Mr. Hodgson considers the Tamil, Tibetan, Indo-Chinese, Tungus, Chinese, Mongol, and Turk as so naany branches of the Turanian family ; and he regards the aborigines of British India as North men of the Scythic stem, but he remains un decided whether they oNve their physiognomy to the Tungus, the Mongol, or the Tut k branch of the Tartars or Seythians, and whether they immigrated from beyond the Himalayas at one period and at one point, or at several periods and at as many points. But all writers are of opinion that when the Aryans entered India, they found the country occupied by prior Scythic races, to whom their writers apply such conteinptuons expressions as Dasya, Whlecha, ete. These prior races seem to have been pushed largely out of Northern India into and through the Vindhya mountains into the Peninsula of India anti Ceylon, where their idioms, the Tamil, Telugu, Malealam, and Karnatica, are sister dialects of one speech ; and Dr. Pritchard concurs in opiniou witl: Professor Bask, who regards the languages of the mountain tribes of India, the Mil, the Gond, the Toda, and others, as also of the Tartar stock, and mentions that SOD1C curious analogies have bee:: observed between the Tamil and other dialects of the PeninsiIla and the languages of Australia.
Mr. Logan', however, who had great opportun ities of contrasting and comparing the Dravidian from vat ious parts of India, remarks that, phy sically, the population of Southern India is one of the most variable and mixed which any ethnic province displays. A glance at a consider able number of Kling (Teling) and Tamilar of different castes and occupations, shows that the varieties when compared with those of similar assemblages of :nen of other races, such as.Euro peans, Ultra-Indians, or Indonesians (including Negroes in the last two eases), are too great to allow of their being referred to a single race of pure blood. Same are exceedingly Iranian, some are Semitic, others Australian, SOHIC remind us of Egyptians, while others again have Malaya, Polynesian, and even Simang and Papuan features. 'Ellis varied character of the races of the south of the Peninsula :nay be seen daily in 3fadras, to which all the races from the south of India resort.
Turanians now occupy Central and Northern Asia. and include, according to modern ethnology, the Tartar, Fin, Turk, and 31agyar. Turanian languages arc scattered over the whole of the northern part of Europe and Asia, from China to the Pyrenees, and from Cape Comorin across the Caucasus to Lapland. The Hungarian, Lapponian, and Fiunish dialects are now classed as members of the great Turanian or Tartar family of tongues, which is spoken by all the tribes from the Him alaya to Okotsk and to Lapland, and includes the Ilungarian, Crimean, and Turkish tongues. Farrar
states that the terms Tumnian, Nomadic, or Allophyllon of Pritchard, are names applied to all languages not belonging to the Aryan or Semitic, and which comprise all languages spoken in Asia or Europe not included under the Aryan and Semitic families, with the exception of the Chinese and its dialects. These are Tungus, 3fongol, Turki, Samoyede, and Fin. The writers on this class are Bask, Klaproth, Schult, Castren, and Muller. The Turanian languages occupy by far the largest portion of the earth, viz. all but parts of India, Arabia, Asia Minor, and Europe ; but except agglutination, there is not a single positive prin ciple which etut be proved to pervade them all.
The most characteristic feature of the Turanian languages is what has been called agglutination, or glueing together ;' and what distinguishes the Turanian languages is, that in them the conjugation and declension can still be taken to pieces ; and although the terminations have by no means always retained their significative power as inde pendent words, they are felt na modificatory syllables.
The Turanian family of languages consists of two great divisions, the Northern and the Southern. The northent is sometimes called the Ural-Altaic or Ugro-Tartaric, and it is divided into five sec tions, the Tunguhic, Mongolic, Turkic, Finnic, and Samoyedic.
The southern, which occlipies the soutl: of Asia, is divided into four classes, the Tainilic, the Gan getic (Trans-llimalayan and Sub-Himalayan), the Lohitic, the Talc, and tho Malaic. These two divisions comprehend very nearly all the languages of Asia, with the exception of Chinese, which, together with its neighbouring dialects, forms the only representative of radical or monosyllabic speech. Japanese, the language of Corea, of the ICoriakes, the Kanitakadales, and the numerous dialects of the Caucasus, etc., remain unclaimed.
The Tungusic section of the northern branch extends fro::: China northward to Siberia, and westward to 113°, where the river Tunguska partly marks its frontier. The Tungusic tribes in Siberia are under Russian sway. Other Tung,usic tribes belong to the Chinese empire, and are known by the name of Manchu, a term adopted after they litui conquered China in 1614, and founded the present imperial dynasty.
The originaL seats of the people who speak 3fongolic dialects lie near the 1.ake Baikal, and in the eastern parts of Siberia, where we find them as early as the Oth century after Christ. They were dhided into three classes, the 3fongol proper, the Buriat, and the Olot or Kalmuk. Chengiz Khan (1227) united them into a nation, and founded the 3fongolian empire, which in. eluded, however, not only Mongolic, but Tungnsic and Turkic, commonly called Tataric, tribes.