Another point is worth noting here. The Aryan languages of northern India are, in a very real sense, Hindu languages. Perhaps I shall make myself clearer by asserting that the languages of Western Europe are Christian languages. For historical reasons, their religious phraseology has a Christian connotation and allusiveness. But in the west, the distinction between things secular and things religious has become so familiar that the Christian element in our speech is not recognisable in our ordinary talk. In Hindu India, on the other hand, almost every act of a man's life has some religious or superstitious significance, and hence all the Aryan languages in the mouths of Hindus are markedly different from the shape they assume when spoken by Musalmāns. In the case of western Hindi we have the recognised Muhammadan dialect of Urdū, but in other languages too there is a Muhammadan dialect or _patois_, even if it has no separate name. A curious exception, however, occurs in eastern Bengal, where the bulk of the population is Musalmān. In this region the Muhammadans are comparatively recent converts from the lower aboriginal or Mongoloid castes, whose Muhammadanism sits very lightly on their habits and consciences, and so far as my own experience goes, there is little difference between the speech of the lower Musalmāns and their friends and cousins the Chandāls and other indigenous castes. _The Indo-Chinese Languages._ Finally, I must say a few words about the Indo-Chinese and Mon-Khmer languages. I spent most of my official life among people speaking these languages, and find, somewhat shamefacedly, that Sir G. A. Grierson makes me responsible for sundry vocabularies compiled in my distant youth. Naturally, I feel a personal interest in the people of the north-eastern border, and am tempted to enlarge on their qualities of speech and character. But I have left myself little space, and the Mongoloid races of the frontier are hardly Indian in any proper sense of the word. Moreover, though their total number is not great, they speak many languages. The Census of 1901 recognises 119 such languages. The most important of them all is, of course, Burmese, which is spoken by about seven and a half millions of people. There are nearly 900,000 Karens in Burma, and about 750,000 Shans. The Meithei (now Manipuris) mentioned above are 272,997 in number. The Boro or Kachari people of the Assam valley, a most attractive and delightful race, number somewhat less than 250,000. The other languages of this type have mostly a much smaller number of speakers than these. But mention should be made of 250,000 Mons, Palungs and Was in Burma, and 177,827 Khāsis in Assam, since these constitute the only members of the Mon-Khmer family still found within the limits of British India.