Music is the natural expression of man's feelings. It expresses the sublime and beautiful inherent in man. It comes spontaneously to all persons in all conditions at all times and in all countries. “The very fact of musical utterance,” says Sir Hubert Parry, “implies a genuine expansion of the nature of the human being and is in a varying degree a trustworthy revelatioD of the particular likings, tastes, and sensibilities of the being that gives vent to it.”

The text of Jānakī-harana xvi, published by Dr. L. D. Barnett in BSOS., vol. iv, pt. ii, pp. 285 f., from an old Malayalam MS., gives me an opportunity of furnishing readings of the same text from another MS. recently acquired by the Madras Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, of which a certified transcript exists in the Dacca University Library. The acquisition of this MS. by the Madras Library was reported in their Report of the Working of the Peripatetic Party, during the Triennium 1916–17–18–19.

It is often said that Portuguese dental t, d, remain dental in India and that English alveolar t, d, become cerebral. It would follow that words like kaptān and botal and haspatāl, usually stated to be from English, must be Portuguese. The question cannot be disposed of so simply; there seem to have been cross influences at work, and sometimes there are different forms of the same word. See S. R. Dalgado's works passim for valuable suggestions.

The details of philological processes are generally lost in the mists of obscurity, and most recognized linguistic development is difficult to follow because it took place hundreds or thousands of years ago. We must often have wished for the chance of hearing one sound change into another, and the wish is usually vain. But in the case of English words in India it is frequently possible to see them entering the country and watch the changes taking place.

The stories published in this issue of the Bulletin are from the same stock as the tale of Suto and Tato given in Vol. III, Part I, which I had the good fortune to publish with the most kind help of the late Major E. B. Soane. whose premature death we have to deplore so deeply. The Kurdish in which our stories are written may be termed the Central dialect of the Northern group according to E. B. Soane's classification. The author, Molla Said Kazi of Kurdistan, was a learned Kurd from Nahri, the capital of Shamsdinan. Indeed, we see in the text some characteristics which can only be met with in the Northern group, such as the plural in īd, the termination rā, the preposition zhe (from), which is only used in the Northern group and replaces la which has the same value in the Southern group; and the preterite hābū (he was), which only extends as far south as Rawandiz, whose dialect is decisively Southern. But on the other hand, there are some peculiarities which lead one to think that this Shamsdinan dialect is not a pure Northern group dialect, but may present a transition to the Southern group. For example this dialect uses indifferently as the genitive particle ä and ī it also makes indiscriminate use of the preposition zhe or la. These, of course, are only faint signs, but one can hope that further careful investigations may furnish other proofs. Anyhow, we must remember that Molla Said was born in the Nahia of Girdi, i.e. the most southward part of this qazā.

Bābū Śyām Sundae Dās, President of the Nāgarī Pracārinī Sabhā, has recently written a book entitled Bhāsā Vigyān (Benares, Sāhitya-Ratn-Mālā, 1920, pp. 6 + v + 388 + xxii). In this work he has collected a large amount of material for his students in the Central Hindu University.

I here give a translation, abridged in places, of certain pages relating to Kharī Bolī in his interesting account of Hindī.

The pronunciation recorded in this article is that habitually used by one of the writers, whose native language is Marathi. It represents the pronunciation of a native of Bombay who has for many years lectured in his own language in the principal cities of the Bombay Presidency. It is not an attempt, therefore, to represent the colloquial pronunciation of Marathi, but of the style of language in vogue in learned circles in public utterances.

By the courtesy of the Commissioner for the Nigerian Section of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, I was able to make the following notes on Kanuri, after about a dozen sittings with a native of Kano, in 1924, and a few more in 1925. The native, whose name is Arigana, spoke no English other than a few isolated words such as yes, good morning, come, sit, etc. I knew no Kanuri at all, nor Hausa, which he could also speak. Mr. Nicholson, who was in charge of the natives in 1924, explained to Arigana what I wanted, and I worked on the following plan. I had Kanuri Readings, by P. Askell Benton, and Koelle's Grammar of Kanuri. In the first of these books several stories are written in a Koman script, with a word for word and a free translation, a Kanuri-English and English-Kanuri vocabulary, the latter a particularly full one. Between the summers of 1924 and 1925 I also used Noël's Petit Manuel de Francais-Kanuri and von Duisberg's Kanuri-Sprache.

For typographical reasons the Jahai words and phrases in the following grammatical sketch have been transcribed from the Anthropos alphabet into the script of the International Phonetic Association. The two alphabets do not strictly correspond, and it seems desirable to add a few explanations of some of the symbols used.

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.

Les différents motifs musicaux que nous avons réunis ici sous le titre de “Chansons de Pagayeurs” ont été recueillis et annotés au cours d'excursions en pirogue sur le Fleuve, du côté de Nouvelle-Anvers et pendant des randonnées à travers les nombreuses voies d'eau sinueuses, qui sillonnent la forêt marécaguese de la contrée des Bangala.

§1 1. Kale ilyo pali BaMwamba na BaNkulu baletuma fita,

2. fileya ku mishi ya bantu aba Mambwe.

3. Babasanga, baikatana, balapikana no kulasana na mafumo.

4. Awishyo mubiye panshi, amumo mutwe, amumo mutwe,

5. asenda, atwala ku mfumu. Balaimba amalaila, baleti,

6. “Sompa, sompa, sompa, sompa, sompa,” ne mitwe ya abantu

7. Mfumu aiti: “Mwasalipeni.” Yalabanaila ubwali.