During the whole of the tenth century from about 910 onwards, Tunhuang under the name of Kuei-i Chün was governed by members of the Ts‘ao family, who were more or less independent of the fugitive dynasties that rose and fell at Lo-yang and Pien-liang. The connection with China was practically limited to the bestowal of the title of chieh-tu-shih on the man in power if he cared to apply for it. The system seems to have worked well enough: with the Tibetan menace removed, the people enjoyed a fair measure of peace and prosperity, though the standard of living and culture in general never rose again to what it had been under the T‘angs before An Lu-shan's rebellion. The deterioration of arts and crafts dating from that disastrous upheaval is plainly observable in the manuscript rolls of this period: the highly finished paper of the seventh and eighth centuries with its beautifully glazed and stained surface has entirely disappeared, and what we find in its place is with rare exceptions thick, coarse, and drab-coloured. The handwriting, too, though sometimes vigorous, lacks the elegance and grace of former times.

Under the patronage of the enlightened Fatimid caliphs (A.D. 969–1171) there flourished in Egypt a vigorous and refined art. The sumptuous palaces with which they had adorned their capital Cairo have vanished without trace, but the remains of their religious architecture, the magnificent gateways of Cairo's Fatimid wall (which have escaped destruction), together with the enthusiastic descriptions of contemporary travellers enable us to imagine the splendour of their court.

Aramaic-speaking Jewish communities used to be found in various towns and villages throughout north-eastern Iraq, north-western Iran and southern Turkey before the mass exodus of Iraqi Jewry to the state of Israel in 1950–51. In Iraq, the Aramaic speakers were found in an area that may be denned as the land lying above a line drawn on a map across the country through the towns of Musil and Kirkuk. Aramaic was not the first language of all Jews of the area. In the large towns of Musil, Kirkuk, Aqra, as well as Arbel, Arabic was the Jewish vernacular. In some villages the Jews spoke Kurdish as their first language. In Iran, Aramaic-speaking Jewish communities were found as far south as Kerend. The northern limits of the Jewish Aramaic area were formed by communities in the region of lake Van in southern Turkey and those around lake Urmia in north-west Iran (Hopkins, 1993: 62–4).

Our information to date about the possible existence of a work known as ṭomaräǝsbǝ't or ‘Epistle of Humanity’, by Emperor Zär'a Ya'ǝqob (1434–68) comes from the works of the Emperor himself. It is important that we study closely his description of this work in order to determine whether the contents of a given manuscript could be at least part of the so-called ṭomaräǝsbǝ't, or .

THE Bakhtiari texts that follow are given almost exactly as they were recorded by me in 1914. I have not attempted to alter the rather heterogeneous collection of phonetic symbols of which I made use, except in one case. I have got rid of one frequently recurring awkward symbol by using a to represent sounds approximating to the -a- of ‘father’ and the -a- of ‘fall’ respectively. Normally it may be taken as representing the latter sound. The sound of -a- in ‘father’ occurs regularly only in a few words, e.g. baz ═ Mn.P. ba'daz

The question concerning the location of the original home of the Indo-Europeans—by which name is designated, not a certain race or people of which no traces have so far been found, but the peoples or tribes who did at one time speak the no longer existing Indo-European language—has at times aroused great interest and vivid discussion amongst scholars. While at one time the consensus omnium seemed to vote for an Asiatic origin of the Indo-Europeans, and even, owing to a misunderstanding of the linguistic affinities of Sanskrit, looked for their old home within the borders of India, general opinion seems, since the time of Latham, to have decided for Europe as the cradle of Indo-European-speaking peoples. But as to where in Europe the starting-point of the migrations of these tribes should be looked for no uniform opinion is so far on record. The idea, certainly impossible, that the “Urheimat” should be looked for in Germany and then probably on the southern shores of the Baltic, has long been in favour with German scholars who saw in the ideal old Teutons described by Tacitus a real counterpart of the “Indo-Germanic” ancestors; and Scandinavian archaeologists and philologists have been strongly inclined to adopt this rather fanciful theory and to look for the “Urheimat” not only in Germany but also on the Danish islands and in the southernmost province of Sweden. Other scholars looked for a centre of spread in Hungary, and this theory has quite lately been advocated in an able way by Dr. Giles. The late lamented Professor Schrader, in his sound and thoroughly critical way, tried to establish that South Russia, the rich corn-land to the north of the Black Sea, was the original home of the Indo-Europeans; but he was not quite averse to the idea that they might at one time have extended over areas to the east of that part of Europe. There are other theories as well, but they do not need to be taken into consideration here.

Burushaski, the language of Hunza and Nagir, has not up to the present received any undue measure of attention.

The list of authorities in the Linguistic Survey of India is a short one containing only nine items. Of these only three are of serious importance:—

Dr. G. W. Leitner, The Languages and Races of Dardistan, Lahore, 1877.

Col. J. Biddulph, JRAS., vol. xvi, pt. i (1884), “The Boorishki Language,” being a corrected reprint of the Grammar and Vocabulary of the language, published in his Tribes of the Hindu Rush, Calcutta, 1880.

Dr. G. W. Leitner. The Hunza and Nagyr Handbook, pt. i, Calcutta, 1889.

In the preface to my restoration of the text of the Vīsaḷadevarāsa I remarked, ‘To the best of my knowledge, it has never before been found necessary to emend an entire text on metrical principles’; and I rather assumed that it was unlikely ever to be found necessary again. I certainly did not imagine that a great part of my work over the next years would be devoted to further large-scale metrical emendation; yet so it has turned out, and what is offered here is an interim progress-report, together with a few tentative generalizing conclusions.

The root dī- is found in the Rgveda some 13 times as dīyati and once as dàyaté (dàyamāna-), including once each with the preverbs nis and pári, and once in Satapatha-brāhmana in the intensive dédīyitavai. Pali has dayati (beside dēti) = uppatati.

By the treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774, which marked a disastrous defeat of the Ottoman empire by Russia, the Russians were accorded the right to build a church in Istanbul, in the Galata quarter. The treaty further specified that the church was to be under the protection of the Russian minister, who could make representations concerning it to the Sublime Porte. This church, and the Russian right to protect it and to make representations about it, furnished much of the basis on which Russian governments, in later years, built a claim to a broader right to protect the Greek Orthodox Church, even the Greek Orthodox people, in the Sultan's domains. The claims were exaggerated, but since the church in Istanbul was to be ‘of the Greek ritual’, as article 14 of the treaty said, the connexion seemed logical. The Turkish text of the treaty, however, as Cevdet Pasa reproduces it in his history, makes no mention of a church ‘of the Greek ritual’. Instead, his article 14 specifies that this church is to be called the dusugrafa or dosografa church ().

According to the description in the Land of the Lamas, the Tibetan salutation consists in sticking out the tongue, pulling the right ear, and rubbing the left hip, while making a slight bow at the same time. Nothing quite so picturesque is to be found in India, a but the etiquette of salutation is nevertheless not without interest. Moreover, the subject is treated gravely by the native law-makers and deserves more attention than it has hitherto received. The matter too is not unsuitable for a volume dedicated to the salutation of one who is lokaprap016B;jita, and to whom, in common with many, I extend herewith the greeting:

bala1E43; tavā'yuś ca cirāya vardhatām.

But because of the limitation of space I shall confine myself to epic data and give but an outline of approved ceremonial.