LANGOTA or Langoti. HIND. A cloth passed between the thighs, and fastened to a string before and behind. Langoti-dost, a friend from infancy, from the days when they wore the langoti. LANGUAGES in Eastern and Southern Asia are numerous. Along the low level tract border ing the ocean, from the Red Sea to the southern most point of the Malay Peninsula, we find vernacular, the Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, Syriac, Persian, Jataki, Sindi, Gujerati, Mahrati, Hindu stani, Konkani, Canarese, Tulu, Ma]ealam, Tamil, Telugu, Uriya, Bengali, Rakhui, Burmese, Siamese, Chinese, Javanese, and Malay, a number truly perplexing to traders on the seaboard.
Two hundred years ago (A.D. 1634), a master mariner, Master Richard Kynge, said, And in this founde wee oftimes much trouble and vexa tion, with moreover losses, both of precious time and lucre. Fyrste, that wee could never sake in Indian tongues for such berbes, or fruites, wodes, barks, or gummes, as wee knew full well, by experience in sundrye other partes, to bee whole somme (many of our crewe lying sicke at the tyme), or savorye, or usefulle to trafficke withal]. Nexte, that when anye were shewne us, we coulde in noe-wise tell, from names given to them by ; Gentooes, whether or noe ; like were already knowne in European countryes ; and yeti these 'parts doe myghtylie abound with herbes and woodes of sovraigne virtew.' The diversity thus alluded to is continued into the Archipelago, but it is not peculiar to the littoral tract, nor to the islands of the East Indies, the races, tribes, and nations of all the old world being kept apart from one another by the dis similarities in their spoken and written tongues. This condition has received the attention of many learned men, and amongst the philosophers of the 19th century much of the fame of not a few rests on the results from their linguistic studies. One such result has been the of certain affinities in the various known languages, which admits of their being arranged into families, branches, and groups, but the learned investiga tors have not decided on a common grouping.
Dr. Prichard has suggested four groups or dynasties, three of which are confined to Europe and Asia, a fourth being common to Africa and those parts of Asia which are near that continent. The first of his four groups, the Indo-European, is sometimes termed Indo-Germanic, and by late; writers Aryan or Iranian. He considers that the Indo-European languages and nations may be further subdivided, and he styles his first sub division the Eastern group, which by many writers has been termed exclusively the Aryan family of tongues. It includes all the idioms of the ancient Medes and Persians, who named themselves Aril, and their country Eeriene or Iran, and likewise, the Sanskrit, with all the Prakrits, properly so termed, and the Pali of India. Among the former was that ancient Persian language in which one particular set of the cuneiform inscriptions was written. This dialect was so near the Sanskrit that the inscriptions in it have been interpreted through the medium of that language.
Chevalier Bunsen's terms differ from those of Dr. Prichard. He classes one group as the ,great Asiatic-European stock of languages, which he subdivides into eight families, viz. Celt, Thracian or Illyrian, Armenian, Asiatic-Iranian, Hellenico Italic, Sclavonic, Lithuanian tribes, and Teutonic. His fourth or Asiatic-Iranian, or the Iranian stock as represented in Asia, he again subdivides into— a. The nations of Iran Proper, or the Aryan stock, the languages of Media and Persia. It includes the Zend of the cuneiform inscriptions and the Zendavesta ; the younger Pehlavi of the Sassanians and the Pazend, the mother of the present or modern Persian tongue. The Push tn or language of the Afghans, he says, belongs to the same branch.
b. The second subdivision embraces the Iranian languages of India, represented by the Sanskrit and her daughters.