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

The leading feature of the race, in contrast with other hill tribes of Assam, is its essentially unwarlike and pacific character. Its neighbours—Khasis, Kacharis, Kukis, Nagas—have for centuries been engaged in continuous internecine strife, and their tribal individualities have been preserved, and differences accentuated, by the state of hostility in which each unit, however small, lived with all adjacent peoples. The Mikirs have always, at least during the last two centuries, been, as Major Stewart described them in 1855, “good subjects.” Numbering some ninety thousand souls, they are extremely homogeneous, while other tribes in their neighbourhood differ in an extraordinary manner from village to village, and constantly tend to split up into smaller aggregates, looking on all outsiders as enemies. No such disintegrating influence has affected the Arlengs. Whether in North Cachar, the Jaintia Hills, Nowgong, or the Mikir Hills, their tribal institutions, their language, and their national character are identical, and they pursue their peaceful husbandry in the same manner as their forefathers, raising in ordinary years sufficient food for their subsistence, and a considerable amount of cotton and lac for export to the plains. In these circumstances, surrounded by warring tribes, and still nomadic in their habits of cultivation, they have from time to time found it necessary to place themselves under the protection of stronger peoples. It has been mentioned in Section I. that the traditions of the race show that they were formerly subject to the Khasi chiefs of Jaintia and the eastern states of the Khasi Hills, and that they migrated thence to the territory subject to the Ahom kings.2 During their sojourn in Khasi-land they assimilated much; dress (p. 5), ornaments (p. 6), personal names (p. 17), methods of divination (pp. 34, 35), funeral ceremonies (pp. 38–42), memorial stones (p. 42), all come from the Khasis, who have also contributed many words to their common speech. Borrowings from Hinduism are equally manifest in their language, their folk-tales, and their religion. Assamese words are numerous in Mikir; ArnÀm Kethe (p. 30) seems to be a translation of Mahadeva; JÒm-arÒng (p. 28), and the ideas linked therewith of an after-life, are strongly impressed with a Hindu stamp.

Yet they retain, together with these borrowed features, a sufficiently definite stock of original characteristics. Physically they differ much from Khasi and Assamese alike. Their social fabric is based upon clearly marked exogamous groups, with patriarchal principles of marriage and inheritance; they call these by a Khasi name (kur), but have no trace of the matriarchal family as known among the Khasis. They build their houses on posts, while their neighbours, except the Kukis, build on the ground. Their deities are of the primitive kind which is common to all Indo-Chinese races, well known, under the name of Nats, as the object of popular worship and propitiation in Burma.

Ever since the race has been studied, it has been noticed that it was difficult to establish its exact place and affinities in the heterogeneous congeries of peoples who inhabit the mountainous region between India and Burma. This was remarked by Robinson in 1841 and 1849, by Stewart in 1855, by Damant in 1879. At the Census of 1881 an attempt was made to bring the Mikirs into relation with the Boro or Kachari stock; but it was seen at the time that more must be ascertained regarding their neighbours before any final judgment could be arrived at. Dr. Grierson, on linguistic grounds, has classed them in the Linguistic Survey as intermediate between the Boro and the Western Nagas. It appears to the present writer, in the light of the much fuller information now available, that they should be classed rather with those tribes which form the connecting link between the Nagas and the Kuki-Chins, and that the preponderance of their affinities lies with the latter of these two races, especially those dwelling in the south of the Arakan Roma range, where the Chin tends to merge into the Burman of the Irawadi Valley.

When Robinson and Stewart wrote, it was still remembered that the Mikirs had once been settled in strength in the country (now called North Cachar) to the immediate north of the Barail Range, and in contact with the Angami, the Kachcha, and the Kabui Nagas; and that, exposed as they were in this locality to the inroads of the Angamis and the oppression of the Kachari kings, they had migrated westwards to the territory of the Jaintia Raja in search of protection. It was noticed in the Assam Census Report of 1881 that in this region north of the Barail, where there are now no Mikirs, local names belonging to their language indicated their former presence. When they lived there, they must have been in touch with tribes belonging to the Kuki-Chin stock, who have for centuries occupied the hill ranges to the south of the valley of Cachar, and the mountains between that valley and Manipur.

The institutions of co-operative agriculture by the village lads (p. 11), the bachelors’ house or terÀng (id.), the former custom of ante-nuptial promiscuity (p. 19), and the traces of village tabu resembling the Naga genna, still characterizing the annual festival of the RÒngker (p. 43), all point to a connection with the Western Naga tribes, rather than to affinity with the Kachari stock. From the Kuki and Chin tribes the Mikirs are distinguished chiefly by their pacific habits, and by the absence of the dependence upon hereditary tribal chiefs which is so strong a feature among the former. The customs of both races as regards the building of houses upon posts, with a hong or open platform in front, are identical; in Major G. E. Fryer’s paper “On the Khyeng people of the Sandoway District, Arakan,” published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1875 (pp. 39, 99), a Khyeng house is figured which bears a striking resemblance to the Mikir house. The institutions of domestic and individual life among the Khyengs (Chins), as described by Major Fryer, especially as regards marriage, funeral ceremonies, the disposal of the dead (after copious feasting of friends and relatives) by cremation, the rules of inheritance (females being wholly excluded from succession), the treatment of disease, the propitiation of spirits, and the annual festivals in honour of the gods who preside over man’s welfare, present the closest analogy to those of the Mikirs as set forth in this monograph. Like the Mikirs, the Chins are divided into exogamous groups and follow the rule of male kinship; but, like the Mikirs also in this, the approved marriage is that between a man and his first cousin on the mother’s side. It has been noticed already (p. 21) that the word for father-in-law (Òng-hai, wife’s father) in Mikir is identical with that for maternal uncle, Òng, and that son-in-law, osa, also means nephew (sister’s son). The story of “the Orphan and his Maternal Uncles” illustrates the obligation which lies on a lad to marry his mother’s brother’s daughter (see above, p. 53). Similarly, Harata Kun?war, though but a mortal, calls his father-in-law the Bari-the Recho Ònghai (p. 147), and is spoken of by him as osa (id.), while the fairy princesses call him cousin, kÒrpo (p. 127). The same phenomenon appears in the Kuki-Chin languages. In ShÖ or Chin (Khyeng) apu means both maternal uncle and father-in-law; so also in Lushei, pu has both meanings. The following list of words indicating relationship in Mikir and Lushei (representing the Central Kuki-Chins) shows how closely the two languages correspond in this important part of their vocabulary:—

Among all these tribes the most important index to racial connexion is to be found in their languages. No one would now assert that language, any more than religion, is everywhere a conclusive mark of racial unity; immense masses of the people of India to-day speak languages imposed upon them from without, and Aryan speech has extended itself over many millions in whose blood nothing is due to the original invaders from the north-west. Again, the practices of a predatory state of society bring into the tribe slaves and wives from outside; or, as among the Mikirs (p. 33), aliens may be accepted on equal terms as members, thus modifying the unity of blood. On the other hand, it would be equally unreasonable and opposed to the facts to deny that, among such communities as the Tibeto-Burman peoples of Assam, race and language do, constantly and in a general manner, coincide. People who speak a tongue which is unintelligible to their neighbours are necessarily thrown together into a unity of their own. Their ancestral ideas and institutions, secular and religious, their tribal history, must tend to keep them united, and perpetuate the influence of a common origin by the fact that all outside the community are actual or potential enemies. Language, therefore, when it coincides with tribal separateness, is our chief guide in determining the relationship of the hill tribes of Assam one to another.

Here another qualification is, however, necessary. The word-stock of the Tibeto-Burman races is to a large extent identical. The same methods of arranging the elements of the sentence, in other words the same general principles of grammar, prevail throughout the whole family of speech. We must, therefore, in investigating the nearer kinship of one group to another, not be misled by linguistic resemblances which are common to the whole stock to which both groups belong.

In comparing Tibeto-Burman languages it has been usual to choose for examination in the first place the numerals and in the second the pronouns. The vocabulary of nouns, adjectives, and verbs is liable to disturbing influences which do not equally affect the simple ideas represented by number and person. Let us begin, therefore, with the numerals. These, so far as they are necessary for our purpose, are as follows in Mikir:—

Here the first thing to be noticed is that the three numerals between six and ten are not independent vocables, but compounds; seven is six plus one: eight is ten minus two, and nine is ten minus one. In most of the other languages of the family this is not so; the Bo?o, the Naga, and the majority of the Kuki-Chin languages all have independent words for seven, eight, and nine. It appears to be only in the Kuki-Chin group that we can find an analogy to the Mikir words for these three numerals. In Anal, a language of the Old Kuki family spoken in Manipur, seven is tak-si which seems to be identical with the Mikir therÒk-si; and in Meithei (the language of the Manipuris) eight is ni-pan,“two from ten,” and nine is ma-pan, “one from ten.”

We next notice that ten is expressed by two separate words, kÈp (in ten and its multiples) and kre (in the compounds from eleven to nineteen). So far as vocabularies have yet been published, the only other tribes of the Tibeto-Burman family3 which have a word resembling kÈp for ten are Maring Naga, one of the Naga-Kuki languages, where it is chip, and ShÖ or southern Chin, where gip is used for ten in the sequence thirty, forty, fifty, etc. (thum-gip, thirty, mli-gip, forty, ngha-gip, fifty, exactly corresponding to the Mikir thÒm-kÈp, phili-kÈp, phÒngo-kÈp). The close resemblance of the other numerals in Maring to Mikir forms is noticeable; four is fili, five funga, and six tharuk. The other word for ten, kre, strongly resembles the Angami kerr or kerru and the Kachcha Naga gareo; in the Central Naga group the prefix ke- has been replaced by ta- or te-, and the words for ten are ter, tara (Ao), taro, tara, tare (Lhota), etc. In the Naga-Kuki group Sopvoma has chiro, Maram kero, Tangkhul thara, etc. In the Kuki-Chin group Meithei tara is the same word: in the Central Chin another prefix, pu-, pÖ-, or pa-, is used, and we have Lai pÖra, Banjogi para, Taungtha parha. There are no Bo?o forms which correspond to kre, nor any much resembling kÈp.

The Mikir word for twenty, ingkoi, is made up of the prefix ing-, and koi, formerly (before the loss of the final l) kol. Kachcha Naga has the same word, engkai, Kabui choi, koi, or kol. The word also appears in Garo (kol), Tipura (khol), and Deori-Chutiya (kwa), of the Bo?o group; Angami me-kwu, me-khi, mekko, Lhota me-kwi, mekwÜ, in the West and Central Naga groups; Maram and Sopvoma (make, makei), Tangkhul (maga), Phadeng (ma-kui), in the Naga-Kuki group, and Singpho khun. In the Kuki-Chin languages it is very common (Meithei kul, Siyin kul, Lai pÖ-kul, Shonshe ma-kul, Banjogi kul, ShÖ [Chin] kul, goi). There does not appear to be any trace of this word for a score in the Tibetan and Himalayan languages, where twenty is invariably rendered by “two-tens.”4 The Northern Indian word ko?i, which has the same meaning, has been compared with it; it is difficult, however, to imagine borrowing on one part or the other.

In the series of tens, 30 to 90, Mikir prefixes the multiplier: thÒm-kÈp, phili-kÈp, phÒngo-kÈp, etc. The Bo?o group prefixes the tens (Garo sot-bri, 40, sot-bongga, 50, sot-dok, 60, etc.).5 The Naga group has both systems; Angami prefixes the tens: lhi6-da, 40, lhi-pangu, 50, lhi-suru, 60; Lhota and Ao suffix them: Lhota tham-dro, 30, zÜ-ro, 40, rok-ro, 60; Ao semur’ 30, lir’ 40, rok-ur’ 60. In the Kuki-Chin group the majority of dialects prefix the tens (Thado and Lushei som-thum 30, som-li 40, etc.), and this is also the rule for Kachcha Naga, Kabui, and Khoirao, as well as for all the languages classed by Dr. Grierson as Naga-Kuki. But the ShÖ or southern Chins not only have the same collocation as the Mikirs (thum-gip, mli-gip, ngha-gip)—an arrangement which also obtains in Burmese,—but use the same words. This coincidence is very striking.

The word for a hundred, pharo, bears no resemblance to any word expressing this numeral in the Bo?o languages. It agrees with the Angami kra, Kezhama kri, Sopvoma kre, and in a remarkable way with the words used by the Southern Chins (Taungtha ta-ya = tara, ChinbÒk phya = phra, Yawdwin pra, ShÖ (Chin) krat). It will be seen that pha- in Mikir, k- in the Naga languages, and ta-, ph-, p- and k- in the Chin dialects, are numeral prefixes, and that the essential element of the numeral is ra (Mikir ro) or rat. It appears in this form, without any prefix, in several other Kuki-Chin languages.

Here should be mentioned a custom which obtains in Mikir of counting by fours; a group of four is cheke or chike, which corresponds to the Bo?o zakhai (jakhai). This system is used for counting such things as eggs, betel-nuts, fowls, etc., of the same class; e.g. vo-ti chike phÒngo-ra e-pum, 21 eggs (4 × 5 + 1): chike phÒngo-ra pum-thÒm, 23 eggs (4 × 5 + 3). Possibly one language has borrowed from the other. (This method of counting by fours is common throughout the Aryan languages of Northern India, where a group of four is called (ga??a.)

Our conclusion from these comparisons is that while Mikir has few coincidences, beyond those common to the whole Tibeto-Burman family, with the Bo?o group, it has many with the Naga and Kuki-Chin groups, and especially with the ShÖ or southernmost Chins.

Before leaving the numerals, something must be said of the prefixes which they exhibit throughout the Tibeto-Burman family. Taking first that member for which we have the oldest materials, Tibetan, the first ten numerals are as follows:—

Here we observe several different prefixes, once no doubt supplied with vowels, but from the dawn of written record united in Tibetan with the following consonant, and now no longer heard in utterance; in the first three units the prefix is g-: in four, seven, eight, and ten it is b-: in six and nine it is d-: and in five it is l-.

In the Tibeto-Burman languages of Assam and Burma we find the same phenomenon of numeral prefixes; but while some languages have the same prefix throughout the ten units, others, like Tibetan, have several different prefixes. In some cases, again, the prefixes have been incorporated in the numeral and are no longer recognized as separable, while in others they may be dropped when the numeral occurs in composition; in others, again, the prefixes have (as in spoken Tibetan) been dropped altogether.

Of the first class the best examples are the Central Kuki-Chin languages:—

Of the second class Mikir, in common with most of the Assam family, is an example; in one and two the prefix ke- (representing the Tibetan g-) has been abraded to i- and hi-: in three it persists; in these numbers the prefix may be dropped in composition, leaving si, ni, and thÒm remaining. In four and five we have the prefix phi- (for pi-) and pho- (for po- or pa-), representing the b- of Tibetan, but now no longer separable. In six the prefix the- represents the original d-, and has similarly become inseparable. In ten, the form kre represents an original kera, answering to the Kuki-Chin pÖ-ra and ma-ra and the Meithei ta-ra. We notice that in Mikir, as in the Naga and Kuki-Chin languages, the hard consonants k, p, t (ph, th) have replaced the soft g, b, and d of the Tibetan. In the Bo?o languages, on the other hand, the original soft consonants of Tibetan are retained, as will be seen from the forms below:—

In these changes Mikir follows the phonetic laws obtaining in Naga and Kuki-Chin, not those which obtain in Bo?o.

It has been pointed out already (p. 78) that generic determinatives are used in Mikir when numbers are joined to nouns. This practice is common to the Bo?o languages and to the Kuki-Chin group (as well as Burmese), but does not appear to be prevalent in the Western Naga group. A list of the words used in Darrang Kachari is given at p. 13 of Mr. Endle’s grammar; for Garo, a list will be found at p. 6 of Mr. Phillips’s grammar; it much resembles the Darrang list, but neither contains any forms coinciding with those of Mikir except the Garo pat, used for leaves and other flat things, which resembles the Mikir pÀk. On the other hand, in Kuki-Chin we have in Lai pum for globular things,7 the same as in Mikir, and in ShÖ (Chin) we have for persons pÜn, the Mikir bÀng (bÀng in Mikir and pang in Lushei mean body), and for animals zÜn, the Mikir jÒn (Mr. Houghton’s grammar, p. 20). Here again the affinity of the Arleng is with the Kuki-Chin group, and especially with its southernmost member, rather than with the Bo?o.

Turning now to the pronouns, the Mikir ne for the first person singular finds it exact equivalent only in the two Old Kuki dialects Anal and Hiroi, spoken in Manipur, where the corresponding pronoun is ni (Anal) and nai (Hiroi). In Bo?o the form is ang, in Angami a, in Sema ngi, in Ao ni, in Lhota a, in Kachcha Naga anui. In the majority of the Kuki-Chin family another stem, kei or ke, is used. Here Mikir agrees with the two Kuki dialects mentioned and with some of the Naga forms, rather than with Bo?o.

For the second person singular all the Tibeto-Burman languages of Assam have nÀng, or closely similar forms.

For the third person Mikir now uses the demonstrative la, but, as the possessive prefix shows, had formerly a. In this it agrees with Lai, Lushei, Chiru, Kolren among the Kuki family, and Tangkhul and Maring among the Naga-Kuki group. What the original Bo?o pronoun of the third person was is not now ascertainable; the demonstrative bi (Darrang), be (Lalung), bo (Dimasa) or ua (Garo) is now used instead. This seems to correspond with the Mikir pe-, pi-, pa- in the words mentioned on p. 80. In Angami the pronoun is similarly po, in Sema pa, and in Ao pa. In Meithei and many other Kuki-Chin languages another demonstrative, ma, is used; this may be connected with the Mikir mi, me, in mini, to-day, menÀp, to-morrow (see p. 80). But, although ma is used as a separate pronoun for the third person in the majority of the Kuki-Chin group, the prefixed a- of relation, usual in Mikir, which (as explained on p. 76) is really the possessive pronoun of the third person, is widely employed throughout the family, as a prefix both to nouns and adjectives, in exactly the same way as in Mikir. This coincidence, again, is striking; the Bo?o languages seem to present nothing similar.

The plural pronouns in Mikir are formed by adding -tum to the singular. Exactly the same thing takes place in Tangkhul, a Naga-Kuki language: i, I, i-thum, we; na, thou, na-thum, ye; a, he, a-thum, they. The plural of nouns, however, in Tangkhul is formed by other affixes, generally words meaning “many” (cf. the Mikir Òng).

Mikir has two forms for the pronoun of the first person plural, according as the speaker includes the person addressed or excludes him, i-tum or e-tum in the former and ne-tum in the latter case. The first, it will be seen, agrees with the general word for we in Tangkhul. In Angami also two forms are used, he-ko for we exclusive, and a-vo for we inclusive; the former seems to agree in form, though not in sense, with the Mikir e-tum. The affinity of Mikir with the Western Naga and Naga-Kuki languages seems to be exemplified here also. The Bo?o languages have not the double form for this person.

The reflexive pronoun or particle in Mikir, che (see p. 80), is represented in Thado Kuki by ki, which is perhaps the same word. Angami has the, Meithei na. Bo?o does not appear to possess any corresponding particle.

The interrogative particle -ma in Mikir (p. 80) is mo in most of the Kuki-Chin languages (in some -em, -am), while in Angami it is ma, and in Kachcha Naga me. The same particle (ma) is used in Garo and Bo?o for questions.

Two particles are used in Mikir as suffixes to magnify or diminish the root-word; the augmentative is -pi (as thÈng, wood, firewood, thÈngpi, a tree; lÀng, water, lÀngpi, the great water, the sea), the diminutive is -so (as hÈm, a house, hÈmso, a hut; lÀng-so, a brook). Bo?o has -ma for the augmentative, -sa for the diminutive (dui-ma, great river, dui-sa, brook); but Meithei and Thado have the same particles as Mikir, -pi and -cha (ch is equivalent to s).

The Mikir suffix -po, feminine -pi, corresponding to the Hindi -wala (see several examples on p. 12 ante), seems to be identical with the Meithei -ba (-pa) and -bi (-pi), though it has nothing like the extensive use in Mikir which -ba (-pa) has in Meithei.

The noteworthy separable prefix ar- in Mikir, which is probably connected with the Tibetan prefix r- (see ante, p. 129, note), appears to occur in the Kuki-Chin languages, but does not seem to have any representative in the Bo?o family. The examples in the Kuki-Chin volume of the Linguistic Survey are found in Rangkhol (p. 6, er-ming, “name”), Aimol (p. 215, ra-mai, “tail,” Mikir arme), Kom (p. 245, ra-mhing, “name”; ra-nai, “earth, ground” [nai perhaps = Mikir le in lÒng-le]), Kyaw or Chaw (p. 254), and Hiroi (p. 282). All these forms of speech belong to the Old Kuki group, which has already yielded several other analogies with Mikir.

The prefix ke- (ki-, ka-), which plays so important a part in Mikir (see pp. 77, 83, 84) in the formation of adjectives, participles, and verbal nouns, and answers to the Bo?o ga- and the Angami ke-, has for the most part disappeared from the Kuki dialects, perhaps because it conflicts with the prefixed pronominal stem of the first person, ka-. It survives, however, in the three Old Kuki languages, Kom, Anal, and Hiroi. In Tangkhul, of the Naga-Kuki group, it is used exactly as in Mikir, to form adjectives and verbal nouns, e.g.:—

The particles used in Mikir as suffixes to indicate tenses of the verb, with the exception of that for the completed past, tÀng, which appears to be identical with the Thado and Lushei ta, do not seem to have any close analogues in the Kuki-Chin or Naga-Kuki groups; they are also quite different from those used in the Bo?o group. Causative verbs, however, are in many Kuki-Chin languages constructed with the verb pe or pÈk, “to give,” as in Mikir; and the suffix of the conjunctive participle in Mikir, -si, is perhaps the same as -chu in Khoirao. In Bo?o the prefix fi-, answering to the Mikir pi-, was formerly used to form causatives, as appears from verbal roots in current use; the construction now most common uses -nu, which has the same meaning (“to give”) as a suffix.

The negative verb in Mikir is formed by suffixing the particle -e to the positive root, when the latter begins with a vowel. Similarly, in Bo?o a negative verb is formed by adding the particle -a. In the Kuki-Chin languages different suffixes are employed (lo, lai, loi, mak, ri), and in a few dialects prefixes. Here Mikir resembles Bo?o rather than the Kuki group. But the remarkable feature of Mikir in reduplicating initial consonants before the suffixed negative (see ante, p. 85) has no analogy in either family, unless the isolated example in Kolren (an Old Kuki dialect) quoted in the Linguistic Survey, vol. III., part iii., p. 19, supplies one. It is to be observed, however, that in the construction there cited (na-pe-pÈk-mao-yai, “did not give”), the verb pÈk has suffixed to it the negative particle mao, and that the reduplication alone appears to have no negative force. Other examples seem necessary before the rule of reduplication can be considered to be established. Possibly loi and lai in Kuki correspond to the separate Mikir negative ka-li (see ante, p. 86).

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 o where other languages have -a, especially in auslaut;8 on the other hand long a in Mikir is sometimes thinned down to e; the word recho, answering to the Aryan raja, is an example of both processes. Long i in Mikir often corresponds to oi and ai, as well as to e and ei, in the cognates. As regards consonants, nasals at the end of syllables are often rejected; thus within Mikir itself we have o and Òng, da and dÀm, ne and nÈng, la and lÀng. Some languages (as for instance Angami9 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. Bo?o 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 ?, which in Burmese now everywhere replaces original s.

Lastly, it should be noticed that Tipura, an outlying member of the Bo?o group, often exhibits a sound system more closely corresponding to that of the Kuki-Chin languages (which are its neighbours) than Bo?o, Dimasa, or Garo.

The resemblances in vocabulary between Mikir and the Western Naga dialects are extensive, as will be seen from the list (due to Mr. A. W. Davis) at p. 201, vol. III., part ii., of the Linguistic Survey. These need not be repeated here. The following is a list of Bo?o (Darrang), Dimasa, Garo, and Tipura words which seem to correspond with Mikir. It will be seen, however, by reference to the columns headed Kuki-Chin and Naga (including Naga-Kuki), that in the case of nearly all these words the other two families, as well as Mikir, have the same roots. They therefore belong to the common stock of the Tibeto-Burman languages of Assam, and do not by themselves prove any close connection of Mikir with Bo?o.