bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Gleanings from Early Urdu Poets
Authors: Bailey T. Grahame
Published: January 2010

This remarkable writer, the founder of Ḥaidarābād, and probably the first literary poet in the language, was the fourth king of the Qutb Shāhī dynasty which ruled in Golkuṇḍa, one of the five states into which the Deccan was divided after the break up of the Bahmanī kingdom. In the last number of the Bulletin I gave reasons for believing that he was an earlier writer than Vajhī, who in 1609 wrote the masnavī known as Qutb Mushtarī, in which he related a story having this very monarch for hero. Only five years after Qulī Qutb Shāh's death his works were collected by his nephew and successor. They have never been published, but the beautiful original MS. compiled under the orders of his nephew in 1616 is still in Ḥaidarābād. It consists of 1,800 pages and has perhaps 100,000 lines.

Though he lived so long ago his name is one of the greatest in Urdu. He shows wonderful human interest, for he writes of everyday matters, Hindu and Muḥammadan festivals, the customs of the country, life in his palace, the celebration of his birthday, and of natural objects such as fruit, vegetables, and flowers. The only poets who can be compared with him are Saudā, and Nazir, both of whom he excels in description of nature, while in his sympathetic account of Hindu life he is superior to all other Muḥammadan poets.
Early Urdu Conversation
Authors: Bailey T. Grahame
Published: January 2010

It is natural that records of the beginnings of Urdu should be almost entirely confined to literature or quasi literature. Yet there are two classes of books which contain references to conversation; firstly, early lives of holy men (especially in the Deccan and Gujrat), whose followers wrote accounts of their sayings and doings, occasionally quoting actual words; secondly, histories such as those by Firishta and Abu'l FaẒl, in which we may find Urdu sentences spoken by emperors or kings. Urdu must often have been employed as the language of conversation in exalted circles even though the official language continued to be Persian.
Some characteristics of the Dōsiri dialect of Arabic as spoken in Kuwait
Authors: Johnstone T. M.
Published: January 2010

Thedialect material set out in this article was collected mainly from two informants of the Dōsiri (pl. Duwāsir < > Dawāsir) tribe living in Kuwait. Although the dialect is described as Dōsiri, there is no doubt that the informants had been influenced by the local form of ‘Ajmi, a dialect of high social prestige. This influence was particularly noticeable when the informants were conversing with one another.
The Initial Labial Sounds in The Turkish Languages
Authors: Clauson Gerard
Published: January 2010

I PROPOSE in this paper to discuss only pure Turkish words, that is I specifically exclude all words which were borrowed from some other language at one time or another, and what I shall try to establish is one segment of the phonetic make-up of the oldest form of the Turkish language which we can reconstruct, that is the Turkish spoken appreciably earlier than the eighth century A.D., the date of the earliest substantial specimens of the language which still exist.
An Andalusian poet of the Fourteenth Century: Ibn al-Ḥājj
Authors: Hopkins J. F. P.
Published: January 2010

There is in the British Museum an Arabic MS (Or. 5670) of some 32 folios entitled Kitāb qarā'in al-qaṣr wa-maḥāsin al-'aṣr fī madḥ amīr al-muslimīn [sic] Abī 'Abd Allāh ibn Naṣr and ascribed to the adīb Ibrāhīm b. 'Abd Allāh b. al-Ḥājj. This ascription arouses no suspicion at first sight, for the kunya of the Nasrid sultan of Granada Muḥammad V was indeed Abū 'Abd Allāh, and there was at his court a poet and littérateur of repute named Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥājj. The description of the MS in the catalogue takes this ascription at its face value. The purpose of this paper is to set forth as much as can be discovered about the poet Ibn al-Ḥājj and his works and to discuss the ascription of the extant fragments bearing his name.
The Seven Names For Hell in The Qur'ān
Authors: S.J. Thomas O'Shaughnessy
Published: January 2010

Theuse of seven names for Hell in the Qur'ān, though often noted as proper to Muhammad, has never been fully explained. Yet the notion they stand for is an important element in the preaching of the Prophet of Islam and runs through the whole context of his message. A solution of their problem therefore may provide increased understanding not only of their author's inner sentiments during the Meccan years of persecution but also of the external influences that moulded his thought and expression over the two decades in which the Qur'ān was announced as a divine revelation to the people of Arabia.
A Kharoṣṭhī Inscription from China
Authors: Brough John
Published: January 2010

In or about 1925 or 1926, three stones which were said to have been brought from Lo-yang, and which contain parts of a Kharoṣṭhī inscription, were shown to the Lazarist missionaries in Peking; and in 1926 a priest of the mission, Georges Prévost, who had come to the conclusion that the script was Palmyrene and the language Hebrew, produced an interpretation on this basis in a pamphlet of 31 pages. Such an explanation naturally involved its author in numerous difficulties both of language and palaeography; and since the pamphlet was printed only in a limited edition for private circulation, it might seem kinder to pass over in silence a mistake so unfortunate. Prévost was indeed aware of some of the difficulties, although he appears to have entertained no doubts at all about the identification of the script and language. But in spite of the restricted circulation of the original pamphlet, its existence has been recorded in several other publications; and the mention in print of these ‘Hebrew inscriptions’ from China, when the photograph is not easily accessible, is a potential nuisance to scholars. It is therefore desirable to prevent any future misunderstanding by making it clear that the inscription which is republished here is in fact the same as Prévost's ‘inscriptions sémitiques’.
New evidence on Thai shadow-play invocations
Authors: Simmonds E. H. S.
Published: January 2010

The long struggle of the Thai against the Khmers, culminating in the attacks on and conquest of Angkor early in the fifteenth century A.D., brought the two peoples into intimate association. Thai literature was clearly a beneficiary of this close culture contact, and Cambodian influence upon it, dating back to this early period, is undoubted. Nevertheless, little detailed study of such influence has so far been attempted, partly because of a lack of suitable manuscript material, especially on the Cambodian side, and partly because serious comparative work of an historical nature on the two languages has hardly begun.
A Messianic Buddhist association in Upper Burma
Authors: Mendelson E. Michael
Published: January 2010

In the majority of cases, the religion of contemporary Burma is described as a compound of Theravāda Buddhism and the survivals of an indigenous ‘Animism’. As an anthropological field-worker I have recently found in Burma certain beliefs and rituals which did not appear to fit exactly into either of these two categories. I present here, in two parts, a study of an association which I have chosen to call Messianic Buddhist. In the first part I describe the building in which it is housed and the cults I witnessed, together with beliefs concerning these cults elicited in the course of several conversations with members of the association. In the second part I draw on comparative materials in printed sources in order to justify my choice of terms and to attempt to explain the origin and nature of the association.
Pramnai
Authors: Barnett L. D.
Published: January 2010

In the course of a description of India Strabo makes the following statement, apparently drawn from a source other than theMemoirs of Megasthenes (Geogr. xv, C. 719): “they mention as philosophers in opposition to the Brahmans the Pramnai, who are addicted to wrangling and refutation; and [they say] the Brahmans study natural science and astronomy, but are derided by the others [i.e. the Pramnai] as impostors and fools.”
Antiochus, King of the Yavanas
Authors: Charpentier Jarl
Published: January 2010

It is too well known to need more than a formal repetition here that two of the Rock Edicts of Aśoka mention as his contemporaries a number of kings of the West, the foremost of which is a certain Antiochus. The most important passage is that of the Edict XIII (P–Q), which I quote from the only version that is here wholly preserved, viz. that of Shāhbāzgaṛhī:—

ayi ca mukhamutavijaye Devanaṃpriyasa yo dhramavijayo ║ so ca puna ladho Devanaṃpriyasa iha ca sareṣu ca aṃteṣu[a] ṣaṣu pi yojanaśateṣu yatra Aṃtiyoko nama Yonaraja paraṃ ca tena Atiyokena cature 4 rajani Turamaye nama Aṃtikini nama Maka nama Alikasudaro nama ║
À propos de l’origine des chiffres arabes
Authors: Cœdès G.
Published: January 2010

L’origine des chiffres que nous appelons “ arabes ” parce qu’ils ont été introduits en Europe par les Arabes, et de la notation arithmétique basée sur leur valeur de position avec I’emploi du symbole zéro, a donné lieu à des recherches qui ont abouti à des résultats opposés: certains auteurs ont affirmé l’origine indienne du système, tandis que d’autres ont voulu y voir une invention occidentale.

Parmi ces derniers, M. G. R. Kaye s'est fait remarquer par son hostilité contre la thèse de l’origine indienne. Il s'exprime ainsi dans son article “ Notes on Indian Mathematics: Arithmetical Notation ” (JASB., 1907, p. 487):
Bhāgavatism and Sun-Worship
Authors: De S. K.
Published: January 2010

In his article on The Nārāyaṇīya and the Bhāgavatas published in the Indian Antiquary, September, 1908, Grierson put forward a somewhat remarkable hypothesis (pp. 253–4) of the solar origin of Bhāgavatism. The view does not appear to have attracted much notice from scholars competent to pronounce an opinion on the subject; but it has neither been directly approved nor directly discredited.Since the theory has been repeated by Grierson in his article on Bhakti-mārga in Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics ii, p. 540, where he practically reproduces his previous statements and arguments, a few remarks on the question may be offered.
Notes on Gujrātī Phonology
Authors: Dave T. N.
Published: January 2010

Modern Gujrātī has three phonemes in the group of voiced cerebrals: viz. the unaspirated stop ḍ, the unaspirated tapped ṛ, and the aspirated stop ḍh, there being no corresponding aspirated tapped in the standard language. In Gujrātī script ḍ and ṛ are written with the same symbol, while ḍh has a different symbol.
On Mithra's part in Zoroastrianism
Authors: Boyce Mary
Published: January 2010

One of the great problems in the study of Zoroastrianism has been to determine what were the new elements in Zoroaster's teachings—elements which roused such bitter hostility among his own people that he was driven to seek exile and to find his first converts among strangers. It is a problem because, through comparison with the Vedic religion, it has been possible to establish a good deal about the religion of the Iranians before Zoroaster, and naturally even more is known about the religion of the Zoroastrian church after him; and the two are remarkably and disconcertingly similar, as if the second were in many respects a natural development of the first, without any break in continuity, whereas neither is very fully or clearly reflected in Zoroaster's own highly complex Gāthās. Western scholars have fairly generally sought to explain this apparent anomaly by postulating that in many points of doctrine the religion of the Zoroastrian church is not in fact that preached by its prophet; they suppose, that is, that the followers of Zoroaster fairly rapidly betrayed his teachings and evolved a syncretic religion in which they reverted to many ancient beliefs and observances which he himself had denounced.
Some aspects of the Ottoman fetvā
Authors: Heyd Uriel
Published: January 2010

No comprehensive study of the Ottoman fetvā has so far been carried out. Of the great many Ottoman fetvā selections in print and manuscript, very few have been published in a scholarly edition or translated into a Western language. The systematic inquiry into the application of Muslim law in the Ottoman Empire as reflected in the fetvās has hardly even begun. This article will not examine the decisions of Ottoman muftīs on specific questions of law but discuss some general aspects of the Ottoman fetvā—its form, the procedure of its composition and issuance, the subjects it deals with, the law it applies, and related matters.
Chinese relations with Central Asia, 260–90
Authors: Loewe Michael
Published: January 2010

The extent and nature of Chinese penetration into Central Asia during the third century and the problems raised by the Chinese and Kharoṣṭhī documents that have been found at the various sites of Lop-nor, Niya, and elsewhere have recently formed the subject of articles by two scholars. Professer Brough has suggested that the territory of the state of Shan-shan was incorporated into the Kuṣāṇa empire for a short period, perhaps in the middle of the second century, before independent rules took over control. He believes that a further change was marked by the adoption of the royal title jiṭuṃgha from the seventeenth year of king Aṃgoka, and that thereafter the country was subject to Chinese control (or at least nominally so) for the period of about 60 years until the end of King Vaṣmana's reign; and he suggests that the seventeenth year of king Aṃgoka can be identified with 263. Professor Enoki has recently taken the opportunity to revise his earlier theory that the year in question should be identified as 609; and he now believes that the five kings mentioned by name in the Kharoṣṭhī documents should be dated from the middle of the third century to the decade starting in 330.
Introduction to a Fang oral art genre: Gabon and Cameroon mvet
Authors: Alexandre Pierre
Published: January 2010

Mvet is used, in the A 70 languages, both for a type of musical instrument and for the special genres of oral literature played or delivered to its accompaniment.

As the name for a musical instrument mvet has been variously translated as ‘musical bow’, ‘cithar-harp’, ‘native guitar’, and so forth. It is, technically speaking, a chordophone with resonators. The commonest type consists basically of a dry ‘bamboo’ (Wes Kos name; in fact the stem of a palm frond, nnen zam, Raphia sp.) about four feet in length, an inch and a half in diameter, and slightly curved. The bark is slit, on the convex side, into four thin strips left attached at both ends, then raised on an indented wooden peg, set slightly off centre. These strings (minsam) are adjusted for tuning by bark or leather rings sliding along the stem. Calabashes are tied underneath as resonators, the biggest, central one being considered male, the others female.
Some aspects of the study of Fula dialects
Authors: Arnott D. W.
Published: January 2010

A study of the dialects of Fula (the language of the Fulɓe or Fulani) can be of interest both to the linguist and to the sociolinguist: partly because of the sheer scale of the undertaking, with what is essentially the same language being spoken by Fulani from Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea on the Atlantic coast to Nigeria and Cameroon on the east; and partly because of the complexity of the movements that have taken place over the centuries, and of the resulting varied pattern of social, cultural, and economic relationships between different Fulani groups and between Fulani and other peoples. It could also be of interest, not simply as a dialect study as such, but also for the light it might throw on comparable phenomena in multilingual situations.
Four Zande texts
Authors: Evans-Pritchard E. E.
Published: January 2010

Having been in the first instance a classical scholar, Wilfred Whiteley well knew how important vernacular texts are for an understanding of a people's thought and values. He was also that rare combination of anthropologist and linguist and saw therefore in texts much more than phonetic, grammatical, lexicographical, and other purely linguistic problems, but also the semantic, which in effect means ethnographical, questions raised by them. He saw clearly that a people's whole way of life, and the way they see it, may be revealed in a single text. Consequently, and apart from their significance for the ethnographer who recorded vernacular texts among (generally) a pre-literate people, they can be, especially if presented in both vernacular and with a competent translation, of considerable pedagogic value, the student asking himself such questions as arise from their content.
How oral is oral literature?
Authors: Finnegan Ruth
Published: January 2010

The study of oral literature is among the many areas to which Wilfred Whiteley made an important contribution. He was one of the founder editors of the extensive ‘Oxford Library of African Literature’, and played an essential part in both the development of the study of African oral literature and the maintenance of scholarly standards through generous encouragement and informed advice to colleagues and students working in this area. His primary interest was in Africa but, with his background in Classical studies and his continuing co-operatioii with American folklorists, he also took a wide comparative approach to oral literature. It is appropriate therefore to devote this paper, in a volume in his memory, to some comments on one aspect of oral literature viewed in a comparative context.
A sociosemiotic perspective on language development
Authors: Halliday M. A. K.
Published: January 2010

This paper is an attempt to interpret the child's learning of his mother tongue as a sociosemiotic process. What is intended here by ‘sociosemiotic’ will be largely left to emerge from the discussion; but in the most general terms it is meant to imply a synthesis of three modes of interpretation, that of language in the context of the social system, that of language as an aspect of a more general semiotic, and that of the social system itself as a semiotic system—modes of interpretation that are associated with Malinowski and Firth, with Jakobson, and with Lévi-Strauss, among others. The social system, in other words, is a system of meaning relations; and these are realized in many ways of which one, perhaps the principal one as far as the maintenance and transmission of the system is concerned, is through their encoding in language. The meaning potential of a language, its semantic system, is therefore seen as realizing a higher level system of relations, that of the social semiotic, in just the same way as it is itself realized in the lexicogrammatical and phonological systems.
National independence and local tradition in a Kenya trading centre
Authors: Parkin D. J.
Published: January 2010

It is, of course, for his immense contribution to linguistics and the general study of African languages that Wilfred Whiteley is known. It is sometimes forgotten that he was originally trained as an anthropologist and, moreover, retained this disciplinary thrust in his treatment of linguistic problems. In a truly extraordinary manner he was able to keep up to date with much anthropo-logical literature, a fact of considerable significance in his recent move into the field of sociolinguistics. For anthropologists as much as for linguists he is here irreplaceable. The important consolation is the existence of the initial fruits of his labours in this new field of sociolinguistics (Whiteley, 1966, 1969, 1971, in press, and many articles) and the fact that many of us are trying to respond to his great example.
Modern Swahili poetry
Authors: Topan Farouk M.
Published: January 2010

It is possible to distinguish broadly four types of Swahili poetry in East Africa today.

The first type, mashairi (lit.) ‘poems’, is characterized in form by symmetrical verses which have an equal number of lines (usually not exceeding six) in each verse, and an equal number of syllables (usually not more than sixteen) in each line. This type is extremely popular with the people and with the majority of the poets: mashairi appear regularly in Swahili newspapers—Baraza, Kiongozi, Uhuru, etc.—and weekly radio programmes in Tanzania and Kenya are devoted to them. It is thus not surprising that almost every Swahili scholar is familiar with this form, and the bulk of the publications on Swahili poetry both in English and in Kiswahili are on it. Since much has been written on its prosody, I shall not discuss it further here.
Some nautical terms in the Kuwaiti dialect of Arabic
Authors: Johnstone T. M. , Muir J.
Published: January 2010

The field-work for the present article was begun in Kuwait in December 1958 and continued for a longer period in the spring of the following year. Besides making measurements on a fairly largebūm, the Muhallab, lying in Kuwait harbour, we had many interviews with sailors and shipbuilders, all of the older generation of Kuwaitis.
The Su-pao case: An Episode in the Early Chinese Nationalist Movement
Authors: Lust J.
Published: January 2010

The Su-pao case which was tried in the Shanghai Settlement in the summer of 1903, was one of the many clashes between the Ch'ing government and the illegal opposition during the last decade of the old régime. But because it took place in the Settlement, it was an exceptionally illuminating incident. The central government was attempting to curb the revolt against the old system which was beginning to flare up in the south, but in using its arbitrary methods against the offenders in the international zone it came up against the foreign apparatus of power. The weaknesses of both central government and the nationalist movement in its earliest stages were shown up pitilessly in face of the imperialist powers. These weaknesses were characteristic of the general crisis of the late Ch'ing period and of the problems which were to be carried on into the Republic.
Theme, convention, and prosody in the vernacular poetry Of North Africa
Authors: Wansbrough John
Published: January 2010

Though not invariably susceptible of demonstration, the influence of Classical Arabic upon the popular literature of Arabic-speaking Muslims in North Africa may safely be assumed. ‘Popular’, indeed, the early Islamic verse forms (ši'r mawzūn) and the later stanzaic compositions (klam or ālat al-andalus) have remained, and in these, even when modified by local tradition, the source of inspiration is easily recognized. Less clear is the transfer pattern of classical elements in the strictly vernacular poetry (klam melḥūn) of the same people. It is this category of composition with which the following observations are concerned, and wḥich suggested selection of the term ‘vernacular’ rather than ‘popular’. A further factor contributory to isolation of this topic is the existence of a vernacular literature amongst non-Muslim Arabic speakers in North Africa: the Jewish communities. There, owing both to Judaeo-Arabic orthography and to confessional motives in the selection of theme, the tyranny of Classical Arabic is considerably weakened, to some extent a consequence of social (educational) lines of demarcation. Important, however, are the affinities between the vernacular compositions of both groups, especially in matters relating to rhetorical convention and prosodic structure.
Znāga Islam during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Authors: Norris H. T.
Published: January 2010

The gibla, the south-west of Mauritania, is a monotonous region of gum acacia trees, baobabs, ‘dead’ dunes, and hillocks. This ‘backwood’ is the last refuge of Znāga Berber, once spoken far to the north in whole regions of the Western Sahara. A number of short poems, a cycle of folk-tales, and a handful of masterpieces of extended odes in praise of the Prophet—some 200 years old and written in Arabic script—this is the meagre literary legacy of a proud and cherished tradition.
Kukotay and Bok Murun: a comparison of two related heroic poems of the Kirgiz—II
Authors: Hatto A. T.
Published: January 2010

Kukotay (K) and Bok Murun (BM) have epithets and formulae of greater or lesser elaborateness in common. Some of the more interesting of these will be adduced and compared, as will some of the more interesting discrepancies between K and BM on the way, since they throw light on the nature of their common source and of the Kirgiz epic tradition.
Comparisons between Arab and Chinese navigational techniques
Authors: Tibbetts G. R.
Published: January 2010

In his recent translation for the Hakluyt Society of Ma Huan's Ying-yai sheng-lan, Mr. J. V. G. Mills has published illustrations of four Chinese stellar diagrams and made some comments on them. He has, however, stated that ‘having no astronomy or higher mathematics, he is not competent to express a considered opinion on astronomical difficulties, or to check the consistency of the data of the diagrams’. He hopes ‘that an astronomer will find time to examine these interesting diagrams’.
Al-Qādī al-nu'mān's works and the sources
Authors: Poonawala Ismail K.
Published: January 2010

Al-Qādī al-nu'mān (d. 363/974) holds a unique position in the history of Ismā'īlī/Fāṭimid literature. He was a voluminous author and headed a family of distinguished judges; his sons and grandsons held the office of chief judge in the Fāṭimid empire in Cairo for approximately half a century, except for brief intermissions.
Aspects of syllabication in the spoken Arabic of 'Anaiza
Authors: Johnstone T. M.
Published: January 2010

The variety of spoken Arabic some aspects of which are discussed in this article is the dialect of 'Anaiza, a fairly large town of the Qaṣm province of Nejd.

Most of the work on this dialect I have done with Mr. Muḥammad al-Shmikh of 'Anaiza ('Unaizah).
The Tibetan particlere
Authors: Simon Walter
Published: January 2010

The Tibetan particlereoccurs at the end of sentences, where it is either preceded by a or followed byskan(sometimes spelledkan). When preceded by a it has coalesced with it to a final particle which has so far only been observed after verb forms ending in a consonant (includingda-drag) which is then repeated before the a (da-re, sa-re, ta-re, etc.).
Further Studies on the Dōsiri Dialect of Arabic as spoken in Kuwait
Authors: Johnstone T. M.
Published: January 2010

This article presents the results of further work on the Dōsiri dialect of Arabic, a preliminary study of which appeared in thisBulletinsome time ago.

Since this first article appeared, I have been able to examine more closely the extent of 'Ajmi influence on the phonology of the dialect spoken by my Dōsiri informants, and to place their dialect more accurately within the group to which it belongs. It now seems certain that, although this Dōsiri dialect does not share all the distinguishing features of the Nejdi group, the parent dialect does belong to the south-central type of Nejdi dialect. As a result of the placing of the dialect of the Duwāsir a little more exactly, and of the comparative studies this has involved, a more precise formulation of some important phonological and syntactical features can now be made.
Participial Forms In Early Sinhalese Prose
Authors: Reynolds C. H. B.
Published: January 2010

Among Sinhalese verbal forms, those which may be called nominal or participial verb-forms have received little attention hitherto from grammarians, either in Europe or in Ceylon. They present problems both of form and of usage.

The basic forms considered here are of the following types in early Sinhalese prose:

The existing grammars of Sinhalese give no adequate account of the difference between the pair balanu—balana in col. 1, nor of the syntactical contexts in which these forms occur.
Notes on the Nestorian Monument at Sianfu
Authors: Giles Lionel
Published: January 2010

Dr. John Steele has very kindly sent me some criticisms on the Notes which I contributed to the first number of the Bulletin, and I propose to deal with these before proceeding-further.
The Dhvanikara and Anandavardhana
Authors: Kumar De Sushil
Published: January 2010

Ānandavardhana has been assigned by Biihler and Jacobi to the middle of the ninth century, on the strength of Rājatarangi, v. 34, which makes him one of the ornaments of the court of Avantivarman (A.D. 855–84). The statements of Kalhana; no doubt, must be accepted with caution, but it is unlikely, as we shall see from several other considerations, that the tradition in Kāśmīr, thus embodied in the Rāja-tarangi, regarding a famous author, should have maintained a false or unfounded account. We are pretty certain of the time of Abhinavagupta, Ānandavardhana's commentator; for, as he himself states, his commentary on the Īśvara-pratyabhijñā was written in A.D. 1014–15, while his Krama-stotra was composed in A.D. 991. This would certainly place him towards the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century.
Classificatory Particles in the Language of Kiriwina
Authors: Malinowski Bronislaw
Published: January 2010

That language is an ethnographic document of fundamental importance is a plain truism. It also hardly needs stressing that the knowledge of all aspects of tribal life, without exception, is essential to a sound knowledge of any one aspect. To omit, for instance, the study of religion, or economics, or social organization when dealing with a native society, results not only in our ignorance of the subject omitted, but also lowers the value of all that has been recorded. All aspects of tribal life play into each other; to sunder a few of them from the rest results in a mutilation of the whole, and language is not an exception in this respect. The study of the linguistic aspect is indispensable, especially if we want to grasp the social psychology of a tribe, i.e. their manner of thinking, in so far as it is conditioned by the-peculiarities of their culture. All this is clear and well known.
The Sudanic Languages
Authors: Thomas N. W.
Published: January 2010

Under the name of Sudanic or Negro languages are comprehended, according to the generally received terminology, the African tongues which stretch in a broad band across the continent from Cape Verd to the Great Lakes; further north they reach nearly to the Red Sea in isolated instances, and in the south to the confines of the Indian Ocean in the shape of linguistic islets whose affinities are only with difficulty recognizable. To the south of the area stretches the Bantu territory, interspersed with pigmy and Bushmen elements, of whom the latter alone have well-marked forms of speech, while the former appear to speak the tongues of Bantu neighbours, or of Sudanic tribes, who must have been their neighbours at an earlier period but have now been swallowed up in the Bantu flood. South-west of the Bantu we have the Nama languages, often classified as Hamitic.
Chinese Coolie Songs
Authors: Neville A. , Whymant J.
Published: January 2010

A Fair attempt at coolness invaded the autumn evening after the day, which had been hot enough for a Continental mid-summer. In France the climate can do these things and one gets used to it; and so in the evening of a late autumn day I was comfortable in tropical clothing, after a day worthy a country of a more easterly situation on the map.
Bengali Phonetics
Authors: Chatterji Suniti Kumar
Published: January 2010

Bengali is spoken by over 48 millions of people, and naturally it has many dialects. These dialects range themselves into four main groups—Western, North Central, Northern, and Eastern (with a South-Eastern sub-group). The morphological differences between the four groups of dialects are slight, except in the case of the South-Eastern sub-group; but considerable divergences exist in sounds and phonology. These divergences, however, are not so great as to create mutual unintelligibility among speakers of Bengali in different parts of the country, except, perhaps, in the extreme east and south-east. The language which is commonly used in literature is a ‘high’ dialect, which is composite in its inflections, although it is based mainly on West Bengali of several centuries ago. The grammar of this ‘high’ Bengali—the sādhu bhāṣā, as it is called—is archaic, and explains most of the forms of the modern dialects as presenting the prototypes of these latter; but its pronunciation and intonation vary with the different dialectal areas.
Kadu and its Relatives
Authors: Grierson George
Published: January 2010

In Vol. 1, Part III, of the Bulletin (pp. 1 ff.) Mr. Grant Brown has given a valuable account of the Kadus of Burma, and, after comparing their speech with several other cognate Tibeto-Burman languages, has been unable to fix its exact classification. Perhaps the following notes may help to decide the question.
Turkana Grammatical Notes and Vocabulary
Authors: Barton Juxon
Published: January 2010

The Turkana language has been studied by Mr. A. C. Hollis (see Sir Charles Eliot, Introduction to Hollis' The Nandi), though his results are apparently unpublished; and by the late Hon. A. Bruce, whose notes appear to have been lost; a short comparative vocabulary is to be found in The Uganda Protectorate, vol. ii, by Sir Harry Johnston.
The Religion of the Kurds
Authors: Driver G. R.
Published: January 2010

A Mongst the Kurds there is found a considerable variety of religions, which has caused unfavourable observers to regard them as idolatrous. Not only are the Christians of several dominations represented among them, but also the Muslims, who form the predominant millah or creed among the peoples of Kurdiâstan in addition to these there are several less important sects, of which by far the most important are the Qizilbâsh and the Yazîdî Kurds.
The Formation of Modern Persian, the Beginnings and Progress of the Literature, and the So-Called Renaissance
Authors: Wilson C. E.
Published: January 2010

The historical materials which we have for the prosecution of the above inquiries are scanty, but the conclusions which may be deduced from them may serve in a measure to support an argument based mainly, as it must be, on the general principles of the progress of language and literature and upon analogical reasoning.
Khamriyyah (The Wine Song) of Shaykh ʻUmar ibn al-Fārid (577–632 a.h.)
Authors: Sefi A.
Published: January 2010

(1) To the Beloved we drank a wine,

With which we were intoxicated,

Ere the vineyard was created.

The Beloved is the Prophet, or the Creator Himself, source of love. The wine is the knowledge and love of the Divinity and the intoxication is ecstasy.
The Pronunciation of Urdu and Hindi
Authors: Bailey T. Grahame
Published: January 2010

It is difficult to write correctly about the grammar of a language; it is almost impossible to be accurate about its pronunciation. It follows that the weakest and most unsatisfactory part of books on a language is nearly always that which deals with sounds. The reasons are various. I give some of them here with special reference to Urdu and Hindi.
On the Adbhuta-Ramayana
Authors: Grierson George A.
Published: January 2010

Besides the well-known Vālmīki-rāmâyaṇa, three other Sanskrit poems entitled “Rāmâyaṇa” are current in northern India, and are highly esteemed. They are (1) the Yōga-vāsiṣṭha-mahārāmâyaṇa, (2) the Adhyātma-rāmâyaṇa, and (3) the Adbhuta-rāmâyaṇa. Of these the first and the last claim to have been composed by no less a person than Vālmīki himself; but the Adhyātma-rāmâyaṇa forms a section of the Brahmâṇḍa-purāṇa, and does not suggest any pretension to his authorship.
The Passive Voice of the Jnanesvari
Authors: Doderet W.
Published: January 2010

There forms of the Marāthi passive are found in the Jñāneśvarī or Jñānadevī, a commentary on the Bhagavadagīāa in. the ovī metre, written by the poet Jñāneśvara or Jñanadeva in the year A.D. 1290. These may be termed the “ ij ”, “ p ”, and “ pij ” forms. The “ ij ” form is the one most frequently employed. It occurs on almost every page and frequently more than once on the same page. Its derivation has been discussed by Beames, Bloch, Grierson, and others. It is employed with any verb, whether used transitively or intransitively. The subject of the sentence, if expressed, is put into the instrumental case. The object is generally in the nominative (subjective), but the dative also occurs, especially where there are two objects. The use of the dative is especially noticeable when the construction with the postposition “ with reference to” is employed. eventually became the modern “ lā, ” termination of the dative. In this connexion the use of the dative in the Karmaṇi construction may be noticed. The Aorist (old Present) is the tense most frequently employed and is often used as an Imperative, to which the precative termination “ o ” is added, e.g. audhārijo “ let it be heard by you ” (cf. the je, jo forms of the GujarātI honorific Imperative). Several examples of the future (jel, jail, jatīl) and past tenses (jele, jelẽ) occur. This form of the passive does not occur in the modern language, except in the case of dīje “let it be given” and kīje “ let it be done” in formal documents, and of mhaṇaje “let it be said”, “that is to say”, “then”, and pāhije “it is necessary”, “must”. In the Jñāneśvarī pāhije generally means “it is seen”, “let it be seen” (e.g. in xi, 594), but the extended use in the sense of “it is necessary” occurs very occasionally (e.g. x, 261).
Government of “Prepositions” in Gujarati
Authors: Doderet W.
Published: January 2010

On page 93 of his Grammar Taylor divides prepositions, or more strictly speaking, postpositions, into five classes, and speaks of ne prepositions as those which govern the preceding noun or pronoun in the locatival genitive, masculine or neuter. In paragraph 97 a list of 141 prepositions is given. Of the 27, which take the ne construction, 15 may be explained as above, but in some instances, e.g. Kārane, jore, dvāre, and yoge, the case may well be the instrumental, if the meaning of the postposition be taken into account. They are the following:—arthe “ with a view to ”, Kāje “ for ”, in order to, Kārane, jore “ on account of”, thekāne, badale “ in place of”, dvāre “ by way of ”, padakhe “ near ”, mukdbale “ in comparison with”, mokhare “ in front of“, yoge ” by means of“, lekhe “ at the rate of”, sāte “ in exchange for”, sthale, sthāne “ in place of ”. These are all locatives, and in some cases possibly instrumentals of nouns still in use and signifying the idea conveyed by the corresponding postposition. But tulya and sam “equal to” are adjectives, while lagto “pertaining to” and pharto “surrounding” are declinable participles or participial adjectives. The ne, which precedes them, is not the locative of the genitive, but the dative (objective) case ending.
Notes on “The Assyrian Tree”
Authors: Smith Sidney
Published: January 2010

The Pahlavi text which has been recently re-edited and translated by J. M. Unvala, entitled Drakht i Asurik, has not to my knowledge received any attention from Assyriologists. In spite of the difficulties entailed in dealing with a province of which I am wholly ignorant, I have been tempted to put some suggestions on paper in the hope that the meaning of this little-known text may be viewed in a fresh relation.
Bengali Ballads
Authors: Page W. Sutton
Published: January 2010

On the occasion of a wedding, a pūjā, or any other festival, it is quite a customary thing for a well-to-do man in Bengal to engage a kaihak or a pañchāli or yātrā party to give a performance or a series of performances in the courtyard of his house, where a considerable portion of the population of the village assembles as an audience, and sits, often right through the night, listening to song and speech, dialogue and story. It is for the most part by means of such performances that a knowledge of the myths and traditions of Hinduism is preserved in the minds of the illiterate mass of the population of Bengal.
Notes on Dardic
Authors: Turner R. L.
Published: January 2010

In drawing attention to some of the archaic features of Khowar (Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan, p.71), Dr. Morgenstierne says: “The preservation of t as r … is a very archaic feature, with parallels only, to some extent, in Shina, some Kohistani dialects and Romany.”
The Ramayana in Indonesia
Authors: Kats J.
Published: January 2010

One of the most popular stories in India and East Asia is the story of the adventures of Rāma, whose consort Sītī is carried off by the giant king Rāvana. From this event proceeds a great war, which leads to the destruction of the tyrant and the return of Sītā.
A Study of the Oroha Language, Mala, Solomon Islands
Authors: Ivens W. G.
Published: January 2010

The material for the study presented here is derived from two sources: (1) grammatical and linguistic notes, sentences, and texts prepared by Bishop Patteson at the Melanesian Mission Headquarters at Kohimarama, Auckland, New Zealand, in the years 1863–4, and subsequently included by H. C. von der Gabelentz in the second part of his Melanesischen Sprachen, 1873; (2) grammatical and linguistie notes collected by myself, along with a certain number of words, in the year 1925 at Sa'a, Mala. This is the only study of the language made since 1873.
Majāz al-qur'ān: periphrastic exegesis
Authors: Wansbrough John
Published: January 2010

As a normative discipline Qur'anic exegesis shares both principles and terminology with the other Islamic sciences, and as such is not likely to have been articulated before the third/ninth century. Prominent in the fully elaborated system, as for example exhibited in the work of al-Zamakhshari (d. 538/1143), are the complementary principles ofqiyāsandtaqdīr.While the former is commonly understood to represent the hermeneutical instrument called analogy, a typological description ofqiyāswill distinguish between applications of the principle which depend upon a textual similarity, and those which are derived from a rational or causal relation. Of the first type it may be said that there are as many kinds of analogy as there are means of establishing external (grammatical and lexical) affinity between different scriptural contexts. Underlying the second type of analogy is a unifying principle (ratio) independent of textual similarities, both explicit and implicit. In theory, if not always in practice, one may differentiate the two types ofqiyāsby reference to the incidence in each of what I have called the complementary principle oftaqdīr. This term, of which the most common rendering ‘supplementation’ (Ergänzung), alluding to only one aspect of the procedure in question, is not quite satisfactory, signifies reconstruction or restoration (Wiederherstellung: restitutio in integrum), namely, of a scriptural context or passage. Now, while the elaboration of grammaticalqiyāsby the so-called ‘Basran school’ was characterized by an almost unlimited application of that principle, two reservations must be made.
A Berber Tanšhat: In A Tamazight Dialect
Authors: Harries Jeanette
Published: January 2010

The following chant, one of a series recorded in central Morocco in the summer of 1967, exemplifies a type of oral tradition found among the Imazighen, the Berbers of that region. It is a socio-religious poem, called a tanšhat: (plural tinšhadri). The poet-performer is an anšhad (pl. inšhadn), although like other musical performers he is addressed as ‘Shaykh’. The genre, known by other names in other regions, is characterized by its form and language, its composition and execution, its subject-matter and the poet's attitude toward it, and finally by its role in the life of the community.
The Mahānubhāva Sakaḷa Lipī
Authors: Raeside I. M. P.
Published: January 2010

It has been known for many years that the Mahānubhāvas used ciphers for the transmission of much of their religious literature in Marathi. They devised a number of such ciphers which are known in the sect by names such as sakaḷa, sundarī, anka lipī, etc., but of all these sakala lipī is by far the commonest—no doubt because its extreme simplicity commended it to the scribes. Its invention is traditionally ascribed to Ravalovyāsa, the author of Sahyādrī-varnana, some time around A.D. 1335, but the earliest references to it are in fifteenth-century texts which simply call it ravalobāsāci nāgara līpa. One text of approximately the same date, however, refers to it as sakalita līpa and within the living tradition of the sect it is always known as sakala lipī or sakalī. The name has been variously derived from Old Marathi sakala ‘all’, because it was used throughout the sect, and from Skt. sankalita, because it is full of abbreviations. The former seems more plausible. The cipher was the first to be introduced and is the most widely used, whereas later, more complex ciphers tend to be the private preserve of one or other of the Mahānubhāva āmnāya or sub-sects.
An introduction to Caodaism I. Origins and early history
Authors: Smith R. B.
Published: January 2010

Few phenomena in the modern history of Asia can have been so completely misunderstood by Westerners as the Vietnamese religious (and political) movement known in European languages as ‘Caodaism’. Based upon a syncretic approach to religion, in which a key role is played by spirit-séances, it has inevitably been regarded by Christian writers with the same suspicion (if not contempt) as occidental ‘spiritualism’; and this initial lack of sympathy is compounded by the fact that the spirits who have revealed themselves at Caodaist séances include such familiar figures as Victor Hugo and Jeanne d'Arc. Then there is the show-piece temple of the Caodaists at Tây-Ninh, which drew forth Mr. Graham Greene's description of ‘Christ and Buddha looking down from the roof of the Cathedral on a Walt Disney fantasia of the East, dragons and snakes in Technicolor’. This superficial notion of the religious element in Caodaism fitted in very well with the cynicism of political observers, notably Bernard Fall, who saw in Caodaism no more than a political movement anxious to preserve its private armies and local power, using its religious ideas merely to dupe a credulous peasantry. In these circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that the real nature and origins of Caodaism have been lost from view, and even its history has never been adequately summarized in any Western language. The present article will attempt to fill the historical gap, by tracing the history of the religion from 1925 to 1936, and then looking at its origins and antecedents. A subsequent article (to appear in BSOAS, XXXIII, 3, 1970) will analyse the various beliefs which have been incorporated into this essentially syncretic cult.
Notes on the shift from accusative constructions to prepositional phrases in Hebrew and Arabic
Authors: Kinberg Naphtali
Published: January 2010

In an article published in the early sixties, M. Bogaert shows certain groups of verbs which in Biblical Hebrew (as well as in other north-western Semitic languages) may govern verbal suffixes instead of ‘dative’prepositions. This phenomenon is called by him ‘non-accusative verbal suffixes’.

In his article ‘'et = ’el “to, towards” in Biblical Hebrew', S. Izre'el argues that the particle 'et sometimes occurs in contexts that elsewhere require the prepositions 'el ‘to, towards’ or 'im ‘with’. He concludes thatwith 'et is a preposition which in Modern Hebrew may be rendered by 'im or 'el, similar to the Hebrew preposition bƏ- which is sometimes translated into English as ‘in’ and at other times as ‘at’, according to the context.
The Mongol Empire: a review article
Authors: Morgan D. O.
Published: January 2010

The publication of a new history of medieval Central Asia, over half of which is concerned with the empire of the Chingizid Mongols, provides an opportunity for a survey of a number of books on that subject that have appeared during the past decade. Professor Kwanten's book is, more or less avowedly, an attempt to replace Rene Grousset'sL'empire des steppesas the standard introduction to Central Asian history. I begin, then, with the English translation of Grousset's celebrated book.