Malton.adj.

1884 E. Droese Introd. Malto Lang. p. i Malto is the language of one of the aboriginal races of India who call themselves Maler i.e. men, and go among their Aryan neighbours by the name of Paharias (Hill people).

1906 G. A. Grierson Ling. Surv. India IV. 446 Malto is almost exclusively spoken in the Rajmahal Hills in the north-east of the Sonthal Parganas... Malto is the name used by the people themselves in order to denote their language. The word simply means ‘the language of the Maler’, and maler in Malto means ‘men’ and is the name the people apply to themselves... It is..probable that Malto like Malayāḷam is derived from the common Dravidian mala, mountain, so that the original meaning of ‘maler’ would be ‘hillmen’.

1955 T. Burrow Sanskrit Lang. viii. 387 The Dravidian languages Kurukh and Malto are preserved even now in Northern India, and may be regarded as islands surviving from a once extensive Dravidian territory.

1972 W. B. Lockwood Panorama Indo-European Lang. 224 Malto, the vernacular of 100,000 tribesmen, is found in the Rajmahal Hills.

1884 E. Droese (title) Introduction to the Malto Language.

1906 G. A. Grierson Ling. Surv. India IV. 447 Malto does not possess a literature of its own... The Malto language very closely agrees with Kuruḵẖ.

1929 Amer. Jrnl. Philol. 50 146 Malto verbs distinguish genders in the singular of the second and third persons.

1963 L. P. Vidyarthi Maler iv. 57 The Maler..call themselves ‘Male’ in their native Malto language which means hill~man.

1981 Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc. 71 125/2 The only direct connection with -k- is through the Malto examples mentioned above.