Indian Antiquary Vol 27

SR No.: 032519
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 404
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 203

August, 1898.)
CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
197
CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
BY R. C. TEMPLE. (Continued from p. 178.)
D. - Kachin-Naga Group. M Y sources of information for the Kachin Language are: -
(1) Grammar of the Kachin Language, Hanson, 1896. (2) Handbook of the Kachin or Chingpaw Language, Hertz, 1895, official publication, (3) Kachin Vocabulary, Symington, 1892. (4) Burma Census Report, Eales,63 1891. (5) Outlino Grammar of the Singpho Language, Needham, 1889 : official publica
tion, Assam. (6) A Kachin peasant from the hills of the Myitkyinà District. Kachin is the Burmese appellation for a number of more or less closely connected tribes, inhabiting the hills within and without the Chinese (Yunnan) and Assamese borders of Upper Burma, and speaking a difficult, unwritten language in a bewildering variety of dialects. The Assamese appellation is Singpho, based on their own name for themselves, which is also variously represented as Chingpaw, Chinghpaw, Jinghpaw, and Singpaw65 (Chingpo), and meaning roughly a Highlander.
By common assent the language of the Kachin Tribes is connected generally with that of the Naga Tribes, and is now usually known as belonging to the Kaohin-Naga Group.
The books available to me on Kachin itself are slight, but they are all written in a systematic, capable manner. It seems, moreover, that a definite system of representing the language on paper has been officially arrived at, but as it would only cause confusion to use it in these pages, I have felt myself to be at liberty to represent the language on the lines I have followed in representing the Far Eastern Languages generally, instead of adopting bodily the system of the Burma Government.
In this way I would specially treat only the following points in writing Kachin, ignoring the tones for the present purpose. The frequently used, but scarcely heard, inherent vowel, - like that represented in Talaing by the use of sonant syllables will be written ': e. 9., l'lòng, two; m'sum, three. The sound nearly approaching that of ö in German, or cur in English, will be written 7. There is a distinct initial af, as in German, which will be so written, and kh will represent the harsh surd guttural heard in the Arabic K, t, p, when initial are sounded as gle, dt, bp, but this habit need not be represented on paper, as it merely means that the Kachins have an explosive way of talking, jast as some " slight" stammerers have in speaking the European languages.
In devising words to represent the only coined currency they know, the Kachins have followed the plan so systematically adopted by the minor peoples inhabiting Burma and so often explained in these pages. Up till quite lately they were aware only of British rupees and their silver parts. Pice and copper money they seem hardly to have grasped as yet, and the odd annas in the ropee still seem to be a great puzzle to them. All these points are brought out clearly in the Kachin money table, so far as I have been able to make head or tail of it. The Myitkyina Kachin, though quite positive as to his words, differs so much from the writers of the books, who by the way fairly agree together, that I will give the book words and his words separately.
* Appr. A contains an excellent monograph by Mr. E. C. S. George on the Kachins of the Bhamo District. " Kakhyin and Kakhyeng in many books of a generation back. * Mr. Hanson, Kachin Grammar, p. 6, remarks on the uncertainty of pronunciation in the dialects.