Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER II PREHISTORIC PROBLEMS
- BOOK I OWNERSHIP IN EGYPT
- BOOK II ANCIENT BABYLONIA
- BOOK III FROM MASSALIA TO MALABAR
- FROM MASSALIA TO MALABAR
- CHAPTER I THE PHŒNICIANS AND CARTHAGE
- CHAPTER II PREHISTORIC POPULATIONS OF ASIA MINOR, GREECE, AND ITALY
- CHAPTER III THE ETRUSCANS, LYCIANS, AND RHODIANS
- CHAPTER IV THE LAWS OF CHARONDAS
- CHAPTER V LEGENDARY AMAZONS AND HISTORICAL IBERIANS
- CHAPTER VI CRETE AND SPARTA
- CHAPTER VII A SYRIAN LAW-BOOK
- CHAPTER VIII ANCIENT ARABIA
- CHAPTER IX HAMITIC AFRICAN TRIBES
CHAPTER X - MALABAR
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2011
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER II PREHISTORIC PROBLEMS
- BOOK I OWNERSHIP IN EGYPT
- BOOK II ANCIENT BABYLONIA
- BOOK III FROM MASSALIA TO MALABAR
- FROM MASSALIA TO MALABAR
- CHAPTER I THE PHŒNICIANS AND CARTHAGE
- CHAPTER II PREHISTORIC POPULATIONS OF ASIA MINOR, GREECE, AND ITALY
- CHAPTER III THE ETRUSCANS, LYCIANS, AND RHODIANS
- CHAPTER IV THE LAWS OF CHARONDAS
- CHAPTER V LEGENDARY AMAZONS AND HISTORICAL IBERIANS
- CHAPTER VI CRETE AND SPARTA
- CHAPTER VII A SYRIAN LAW-BOOK
- CHAPTER VIII ANCIENT ARABIA
- CHAPTER IX HAMITIC AFRICAN TRIBES
Summary
If the comparative study of institutions were allowed to serve as evidence of co-equal significance with that of language and physique, the existence of a pre- or proto-Phænician colony in Malabar is undoubtedly the first hypothesis that would suggest itself to explain the resemblance between Berber and Malabar usage noticed by the Arabs, and other equally notable similarities. On the face of it; of course, nothing is more probable than that “the first maritime and commercial people in the first ages of the world,” when trading from the Persian Gulf to India, should have established a commercial colony on the Malabar Coast, which has been a thriving centre of Eastern and Western trade for fifteen centuries, according to what may be called modern evidence, and during that time has suffered so little change that we need have no difficulty in crediting it with a past of twice that duration.
The character of the earliest Malayali deeds, which do not go back beyond the 8th cent, a.d., resembles that of undeciphered inscriptions in Ceylon, and the language, according to Caldwell, is “practically Tamil:” it has, however, “always been a matter of controversy whether Malayalam is the mother, or sister, or daughter of Tamil,” and the view that it is the archaic form of Tamil, before that became a written language, is certainly favoured by the archaic character of the national institutions.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Primitive CivilizationsOr, Outlines of the History of Ownership in Archaic Communities, pp. 545 - 576Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1894