Engraved for "THE BIBLE OF EVERY LAND" Samuel Bagster & Sons, Paternoster Row. Londen.

REMARKS ON THE MAP

ILLUSTRATING THE

MONOSYLLABIC LANGUAGES.

.

The Monosyllabic languages are spoken exclusively in the south-eastern angle of the continent of Asia: their area is little inferior in point of extent to the whole of Europe. The various nations by whom these languages are employed all belong to one stock or family, and are distinguished, in a more or less modified degree, by the Mongolic type of physical conformation. The religion which has obtained the widest acceptance among this race is Buddhism, but other forms of belief are also received. The religion of Confucius, and the Taouism of Lao-tsze, for instance, prevail to a considerable extent in China ; and a rude species of idolatry, said in some instances to resemble that practised by the Esquimaux, is predominant among the wild untutored tribes of the mountains, who still preserve their independence in the very midst of the civilised nations of this race.

The Monosyllabic languages are referable, geographically and philologically, to three grand divisions, namely, the languages of China, the languages of the Indo-Chinese or Transgangetic peninsula, and the languages of Tibet and the Himalayas.

I. LANGUAGES OF CHINA.

CIAMPA, or TSHAMPA, is still spoken in the very CHINESE is the language of China, an extensive

south of Cochin China by a people who, before their

annexation to the empire of Anam, formed a separate country, of which the entire surface forms a kind of natural declivity from the high steppe-land of Central

and independent nation. Asia to the shores of the North Pacific. The moun- CAMBOJAN is the language of Cambodia, a country tain chains which traverse this region are not generally

in the south of the peninsula, lying between two remarkable for extent or altitude, the chief physical parallel ridges of mountains, and divided into two characteristic being the broad water-sheds, with their

nearly equal parts by the river May-kuang or Mekon. corresponding fertile, alluvial valleys, whereby this

The Cainbojans, who are akin to, if not identical large portion of the earth's surface is rendered a

with, the Kho men, are supposed to derive their peculiarly fit abode for an industrial, agricultural

origin from a warlike mountain race named Kho, the people. Various dialects (according to Leyden, about

Gueos of early Portuguese historians. sixteen in number) prevail in the different provinces of China, but they are merely local varieties of SIAMESE is more widely diffused than any other Chinese. Distinct languages are spoken among the Indo-Chinese language; its various dialects prevail mountain and forest districts by uncivilised tribes, over more than half the peninsula, and are spoken, who are supposed by some to have been the original with little interruption, in a northerly direction, possessors of the country.

from Cambodia on the south to the borders of

Tibet on the north. This wide diffusion may in II. LANGUAGES OF THE TRANS

part be accounted for by the early conquest of As

sam by Siamese tribes. The dialect of the ancient GANGETIC PENINSULA.

Siamese or T’hay tongue, which is now conventionANAMITE is predominant in a line of country border

ally designated the Siamese, is spoken in Siam, an ing on the Chinese Sea, and extends inland as far extensive kingdom south-west of Burmah. as the westernmost of those longitudinal ranges of LAOS, or LAW, is a Siamese dialect pervading the mountains of which, with their corresponding valleys,

very interior of the peninsula; it is conterminous this peninsula is composed. The Anamite language

with the Cambojan, Anamite, Siamese, Burmese, is spoken, with little variety of dialect, by the

Chinese and Shyan languages. The Laos people Tonquinese and Cochin Chinese, two nations who

boast of an ancient civilisation; and their country, evidently at no very remote period formed one

noted for the vestiges it contains of the founders of people. In moral and physical characteristics they

Buddhism, is the famed resort of Buddhistic devotees. closely resemble the Chinese, and they are said by some of the neighbouring tribes to have been SHYAN is another Siamese dialect, and is spoken to originally a Chinese colony.

the north of Burmah, between China and Munipoor.

a

a

AHOM, an ancient Siamese dialect, is not marked on tribes are descended from the mountainous races

the Map, because extinct, or only preserved in the of the chains of Yun-nan, dispersed, probably since
books of the Assamese priesthood. It is remarkable the Mongolic conquest of China, in a southerly
that not a single trace of Hindoo influence, either direction.
Buddhistic or Brahministic, can be found in Ahom
literature.

KOONKIE is a wild unwritten dialect, said to resemble

the Arakanese. It is spoken by the Kukis, a people KHAMTI, though the most northern of Siamese who have been identified with the Nagas and Khoodialects, varies but little from the dialect of Bankok, meas.

They dwell to the north of Arakan, on the the capital of Siam. It is spoken by a small moun- frontiers of Munipoor and Cachar. tainous tribe in the north-east corner of Assam, on the border of Tibet.

MUNIPOORA is predominant in Munipoor, a small

kingdom forming part of the northern boundary of SINGPHO is the language of the most powerful of the Burmah.

mountain tribes, and prevails in the north of the Burmese empire, almost on the confines of China.

CACHARESE is spoken by a numerous tribe in a It is conterminous with the Khamti and Shyan on

district of considerable extent, lying east of the the north and south, and with the Chinese and

Bengal district of Sylhet. This language is conMunipoora languages on the east and west.

terminous with the Munipoora on the east, and the

Khassee on the west. PEGUESE prevails in the Delta of the Irawady, within the province of Pegu, formerly a part of the Burmese

KHASSEE is spoken on a range of hills forming part dominion, but transferred to British rule in 1852.

of the southern border of Lower Assam. The people

to whom it is vernacular are called Cossyahs or BURMESE is the language of the dominant people of Khasias. the empire of Burmah. Including its cognate dialect,

** The interposition of Assamese (which is a Sanscrit language the Arakanese, it extends from the Laos country to

nearly allied to Bengalee) in the area otherwise exclusively occupied by the Bay of Bengal, and from Munipoor to Pegu : it Monosyllabic languages, has given rise to much conjecture; but it is now is also predominant throughout the maritime province generally believed that the natives of Lower Assam originally employed of Tenasserim, in the south-west of the peninsula,

a Monosyllabic dialect, but were led by their contiguity to Hindustan,

and by political and other circumstances, to adopt a language of that which is now British territory.

country. Upper Assam is still peopled by various tribes speaking Mono

syllabic languages. ARAKANESE, as we have before observed, is an elder dialect of Burmese : it prevails through a narrow

III. LANGUAGES OF TIBET AND
strip of country along the Bay of Bengal, from
Chittagong to Cape Negrais.

THE HIMALAYAS.
SALONG, or SILONG, is the name of an assemblage LEPCHA is spoken by a tribe apparently of Tibetan

of small islands in the Mergui archipelago, between origin, dwelling on the south side of the Himalayas,
the Andaman Isles and the south-west coast of the on and near the eastern frontier of Bootan.
peninsula. These islands are about one thousand in
number: the predominant language is a peculiar one,

ABOR and MISHIMI are the languages of uncivilised and little is at present known concerning it; yet it

tribes inhabiting an extensive range of hilly country is generally referred to the Monosyllabic class.

on the borders of Bootan and Tibet, between the

ninety-fourth and the ninety-seventh degrees of east KAREN is spoken in three diversities of dialect, by longitude.

uncivilised tribes irregularly distributed over the regions lying between the eleventh and twenty-third

TIBETAN is spoken by the widely-diffused race of degrees of north latitude, but chiefly to be found

Bhot in Tibet, Bootan, Ladakh, and Bultistan or among the jungles and mountains on the frontiers of

Little Tibet. This extensive range of country lies Burmalı, Siam, and Pegu. Some of these tribes are

among the Himalayas, in the south-eastern angle of designated red Karens, from the light colour of their

the plateau of Central Asia. The geographical complexion, a circumstance supposed to result from

position of the Bhotiya, and likewise some of their the great elevation of their mountainous abodes.

a