03-01-011

INTRODUCTION.

　The Kachin dialects agree with classical Tibetan in many respects. The old soft initials have, on the whole, been preserved. There is, however, a strong tendency to aspirate them. The old prefixes are still pronounced in many words. Causals are com- monly formed by means of prefixes. Kachin possesses a system of tones similar to that of Central Tibetan.

　 In the south Kachin is spoken in the neighbourhood of Burmese, and philologically it can be considered as a link between Tibetan and Burmese. It agrees with the latter form of speech in many important details, e.g., in the use of several prefixes and suffixes and in the richly developed system of verbal particles.

　The neighbours of the Kachins towards the west speak dialects belonging to the Ng and Kuki-Chin groups, and there are many characteristic features which connect Kachin with both. Thus the extensive use of the prefix ga, ka is common to Kachin and Ng, and the vocabulary and many suffixes in Kuki-Chin are strikingly like those in use in Kachin.

　The Ng group comprises a long series of dialects which mutually differ much from each other. They are, on the whole, more closely related to Tibetan than to Burmese. The old soft initials have often been hardened, but they are also often pre- served. Causals are still often formed by means of prefixes, and prefixes on the whole play a considerable rle. The dialects classed together in this Survey under the head of the Central Ng sub-group are apparently more closely related to Tibetan than the other Ng dialects. They are said to make use of an elaborate system of tones, and the negative verb is formed as in Tibetan by means of a negative prefix, while other Ng dialects, as also the Bodo and Kuki-Chin groups use a negative suffix.

　 In the south and west the Ng dialects are connected with the Bodo and Kuki- Chin languages by means of several intermediate dialects.

　Between Ng and Tibetan we find several dialects which have been put together as the North Assam Group. They also, in some respects, connect Tibetan with the dialects of the so-called Bodo-group. Before proceeding to those last-mentioned forms of speech it will, however, be necessary to mention a long series of dialects spoken in the Central and Lower Himalayas, which will be classed together under the head of Himalayan languages. They comprise many dialects, which differ to some extent amongst themselves, but which as a whole can be said to form a link between Tibetan and the dialects of the Bodo and Kuki-Chin groups. Some of them, besides, show traces of a non-Tibeto-Burman element. Further details will be found in the introduction to the Himalayan languages.

　The Bodo dialects agree with Tibetan in many respects. The old soft initials have, to a considerable extent, been preserved, and causal verbs are commonly formed by adding prefixes as in Tibetan. It is, however, still more common to form them by adding a suffix. In this respect the Bodo dialects agree with Ng, with which group it also has several other points of connexion, and also with the Kuki-Chin dialexts.

　With those latter forms of speech the Bodo dialects also agree in other important points, e.g., in the frequent use of the pronominal prefixes and of generic particles with numerals.

　The Kuki-Chin dialects, on the other hand, form the last link in the chain con- necting Tibetan with Burmese, the southernmost Tibeto-Burman language.

VOL. III, PART I.