The person and number is shown by the pronoun. And here must be noticed a complication. The pronoun appears in two forms:—
1st. In full, sara, wara &c.
2nd. As an inseparable prefix; the radical letter being prefixed and incorporated with the verb. It cannot, however, be said that this is a true inflexion.
| 1. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sing. | 1. sara s-c'wisl-oit | = | I ride |
| 2. wara u-c'wisl-oit | = | thou ridest | |
| 3. ui i-c'wisl-oit | = | he rides. | |
| 2. | |||
| Plur. | 1. hara ha-c'wisl-oit | = | we ride |
| 2. s`ara s`-c'wisl-oit | = | ye ride | |
| 3. ubart r-c'wisl-oit | = | they ride | |
In respect to the name of the class under notice I suggested in 1850 the term Dioscurian from the ancient Dioscurias. There it was that the chief commerce between the Greeks and Romans, and the natives of the Caucasian range took place. According to Pliny, it was carried on by thirty interpreters, so numerous were the languages. The great multiplicity of mutually unintelligible tongues is still one of the characteristics of the parts in question. To have used the word Caucasian would have been correct, but inconvenient. It is already mis-applied in another sense, i. e., for the sake of denoting the so-called Caucasian race, consisting, or said to consist, of Jews, Greeks, Circassians, Scotchmen, ancient Romans, and other heterogeneous elements.
In his paper on the Mongolian Affinities of the Caucasians, published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1853) Mr. Hodgson has both confirmed and developed the doctrine here indicated—his data on the side of Caucasus being those of the Asia Polyglotta, but those on the side of Tibet and China being vastly augmented; and that, to a great extent, through his own efforts and researches.
Upon the evidence of Mr. Hodgson I lay more than ordinary value; not merely on the strength of his acumen and acquirements in general, but from the fact of his ex-professo studies as a naturalist leading him to over-value rather than under-value those differences of physical conformation that (to take extreme forms) contrast the Georgian and Circassian noble with the Chinese; or Tibetan labourer. Nevertheless, his evidence is decided.