Indian Antiquary Vol 11

SR No.: 032503
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 396
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(SEPTEMBER, 1882.
initial vowels are fused into one sound, putting & single or double apostrophe before the second word, will naturally be followed only where the convenience of earliest beginners has to be con. sulted; but too anxiously to avoid it there seems to me to savour of the pedantic. Certainly its application in transliterated texts (e. g. tath di 'od "aft) is not only unobjectionable, but to be recommended ; and it is even as good as imperative where the authoritative form of a word as determined, for example, by a pada-text or by a commentary) is to be briefly signified.
it : namely, by letting the lingual point below the letter do for the sibilant what it does for the mutes and nasal, and so writings. This Grassmann (as perhaps some before him) has done, and others are doing-myself, for example, after reluctantly writing sh for a generation. The sign sh, or anything else involving the same implication, should be banished from general use. For the palatal sibilant, the customary English sign & is very bad, as again using an accent mark to signify what is not accent, and embarrassing the designation of the real accent. On the continent is most widely employed the sign &, which answers the purpose quite sufficiently well, although nothing very positive is to be said in its favor save that it includes a palatal letter as basis, and is found provided and ready for use in many fonts. In an alphabet of wider bearing, whatever sign stands for the sh-sound would be the most suitable representative of this sibilant.
Bopp's addition of a diacritical point to our h as sign of the Sanskrit aspiration has so far as observed, found no imitators, and is not to be commended. The character h for visarga is too firmly rooted in general usage to be displaced ; nor is there pressing need for seeking a better representative for the sound.
To sum up briefly : the items to be most strongly urged, as involving important principles, are the use of ? and for the lingual vowel and the lingual sibilant respectively; of next consequence, for the sake of uniformity, is the adoption of the signs c, j, y, for the palatal sounds; the desig. nations of long vowels, of the diphthongs, of the nasals, are minor matters, which will doubtless settle themselves by degrees in the right manner.
A remark or two may be added as to the division of words. As every one knows, there is in the manuscripts no division at all; the whole text is written solid, and prose and verse alike. The European rule is to make in devandgart writing or printing a separation between words, whenever it can be done without any alteration of the written form; and it is so reasonable and so universally practiced, that no suggestion of a change appears called for. In transliterated text, now, the natural adaptation of this rule would evidently be, to separate wherever the transliterated form suffers no alteration : thus, for example, tát savitur várenyam. To write tátsavitúrvárenyam because in devandgari the words would have to be so con. nected is certainly the height of unpractical bad logic-not to say of pedantry. The Boppian method of dividing also words whose final and
A recent isolated case of the introduction of as sign of the palatal sibilant is against every analogy, and
ON THE RUDE TRIBES OF NORTH-EASTERN
INDIA, BY PEOP. J. AVERY, OF BRUNSWICK, ME.
The old province of Asâm, which was cotermi. nous with the valley of the Brahmaputra, is bordered on three sides by a rugged mountain tract, which has been, in most cases from time immemorial, the home of numerous savage tribes. The great diversity of speech among these tribes, and the primitive manners and customs which they have stubbornly retained in spite of Aryan civilization, present an interesting, but as yet little-worked, field for the linguist and anthropologist.
Beginning in the extreme east of the province, we find the settlements of the Khamtis and Singphos, the most intelligent of the Hill tribes. The former are a branch of the Shân race, and came into Asåm from Burma in the last cen. tury. The Singphos, who are allied to the rude tribes of northern Burma, reached their present abodes at about the same time.
Following the border-land northward, we come first to the Mishmis, whose villages extend from the Namlang, a branch of the Irawaddy, to the Digêm, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, or approximately between 960-97° 30 E. long, and 27° 40 -28° 40 N. lat. Next to the Mishmis, and between the Digam and Dibang rivers, is found an allied tribe calling themselves Midhis, but known to the Assamese as Crop-haired Mishmis. These two tribes are very savage, and are known only from the scanty accounts of a few venturesome travellers and occasional visits to the Asâm markets.
West of the Dibang a line of tribes stretches along the foot-hills of the Himalayas as far as the confines of Bhutan. In order of location they are the Abars or Padam, Hill Miris, Daph. las, and Akas. As we approach Bhutan, the tribes show an increasing likeness to the Tibetans in features and customs. Returning to sonth. altogether to be condemned.
. Proceedings, American Orient. Soc., Oct. 1880.