Note 1 — VII. AFFINITIES.

Some idea of the mental equipment of the Arlengs will have been gathered from the two preceding sections. It has been seen that, within the limited circle of their experience, they possess a medium of expression which may be described as adequate to their needs, well knit together in its mechanism, and copious in concrete terms, though, like all such languages, wanting in the abstract and general. Their folk-tales are lively and effective as narratives, and the themes, though probably borrowed from the great treasury of popular story elaborated in Peninsular India, have been appropriated and assimilated to the social conditions of the Mikirs themselves. Little has hitherto been done to enlarge the resources of the language in the direction of higher culture, or to use it for the expression of ideas lying beyond the scope of the tribal life; but there appears to be no reason to doubt that the language of the Mikirs will be found in the course of time to be as capable of development for this purpose as the speech of their neighbours the Khasis.1