e civilizational influences have chiefly been
Hindu, are spoken in continuity from Chicacole, east, and the parts
about Goa, west, to Cape Comorin, _i.e._, in the Madras Presidency, and
in the countries of Mysore, Travancore, and the coasts of Malabar and
Coromandel. Of these, the most northern--beginning on the eastern
coast--is--

_The Telinga or Telugu._--Spoken from the parts about Chicacole to
Pulicat, where it is succeeded by--

_The Tamul Proper._--The language of the Coromandel coast and the parts
of the interior as far as Coimbatore. Each of these tongues has a double
form, one for literature, and one for common use; the former being
called the High, the latter the Low, Tamul or Telugu, as the case may
be, and the creed which it embodies being either Brahminism, or some
modification of it.

In Travancore and on the Malabar coast the language is--

_The Malayalma_ or _Malayalam_--and in the greater part of Mysore--

_The Kanara_--which, like the Tamul and Telinga, is both High and
Low--literary or vulgar.

Amongst these four well-known forms of the South Tamulian tongue, may be
distributed several dialects and sub-dialects. Such as the Tulava for
the parts between Goa and Mangalore, and the Coorgi of the Rajahship of
Coorg, not to mention the several varieties in the language of the
hill-tribes.

Now all the populations of the present chapter agree in this
particular--their language is generally admitted to be Tamulian at the
present moment, or if not, to have been so at some earlier period. With
the languages next under notice, the original Tamulian character is not
so admitted--indeed, it is so far denied as to make the affirmation of
it partake of the nature of paradox.

The distinction then is raised on the existence of the doubt in
question, or rather on the differences that such a doubt implies. Hence
the division of the languages of India into the Hindu and the Tamulian
is practical rather than scientific--the _Hindu_ meaning those for which
a _Sanskrit_, rather than a _Tamul_ affinity is claimed.

_Sanskrit_ is the name of a language; a name upon which nine-tenths of
the controversial points in Indian ethnology and in Indian history
turn.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol. viii.

[23] "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol. vi. part 2.
See also pp. 112, 113 of the present volume.

[24] Described by Lieutenants Phayre and Latter in "Journal