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 TRACES OF EARLY NON-ARYAN INVASIONS OF ASAM 19 cult, we think it may not be reasonable to suppose that Indo-Tranions did not belong to the same branch of Indo-European speakers and still less, to say that they were not basically Aryans at all. This is not to deny Early Iranian or Magian correspondence with Asamiyas or not to admit an Alpine Immigation, but simply to doubt the identity of the Early Tranian with the Alpines as a no FOUR TRACES OF EARLY NON-ARYAN INVASIONS OF ASAM Asant is a proverbially polyglot State of Bharat (India) today, only five millions out of nine millions of its inhabitants having Asamiya for their mother tongue, there being as many as 120 different another Longues spoloen by the rest of the population, different tribes of Nagas alone having about 20 mother tongues among themselves. Thus Asamiya is really a small island of Aryan speech in a sea of non-Aryan dialects, and it would probably be the instance of another Tower of Babel had not Asamly served as a lingua france among these ten doxen mother tongues. As in language, so in creed and culture, he State of Asam presents the appearance of a veritable museum of nature embracing large varie- ties and types of races ranging from the Negroids to the Nordics with all shades of anthropological differences among them, and including parti- cularly brachycephal Alpines playing so important a role in the compo- sition of the highly complex and advanced culture of Asamiyi civilization. The proper Asamiya-speaking arca, namely the Brahmaputra Valley itself, is also like a small island in the sea of hills surrounding the State in as many as three sides and occupying the vast area of 61,979 sq. miles out of the total of only 85,012 square miles of the entire State. Yet it may sound even as a miracle of history how the small island remains from time immemorial not only unswallowed by the sea, but also commanding and lording over it for a wholesome indience for the State. This is not to deny that hill people have contributed anything to Asamiya culture in general and to the language in particular, but simply so say that the contribution is not as large as it could be expected. Asamiya has as much as 90% Aryan words and of the remaining 10% one cannot be sufficiently sure that they are all borrowed and at least some percentage of them is not indigenous. It seems really surprising to see that like the Tibeto-Burman who invaded Asam in pre-historic times and have since been absorbed in the Asamiya population, the Tal-