Note 4 — Chapter XXV · LANGUAGE

From one point of view my ignorance of Dravidian languages is not an unmixed evil. When anyone hears a language which is allied to one he knows, it is almost impossible to avoid being influenced by this knowledge. This influence has not been escaped by some of those who have previously recorded words from the Toda language. Thus in his Comparative Dictionary of non-Aryan Languages of India and Higher Asia,4 Hunter gives two vocabularies from different sources which he calls Toḍuva and Toḍa, and from the differences between these he thought they might be different dialects. According to Breeks these differences are due to the fact that the compiler of one vocabulary paid exclusive attention to the sounds he heard, while the compiler of the other was influenced by his knowledge of the derivation of the words. I have very little doubt that many of those who have recorded Toda words have not written them down exactly as the Todas said them, but as they ought to have said them according to the usual rules of Dravidian pronunciation.