The people believe that if the name of a deceased
person is pronounced, his spirit will return, and as they have no
wish to see it back among them the mention of his name is tabooed
and a new word is created to take its place, whenever the name
happens to be a common term of the language. Consequently many words
are permanently lost or revived with modified or new meanings. In
the Nicobar Islands a similar practice has similarly affected the
speech of the natives. "A most singular custom," says Mr. de
Roepstorff, "prevails among them which one would suppose must most
effectually hinder the 'making of history,' or, at any rate, the
transmission of historical narrative. By a strict rule, which has
all the sanction of Nicobar superstition, no man's name may be
mentioned after his death! To such a length is this carried that
when, as very frequently happens, the man rejoiced in the name of
'Fowl,' 'Hat', 'Fire,' 'Road,' etc., in its Nicobarese equivalent,
the use of these words is carefully eschewed for the future, not
only as being the personal designation of the deceased, but even as
the names of the common things they represent; the words die out of
the language, and either new vocables are coined to express the
thing intended, or a substitute for the disused word is found in
other Nicobarese dialects or in some foreign tongue.
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