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Atinats BORI, LXVI (1985)
related to Indo-Aryan linguistics extends over seventy years. His first publi. shed paper, however, was “ Agaiost the stress accent in Latin " (1912), and the last « Implosive d- and y-orr-'. (1982). The list of Sir Ralph's published papers and Addresses is quite large. His “ Collected Papers (1912–1973 )" appeared in 1975.
Sir Ralph's Wilson Philological Lectures (apparently unpublisbed ) have been referred to above. He was invited by the University of Poopa in 1958 to deliver the first P. D. Gupe Memorial Lectures which were published in 1960. The subject of his lectures was “Some Problems of Sound Change in Indo-Aryan". In these lectures Sir Ralph dealt with some special conditions affecting the sound change, the disturbances caused by ana. logy, and the cases presented by loanwords.
Sir Ralph's eminence as a comparatist depends on his two monumental Dictionaries. Sir Ralph's acquaintance with the New Indo-Aryan languages began with Gujarati which he learnt even as he was a student of Christ's College, Cambridge. During the First World War he became acquainted with Nepali. His subsequent writings suggest that he was also familiar with Sindhi, Hindi, and Romani, the language of the Gypsies. His ever-widening interest in the New Indo-Aryan languages enabled him to give to the world of scholars A Comparative and Etymological Dictionary of the Nepali language in 1931.
During the years wben Sir Ralph was entrusted with the onerous duties of the Directorsbip of the School, he had very little time to study the materials he had collected over the years for his other major work, A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages. But at the age of 70 when he was free from these duties he returned to his academic pursuit with great zeal. The entire publication of the Dictionary was completed in a remarkably short span of four years (1962-1966). In this Dictionary are brought together about 1,40,000 words from the Indo-Aryan languages spokeu in five countries - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. These words have been arranged under some 15000 Sanskrit head-words, attested or reconstructed, which suggest their etymologies.
Already in 1920, in the Inaugural Address delivered by Sir Ralph when appointed Professor of Linguistics at the Benares Hindu University, he had visualized the possiblity of the scientific studies of Indian languages
2 In the Obituary mentioned above Sir Ralph's last piece of research work is said to
be his re.copying the slip meant to be used in the Addenda as his Dictionary entry No. 6672,
Madhu Vidya/725
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