tongues.
Another branch of the same family, which extends to the north-east
of the basin of the Ganges, indicates to us through its presence* that
a fraction of the indigenous population was thrown towards the
north-east; so that, it must now be admitted, the great Dravidian
nation, cut through its centre (by the intrusive Aryas), was, like the
primitive population of Europe, driven off to the two opposite extremities
of its vast territory. The Bodo and the Bhimal are the two
principal representatives of this cluster separated from the stem,
whose most advanced branches continue onward until they lose themselves
in Assam.
All the characters appertaining to the Ougro-Japonic tongues are
found again in these Dravidian languages, of which the Gonde may
he considered to have preserved to us their more ancient forms. All
manifest in a high degree the tendency to agglutination. The law
of harmony, that we have perceived just now in the Finnish languages,
re-appears here with the sanie character. The foundations of
the grammatical system, which are identical in all these tongues,
doubtless constitute them as separate families from Tartarian; but this
(Dravidian) family is very close, certainly, to those idioms spoken by
the Tartars. The same contrasts exist, as regards the vocalization,
between the Gugro-Japonic and the Dravidian tongues. The Magyar
may he compared to that Dravidian idiom richest in consonants,
for example, to the Toda or Todara, which is spoken by an ancient
aboriginal tribe established in the Nilgherri-hills ; and the Finnish,
with the Japonic, correspond in their softness to the Telougou talked
at the south-east of Hindostán.
These Dravidian populations were spread even to the islands of
°eylon, the Maldives and the Laquedives; inasmuch as the idioms
there still spoken attach themselves also to the Dravidian group.
Comparative philology demonstrates to us, therefore, that a popu