Excerpt from Linguistic Studies From the Himalayas, Vol. 18: Being Studies in the Grammar of Fifteen Himalayan Dialects

This work is a continuation and, so far as some districts are concerned, a completion of Vol. XII of the Society's Monographs, entitled The Languages of the Northern Himalayas. There will be found in these pages studies in about fifteen languages or dialects, making along with those in the other volume a total of forty-one.

The linguistic distribution is as follows: -

Tibeto-Burman :two languages, Pürik and Lower Kanaurî and the Chitkhuli dialect.

Lähnda: two dialects, Kägani and the Bährämgäla dialect.

Western Pähäri: nine dialects in three groups, viz., five Koei dialects from Bashahr, spoken in Rohru, Rampur, Baghi, Sürkhuh Pargana, and Dodra Kuar, two from Jubbal, north and south, two from Suket, Eastern Suketi and Suket Siraji.

Pänjabi: two dialects spoken in Bilaspur and Nalagarh, divided into six sub-dialects.

There are also notes on the secret vocabularies of the Qalandar, who are conjurers and trainers of monkeys and bears, the Qasai or butchers, and of Panjabi gamblers. The vocabulary of the first-named is fairly complete. The others are very brief, but probably the total number of secret words is small.

All are Aryan, except the Tibeto-Burman languages.

As regards geographical position, we may say that. Purik is spoken between Kashmir and Ladakh round about Kargil, Lower Kanauri in Bashahr State immediately to the north-east of the five Koci dialects, Kagam is spoken in the Hazara district of the North-West Frontier Province, Bahramgala in Jammu State south of the Pir Panjal Pass.

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