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170 be certain, that the primitive Dravidian language was influenced by Semitic and the Aryan languages on the one side, and by the Finno-Hungarian idioms on the other. And, but for some broad morphological peculiarities, there is no trace of the Australian influence to be found in the Dravidian languages. From what has been said in the first essay and from what follows, it will be plain that the Dravidian languages must be allied to the Uralo-Altaic group, though they cannot be geneologically classed with it. No other theory can satisfactorily account for the presence of Greek, Keltic, Hebrew and Finno-Hungarian words in Tamil.

The following grammatical features are common to the languages of the Dravidian family and the Uralo-Altaic group :

(1) Words are never formed by prefixes but always by suffixes so that the principal root may invariably stand first, Ex: நட, நடந்த, நடந்தது, &c.

12) Declension is effected by agglutinating secondary or relational particles to the principal root. Suffixes are added to the root or to the plural element, that is the plural sign is always intercalated between the noun and the post-position. Ex: கல், கல்லை; கற்கள், கற்களை.

(3) Consonantal system is simple, and letters approaching in sound the Tamil ழ will be found in some languages of the Uralo-Altaic group.

(4) The adjective which is a mere qualifying noun comes always before the word it qualifies, except in