266 COMPARATIVE CONCLUDING REMARKS.
Selig e , lion; t a, horse; t s e, top, &c. In general, if two substantives are combined, the one showing the specific quality precedes; but the specific modification is, as a rule, the second part, if its form is that of an adjective.
Ancient history or pree-buddhist myths could not be traced in geographical names; unless some of the superstitious denominations, as M 6 r d o, the oracle's stones, may be considered as instances. Not unfrequently a combination of several words is formed into one name, which then assumes a considerable length, as S a ng- g y e- c h i- k us u n g -thug -chi - t é n (or Himis), the support of the meaning of the Buddha's precepts; T s o m o t e t h n n g, the lake, the wild horse's drinking place.
Hindu names in Tibet occurring in native Indian maps (as also in European maps) are nearly always of foreign plain Brahmanical origin ; the inhabitants themselves and those of the immediate environs of the respective object have another, a Tibetan name. The double name of GaurisAnkar and Chingopamari; and, among many others, the more generally known names of Mansarâur and Tso Maphan, may be alleged as analogous cases. Celebrated lamaic establishments frequently have a clerical name besides the one generally in use; as an instance of this I mention the monastery Himis quoted above.
Every alphabetical arrangement of words at once shows, that, as initials, certain letters and certain combinations of letters are much less frequent in one language than in others (the system of transliteration chosen naturally concealing the fact to some extent); and what is still more surprising, letters which appear indispensable in one group of languages are entirely wanting in their counterpart in another. As a very remarkable instance, there is the letter F," which is . altogether wanting in the Sanskrit elements of Hindostâni and in Tibetan. Detailed comparison shows, moreover, many minor instances of similar nature; short vowels between certain consonants, particularly mutes and liquids, are not audibly pronounced, and in many of the native alphabets not written either. In our European languages, also, we have many similar instances, where frequently the vowels are dropped in speaking, though they are written.
Tibetan shows still another physiological and ethnographical modification not unworthy of attention, viz. that the letters used as terminals are very few in number. Amongst the thirty letters of consonantal character of the Tibetan alphabet ten'
' These ten letters are: b, d, g, ng, 1, m, n, r, s, and the letter we represented by the spiritus lenis.—In Sanskrit, however, the tenues only are terminal consonants.
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