Introduction to the Malto Language

I - . INTRODUCTION * TO THE MALTO LANGUAGE AND THE MALTO VOCABULARY V REV. ERNEST DROESE OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY. ;v AGRA: FEINTED AT THE 8ECUNDEA OBPHANAGJC PBBSS. 1884. INTRODUCTION TO THE MALTO LANGUAGE BY THE REV. ERNEST DROESE, OF THE CHUECH MISSIONARY SOCIETY. AGRA: SECUNDEA OEPHANAGE PEE S3, 18 84. GEORGE NELSON BARLOW, ESQ., o. a. c. s. i. COMMISSIONER OF THE BHAGALPUR DIVISION AND SONTAL PERGUNNAHS THIS INTRODUCTION THE MALTO LANGUAGE is WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF GRATITUDE AND ESTEEM DEDICATED BY THE WRITER. PREFACE. Malto is the language of one of the aboriginal races of India who call themselves Maler i. e. men, and go among their Aryan neighbours by the name of Paharias (Hill people). They inhabit the Hills which abut on the Ganges in lower Bengal known by the name of the Eajmahal Hills. On the skirts of these Hills and in the low lands and valleys intersecting them is found another race of aborigi nes the Sontals who in the beginning of the present century came from the jungles of the district of Hazaribagh, and must not, as is often done, be confounded with the Paha rias with whom they have nothing in common, except a love for drink and a religion of demon worship. At what time the Paharias took up their abode in the Rajmahal Hills and whence they came are questions on which nothing definite can be said. No clue is here furnished by their traditions which are childish fables bearing the marks of having been fabricated after the conquest of India by the Mohammedans, and go on the supposition that the Rajmahal Hills are the Eden to which seven proge nitors of the races of mankind descended from heaven. The Uraons of Chutia Nagpore who are believed to be of the same race with the Paharias satisfy themselves with a less for reaching, but more common sense account of the past of their race. They say, in days long gone by, our ancestors lived in a country far west. From there they moved in an eastern direction, and settled in Rhotas. After a lapse of time, the Hindus coming from the North West conquered them, and possessing themselves of their lands drove them out. Fleeing before their enemies they divided. One party going south settled in Jarkand ; whilst the other party II pressing on eastward found a home in a Hill country near the river Ganges. Whatever worth may be attached to this legend, the Uraon and Malto languages certainly go to support the idea of these two peoples being the descendants of the same ances tors. So close is the resemblance of Uraon to Malto that, if the very apparent Hindi element were eliminated, we should have left what could only be taken for a sister dialect to Malto. Though little is known of the further past of the Paharias, they have for centuries managed to make themselves felt as a people very troublesome to the rulers of India, and their subjects inhabiting the country adjacent to the Raj- mahal Hills. Before the establishment of the British rule, the Mohammedan rulers in vain endeavoured to subjugate these unmanagable tribes. The British Government too had to give up the idea of bringing to reason by force of arms these hardy mountaineers thriving in a pestilential climate and living chiefly on the chase and on plunder. The wild forests and dense jungles covering their Hills, and the low lands lying on the skirts of these Hills produc tive of malignant fever breeding miasmas did for them what their spears bows and poisoned arrows could never have done, and caused sickness and death to an alarming extent aomng the men of such military detachments as were from lima to time sent a gainst the Paharias or posted in their neighbourhood, for the protection of the people inhabit ing the plains. Thus the Paharias, as their wont was, con tinued their annual raids, sallying forth from their mountains, plundering the people of the plains, levying black mail, and then returning with the spoil to their homes : until about the end of last century Augustus Cleveland, Collector and Magistrate of Bhagalpur (to this day most affectionately mentioned by the Paharias by the name of Chilmili Sahib) went among them as a friend, and succeeded Ill in bringing to terms these people for centuries the pests of the neighbouring plains. One of the items in the contract then come to between the British Government and the Paharias was, that the tract of land their tribes had hitherto occupied should be regarded as their property, on condition that they should give up their predatory habits, and take to cultivating the land granted to them free of rent. The Paharias however finding the regu lar and hard work which the cultivation of land requires very irksome, hit upon a plan that would allow of their keeping to their favorite pursuits of hunting and fishing, and at the same time serve to provide them with what the chase, the angle and the fishing coop could not be expected to furnish them with. They invited the Sontals from the jungles of Hazaribagh to come and bring their lands under cultivation for a share in the produce of the soil. The object of the British Government, being to accustom the people to a more regulated mode of life, they were given warning that they would lose the proprietorship of Jany lands cultivated by people who were not of their race. The Paharias in their light- hearted careless way gave no heed to the warning. The Sontals always most eager to occupy fresh ground, and thoroughly contented and happy in a country only as long as axe and fire are in requisition to clear away forest and jungle, but growing restless and discontented when the paying of land tax becomes an item to be thought of instead, continued un checked to pour into the country of the Paharias. Thup it has come to pass that all the lowlands and valleys having gone into the hands of the Sontals, the Paharias have retain ed only the higher lands, and the Hills in the cultivation of which, they now display much forethought and assiduity. The Paharias maintain but little intercourse with the natives of the plains. Hence the caste system prevailing amongst these, and to which even the Sontals begin to • IV succumb, has left the Paharias altogether untouched who on that account pride themselves on being the black English. Their language too, with the exception of single words with reference to a number of which, it yet remains doubtful, whether the Paharias have got them from their Aryan neigh bours or these from the Paharias, shows no trace of Aryan influence. With which family of the Indian languages to classify the Malto, the writer is not prepared to say. To judge from what he knows of the Dravidian languages as they are treat ed by that Comparative Grammar giant, Bishop Caldwell, in his great work, the Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian languages, (Second Edition, Truebner 1875) it would seem to the writer that there is a very apparent decided Dravidian element in the Malto, but also that it differs from the languages of the Dravidian family in very essential points. Whether these may be thought sufficient ground for exclud ing the Malto from the Dravidian family or the Malto have better a place assigned with some other family of languages, like the Dravidian, belonging to the Scythian group of ton gues, is left to philologists to ascertain. In conclusion the writer would remark, that the work be fore the Reader has been written with the view simply of furnishing a help to the acquisition of the language of the Paharias. This will account for the great number of exam ples, occasionally rather lengthy, having been given in illus tration of the Grammar and idioms of the language. In order to give confidence to the Student of Malto, the writer takes here opportunity to mention that these examples are not made up by the writer, but are, without an exception, genuine specimens of the speech of the Paharias. E. DEOESE. Bhagalpur, 1884. MALTO LANGUAGE. I.-THE ALPHABET. The Malto not being a written language, the letters re quisite for representing it in writing have been taken from the Romanized Hindustani Alphabet. VOWELS. There are five v6wels, pronounced either long or short, viz : — a a, e 6, i i, o 6, u u. These are sounded as they are in Hindustani. Short e, and o, which do not occur in Hindus tani, are sounded as in the English words let and lot. There are no diphthongs in Malto. In pronouncing foreign words having ai, or au, the Hillman avails himself of the syllables ey, and aw, and says Seytaneh for Shaitan, and chawta for chautha in Hindustani. CONSONANTS. b, ch, d, d, g, g, h, j, k, 1, m, n, n, p, q, r, r, s, t, th, w, y. As to the pronunciation of these 23 consonants, it is enough to say that b, vibrates between the English b, and v, that g, and q, are pronounced fuller and deeper from the throat than is the case in Hindustani, that th, is a lightly sounded English sharp th, and that the rest resemble in sound their corresponding characters in the Eoman Hindustani Alphabet. Note. — When q, has a k, following, the latter changes into q ; thus — toqe ' to cnt off hag in the past tense not, toqken but toqqen ' I did cut off ; and the Genitive of maqu ' child' is not, maqki bat maqqi.

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