Mundari 



Vol. VI, No. 5.] Some Remarks on Mundari Phonology. 249 



[N.S.] 



In addition to e and o San tali has the open vowel sounds 

 a and a. Mundari has them not, therefore the Grammarians 

 do not mention them and none are found in the Mundari 

 specimens. Nevertheless the compiler writes, p. 83, vol. iv, 

 L.S.I. — " Mr. Bodding's Koda list shows that Mundari in this 

 respect agrees with Santali, and I have therefore introduced 

 the signs a and a in the (Mundari) list." In the introduction 

 to the Mundari languages he says that ' : the materials collec- 

 ted for the purpose of this survey have not been prepared by 

 scholars with a phonetical training 55 and that " only the 

 specimens of Santali and its dialects forwarded from the Santa! 

 Parganas are quite trustworthy in this respect." Now Father 

 Hoffmann and Dr. Nottrott, who both have written 

 grammars, are Germans, and besides them at least a dozen 

 more German Missionaries are working in the Mundari 

 language area. If anybody, then they would have been quali- 

 fied to observe the difference between e and a if it existed, 

 because this is the case in German, and their ear from their child- 

 hood has been trained to distinguish these sounds. They all 

 know English too, andean distinguish between the vowel sounds 

 in " all " and " hole," in " hot" and " rode"; should they 

 not have been able to mark the difference between o and a in 

 Mundari if it existed ? But the compiler, instead of stick- 

 ing by the records from men on the spot, or, in case of doubt, 

 getting more information from them, trusted more the 

 unauthoritative notes of a Santal Missionary who lives 2515 

 miles off from the area of the Mundari language. Now this 

 colleague of mine may be a great Santali scholar, but he cer- 

 tainly does not speak any Mundari dialect, else he, as proof- 

 reader of the Mundari section of the volume, would have 

 found means to prevent the creeping in of errors like the above- 



mentioned. 



Mund 



and a vowel-sounds may be Koda or anything, but they are 



certainly not Mundari. 



About long and neutral vowels the compiler says that they 

 were not " separately marked in the specimens, but that 

 Mr. Bodding's Koda texts show that Mundari also in this 

 respect agrees with Santali.' 9 Of course, both kinds of vowels 



occur 



use 



bases 



Father Hoffmann. But I can't find that m the 



Mundari agrees with Santali. I give a list of won ~ 



marked long ( — ) in the Koda specimen, but which are pro- 

 nounced short in Mundari, viz., hon, fnkm, hatin, herel, sangin, 

 disum, marai'i, renge\ sukrl, birid', in, niitilm, am, nir. bugin, 

 tusin, kata, nam, loyon, duran, chikan, ordn." On the whole 

 I may say that the quantity of the vowels in Mundari words is 

 not such a fixed matter as, for instance, in Hindi. Words, gene- 

 rally pronounced short, one may hear sometimes pronounced 

 long by some people, and vice versa. 



