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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Between the north-west frontier of our Indian Empire and the Pamirs there is a tract of mountainous country inhabited by many different nationalities, speaking many different tongues. The Pāmirs themselvesare a polyglot region. Taking Zēbāk, for instance, the district round it is the home of no less than four distinct speeches— one West-Iranian, Persian, and three East-Iranian, Wakhī, Shi ghī, and Ishkāshamīī. These last belong to the same Aryan group as Paksbtō. To the south-east of the Pāmirs we come to the Burushaskī spoken in Hunza and Nagar, a language of Scythian stock, whose immediate affinities have not yet been identified. South-east, again, of the Burushaskī area we come to Bāltistān, where another Scythian language, the Tibeto-Burman Bāltī, is the vernacular. In the valley of Kāshmīr;, there is Kāshmirī, and in the lower reaches of the Jhelum and in the Murree Hills, Chhibhālī, both of which are Indo - Aryan, and can be traced up to ancient Sanskrit. West of the Chhibhālī tract lies the British district of Hazara, of which the principal language is a form of Western Panjābī. Crossing the Indus we come to the Northern Pakhtō dialect of Pakshtō spoken in Peshawar, Ṣwāt, and Bajaur. West of Bajaur, beyond the Kunar River, we come to Laghmān. North of Laghmān lies Kāfiristān, through which we again reach the Pāmirs.
page 502 note 1 The sign ~ over a vowel indicates a nasal pronunciation.
page 505 note 1 An interesting point of agreement between these four languages and the Eastern Iranian ones is the infinitive in k. Thus, with the Eastern Iranian Wakhī of the Pāmirs, chilgàk, ‘to desire,’ and the Ormūrī of Wazīristān, ghwik, ‘to say,’ compare the Wasī-veri pesum-tinik, ‘to beat,’ the Kho-wār bik, and the Shīnā bōki, ‘to become,’ and, finally, among languages to be dealt with later on, the Kalāshā hik, andthe Gawar-bati and Pashai bīk, ‘ to be.’
page 506 note 1 For instance, the infinitive in k to which attention was called in the last footnote.
page 507 note 1 The only importance of this list is that the spelling of the name misled Lassen, who put it down, on Burnes' authority, asa distinct language. I owe this piece of information to the kindness of Dr. Kuhn.
page 510 note 1 The small a above the line indicates the very short a-sound known as the fatḥha-e afghānī, which is so common in Pakshtō.
page 510 note 2 One of these is called Kulmānī from being spoken in Kulmān.