Note 8 — VII. AFFINITIES.

It remains to give some examples of correspondence in general vocabulary between Mikir and other Tibeto-Burman languages. It has been shown above from the analysis of the numerals that prefixes play a large part in all these languages. These prefixes, which to some extent are interchangeable, and also differ in the different members of the family, have to be eliminated in order to find the roots which are to be compared. Again, certain changes in vowels and consonants between different languages regularly occur. Our knowledge is not yet sufficient to enable a law of interchange to be formulated; but the following conclusions seem to be justified. In vowels, Mikir has a preference for long ō where other languages have -ā, especially in auslaut;8 on the other hand long ā in Mikir is sometimes thinned down to ē; the word rēchō, answering to the Aryan rājā, is an example of both processes. Long ī in Mikir often corresponds to oi and ai, as well as to ē and ei, in the cognates. As regards consonants, nasals at the end of syllables are often rejected; thus within Mikir itself we have ō and òng, dā and dàm, nē and nèng, lā and làng. Some languages (as for instance Angāmi9 Naga) tolerate no consonantal endings, not even a nasal. In Mikir itself final l has been vocalised into i or dropped; and in many Naga and Kuki-Chin dialects (as also in Burmese) final consonants have disappeared or have suffered great changes. As already noticed, the surd mutes k, p, t (sometimes aspirated) have taken the place of the original sonants g, b, d to a large extent in Mikir, though b and d (not g) still survive in a fair proportion of words. Boṛo generally retains the old sonants of Tibetan, and Meithei uses both classes according to the adjacent sounds. The palatals ch, j of Mikir tend to become sibilants, s, ts, z, in the cognate languages; j is also often softened to y in Kuki-Chin. L and r in anlaut frequently interchange in Meithei, the interchange depending on the adjacent vowels. These letters also interchange freely in other languages of the family. In Burmese r has everywhere been changed to y, except in Arakan. L and n also often interchange. Initial d in Mikir seems sometimes to correspond to l in other cognates; and it is possible that Mikir initial s may occasionally be represented by h in the latter, though this is not quite certain. Th and s often interchange in anlaut, some dialects of Kuki-Chin showing the intermediate stage of θ, which in Burmese now everywhere replaces original s.