1896.] Dr. G. A. Griei-sou — Kd^mir't Voioel System. 119 



8. Scraps of Kulu folk-lore: — No. 1, Marriage Customs; No. 2, 

 SnferstitioHs ; No. 3, Gods and Language. — By A. Grahame Young, Com- 

 municated by tlie Anthropological Secretary. 



The papers will be published in the Journal, Part III, 



4. Note on the Prolegomena to the Zafarnama, — By H. Beveridge. 

 The paper will be published iu the Journal., Part I. 



6. Notes on tJie action of Nitric Oxide on Alkalies. — By Alex. 

 Prdler, F.R.S., atid Jyotibhusiian Bhaduri, M,A. 



The paper will be published iu the Journal, Part II. 



6. On Blhrhiayi, a goddess universally worshipped in the Punjab by 

 native women with child. — By Manmatha Nath Chatterjee, Professor 

 of tlie Patiala College. 



The paper will be published in the Journal, Part III. 



7. On the Kdgmiri Vowel System. — By Dr. G. A. Grierson, CLE. 



(Abstract.) 



The vowel system of Ka^miri is extremely intricate, and resem- 

 bles English in this, thattbes spelling of a word gives an insufficient clue 

 to its pronunciation. This is due to the important part which epenthesis 

 plays in the pronunciation of the language. That is to say, the fre- 

 quency with which a final short vowel is not itself pronounced, but 

 affects the pronunciation of the vowel of the preceding syllable, thus 

 giving rise to a number of diphthongal and broken sounds, which are 

 not represented by the letters composing the word. A similar peculia- 

 rity exists in English. For instance, take the word mar. Plere the a, 

 has the sound of ah. But if we add a final e to this word, we get the 

 word mare, in which e is not pronounced, but epenthetically affects the 

 preceding a, so that it is pronounced like a Sanskrit ■"?: e and no longer 

 like ah. 



In Ka^mirl, no less than three different vowels are used in this way. 

 Placed at the end of a word, they are hardly audible, or are not pro- 

 nounced at all, but they altogether change the sound of the preceding 

 vowel. These thi-ee vowels are i, u, and €i, and when so used, the 

 author represents them by small letters above the line, thus % ", ^. 

 By native grammarians they are called maiio-vowels. As an example 

 of their use, the words kar'-, kar"', and kar^, may be taken. Roughly 

 speaking, the first is pronounced something like kyrie, the second like 

 core, and the third like the German kiir. So also, the base /^o/-, speech, 

 when the feminine termination -i is added to it is pronounced bu'P 



