In an earlier article it was suggested that the allotment of certain phonic data of Sanskrit to prosodic categories would make it possible to eliminate the antiquated and improper process-metaphor of ‘ assimilation ’ by stating such data as exponents of properties of appropriate structures. It was not then intended to go beyond a purely descriptive statement; but it has since appeared that a fuller exploitation of prosodic techniques may result in descriptions which enjoy a more or less extensive relevance to comparative statement. Certain points have therefore been re-examined in the light of such a possibility; and the expectation seems to be justified by the results of the final statement below (item 5); the other statements (items 1–4) are presented as illustrating various phonological principles involved in the re-examination.

1. It is not to be assumed that phonemic statements can be translated into prosodic statements: for the selection and allotment of data are governed by different theories in the two cases.5

There is one important respect in which әW differs from yW and wW. For these last it was sufficient to state exponents of ‘ y ’ and ‘ w ’; the exponents of ‘ ә ’ however can be stated only by introducing a further prosodic system, of the initial syllable, y/w, i.e. ‘ y neutral words ’ (yәW) and ‘ w neutral words ’ (wәW). The prosodic and phonematic systems of yәW resemble those stated above for the initial syllable of yW, and those of wәW resemble the systems stated for the initial syllable of wW, i.e.

The two-term y/w system (yә/wә) is stated for the initial syllable of the (ә) word, and is not to be confused with the two-term prosodic system of the syllable initial (y/wl). The exponents of y and w in the initial syllable (CVC) of әW comprise:—

European students of Yoruba are usually slow in learning to understand the spoken language because, apart from having to grapple with the unfamiliar phenomenon of tone, they often find it difficult at first hearing to recognize in medial position words with which they have become quite familiar when occurring initially or finally. This is due to the frequent occurrence of junction situations where a word with vowel final1 is in close syntactic relationship with a following word which, in its isolated form, has a vowel initial, resulting sometimes in the elision of one or other of the vowels in contact, sometimes in an assimilation of one vowel to the other, and sometimes in each vowel retaining its identity. The tones of the junction syllables may also be elided or modified. The European, with his literate approach to language study, is further handicapped by the anomalies of the accepted orthography, which in some cases indicates the junction phenomena and ignores them in others. An added complication is that in many Yoruba books it is hard to find two consecutive pages which are consistent in maintaining the same set of anomalies. This means that, while in some cases the orthography provides a sufficient clue to the pronunciation of a word, in other cases a word cannot be correctly pronounced without reference to the surrounding words and without a detailed knowledge of the usages of the language.

This article is based on a study of selected utterances in ‘ Lhasa Tibetan’ (LT) as spoken by Mr. Rigẖdzin dBaṅpo (R.) in a particular style (‘ speaking style ’). The term LT is used for the class-dialect spoken by members of the sku-drag class in Lhasa and elsewhere, and also by other Tibetans who associate with members of this class. R.'s utterances may be considered in terms of three styles, ‘ spelling style ’, ‘ reading style ’, and ‘ speaking style ’, each requiring a separate statement at phonetic, grammatical, and lexical levels alike. The material presented below is drawn from utterances in the ‘ speaking style ’; all utterances appropriate to the reading and quoting of written texts, ‘ reading-style ’ utterances, have been excluded from it.

Two articles of mine on the poetry of Ḥāfiẓ1 were recently criticized severely, even violently, by Dr. N. E. M. Boyce in an article written in a kind of informal collaboration with Professor W. B. H. Henning.2 Dr. Boyce was good enough to send me a page-proof copy of her article very shortly before publication, and I noted at the time how widely divergent were our respective views, both as regarded general approach and also in matters of detailed interpretation. This, however, occasioned no surprise, and in the normal way I should probably have been content to bring my observations privately to Dr. Boyce's notice; but, for personal reasons, I eventually decided to circulate a reply on my own initiative, for the information of colleagues who might have had the original critique brought to their notice before its publication.

I realized that, by taking this action, I might prejudice any chance the reply had of appearing subsequently in print. But such prospects already appeared slender in view of my article's length and largely negative value; and the ordinary delays attending publication appeared even more unwelcome than the probability that the reply might never be read at all in printed form.

The extremely interesting Safaitic rock-drawing recently published by G. Lankester Harding (Annals of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, ii, pp. 29–30) as no. 73 of the inscriptions from the cairn of Hāni’, shows two scenes. One represents goats being herded into a catttle-pen, the other a hunting scene. In the latter three largish animals are being htmted by a man with bow and arrow, a man with upraised arms, and a third man who holds three hunting-dogs by a leash (this, rather than Harding's ‘ whip or long rope ’, is surely the correct interpretation of the line which extends from the man's hand round the heads of the dogs). Harding confesses himself unable to identify the animals being hunted. Two at least of these, however, are very clearly characterized in the drawing by long straight horns and a long tail with a tuft at the end. The combination of these characteristics indicates pretty clearly, I suggest, that the animals are intended to represent the oryx (see the Encyclopedia Britannica description of this animal).

This paper deals with certain features of the Bantu dialect spoken at Machame on the western slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanganyika Territory. It arises very largely as the result of work done in London with the help of Mr. S. J. Ntiro, whose home is in Machame, but in part from observations made in the field during study-leave in Africa. The subject-matter of what follows is narrowly circumscribed, but the treatment is relevant to problems of more general interest in linguistic analysis, especially those involved in the analysis of so-called ‘ tone languages ’.

The material to be considered consists of disyllabic words of which the syntactical function is identical except in so far as they are sub-categorized by features of grammatical concord: it is by reference to this function that these words are here called ‘ nouns ’. They are all equally analysable in terms of a single prefix and a stem.

In a recently published historical work, Nepālko aitihāsih rūp-rekhā (Historical Outline of Nepal) by Bālcandra Śarmā, Banāras 2008 V.S. (═ A.D. 1951/52) the author devotes some space to the meaning of the name Nepal; as he has no faith in the ‘ traditional ’ explanation, and as the alternative which finds favour with him is open to grave misgivings, a re-examination of this problem might not be out of place now.

The first occurrence of the name to which any near date can be assigned is undoubtedly in the posthumous panegyric of Samudragupta, presumed to have been inscribed at the order of his son Candragupta II in the middle of the 4th century A.D., on the rock-pillar of Allāhābād, which cites, among others, the sovereign of Nepāla as a tributary prince:—

Every history book describes the system of registration and pensions (dīwān) set up by 'Umar I and the reform attempted by 'Umar II. Wellhausen set out the causes of dissatisfaction with it, the larger sums given to the Syrians, the desire of converts to share equally with the Arabs, and the resentment of the Arabs at the government keeping much of the money instead of handing it all over to the fighters who had earned it. These notes do not claim to be exhaustive but throw some light on the working and intricacies of the system.

Ry. 506 is an inscription of some importance for an otherwise obscure period of Arabian history. G. Ryckmans, in his editio princeps of the inscription,3 and J. Ryckmans in his comments thereon,4 have made very valuable contributions to the understanding of this far from easy text. A few notes may, I think, be nevertheless added.

At the outset, one point to be remembered in dealing with this text is that Abraha, its author, is frequently referred to in the plural, as we see from sṭrw in line 2 here (with Abraha as the subject), as well as throughout C. 541. Consequently, plural verbs and the plural pronoun -hmw can refer to Abraha himself.

Line 1. It is interesting to confront the form of titulature here used with that found in C. 541/4–8. The comparison allows us to make some deductions about the name or epithet zybmn (so spelt here, against zbymn in C. 541):—

In a learned and thoughtful book by Professor Gelb, of Chicago (A Study of Writing: the Foundations of Grammatology2), which I am quite incompetent to review as a whole, there are a number of misleading statements in the section headed Japanese Syllabary. The excuse for drawing attention to them here is that if uncorrected they may put readers who are without a knowledge of Japanese onto false tracks.

That the katakana, ‘ side kana’, is ‘so named because it appears chiefly in addition to the Chinese word signs’ (p. 159) is not the generally accepted explanation, nor does it seem very likely. The reason usually given for the name is that the katakana signs are parts, generally one or the other side, of Chinese characters.