belonging to the same group, and are spoken by small numbers in the extreme north; Dänjong-kä or Sikkimese, and Lho-ke or Bhotanese, which are closely related forms of Tibetan. To the north-east and east, Bengali meets dialects of the Boḍo group: Boḍo (Båṛå) or Kacārī (also known as Kōc, Mēc and Rābhā), Garo, and Dimā-sā, as well as Mrung or Tipurā; it touches the area of the dialects of the Naga group; and dialects of the Kuki-Cin and Burma groups, like Meithei (or Maṇipurī) and Lušai, and Aracanese. Another aboriginal language, not related to the Tibeto-Burman dialects mentioned above, is spoken on the eastern frontier of Bengali, namely, Khasi, belonging to the Mōn-Khmēr group of the Austro-Asiatic languages, and thus connected with the Kōl speeches of West Bengal.
Bengali, like other Aryan languages of India, has spread, and is still spreading, at the expense of the aboriginal tongues.
3. The living Indo-European languages can be arranged and classified under eight branches, which are as follows:
(I) The Indo-Iranian, or Aryan, falling into three[1] groups:
(i) The Indic, Indian or Indo-Aryan group, under which come Vedic, classical Sanskrit, the old Prakrits of the early inscriptions, Pali, and the various Prakrits and Apabhraṅśas of old documentary remains and of extant literature; the modern Aryan languages (‘vernaculars’) of India; Eḷu, or Old Sinhalese, and modern Sinhalese; and the Gipsy speeches of Armenia, Syria and Turkey, and of Europe.
The inter-relation of the various Aryan languages, so far as it seems likely, is given in the Table under §5.
- ↑ I accept Grierson's division of Indo-Iranian into three groups, although this is not admitted by all. (Sten Konow, ‘Notes on the Classification of Bashgali,’ JRAS., 1911, p. 1, ff., where Dardic is relegated to the Iranian group; Jules Bloch thinks it possible that the source-dialects of present day Dardic, together with the Indian Prakritic speeches of the north-west [and the source-forms of the Gipsy dislects of Armenia and Europe?], formed a distinct Indian dialect-group; JA., 1912, i, p. 336. Another view is that the Dardic speeches are 'ancient Āryan (Vedic) dialects which have been overlaid with Irānian as the result of later invasion' in the time of the Achæmenids, or earlier: E. J. Rapson in the Cambridge History of India, 1922, p. 52.) See below, §25.
