The distinction of the genders is not common in
the agglutinative class, and it seems to have been
originally unknown to the Dravidian languages ; even
now it only applies to adult human beings. Women
have a right to the feminine gender only in the plural ;
in the singular their name is neuter, like that of
children. In Tamil there are really only two genders,



1 30 Distribution of Languages and Races.
the noble gender and the inferior gender. For the
rest, the intellectual evolution of the primitive Dra-
vidians does not appear to have been very advanced,
for their proper vocabulary does not contain the words
which may be translated by to he, to have, soul, will,
God, priest, hook, writing, grammar ; but by borrow-
ing the conceptions, the ideas, and the terms which
they lacked, they have acquired a very rich idiom,
capable of lending itself to the subtleties of religious
philosophy and to the fantasies of a brilliant poetry.
The Kanara, Tulu, and Telinga alphabets are de-
rived from the Sanscrit character employed, in the third
century before our era, in the inscriptions of the Bud-
dhist King Afoka. Malaysia has similarly adapted
to its own use an old Sanscrit alphabet called Grantha.
Tamil seems to have received its alphabet from the
Phoenician and Arab merchants. The most ancient
inscriptions (ninth century of our era) exhibit these
different types.
Dravidian literature is later than the Aryan influ-
ence. The principal dialects have been cultivated, but
the palm belongs to Tamil both for age and merit.
