1864,] 



On the Language of the Si-cili-po^h Kafirs. 



269 



mined j and compared with the short list given by the Missionary, 

 it will be found that what he terms Kafir, are the same words 

 as my Kohistani, with but slight exception ; whilst what I term 

 Kafir agree with the list (as far as it goes) given by Sir A. Burnes 

 in the Society's Journal for April 1838, and are synonymous with 

 those given by Mr. Norris (the Honorary Secretary of the Eoyal 

 Asiatic Society) as an appendix to Dr. Trumpp's paper,* 4 which were 

 procured at Teheran from a Kafir woman residing in that city. 



The Doctor says he " was very desirous to know by what name 

 they called their own country, as Kafiristan is a mere Muhammadan 

 appellation ;" and that " the name they gave for their country was 

 Wdmasthdn, a word, as I found, known to the Kuhistanis too, who 

 designated it by what is called in Persian Kiihistan, or the highlands' 'f 

 He then proceeds to give, or rather to make out a signification for 

 the word, and applies it to the whole tract forming the culminating 

 ridges of Hindu Kush, as far west as Balkh, in as plausible a man- 

 ner as the " Heydiddlediddlethecatinthefiddle" inscription is edited 

 and translated in one of the early numbers of Fraser's Magazine 

 for the present year. He will find, however, that there is a tribe 

 of Si-ah-pos'A Kafirs called by the name of Wamah, and one of their 

 villages is so named. An account of them and their district will be 

 found in my paper. 



Dr. Trumpp states, at pages 5—7 of his article, that the Kafir 

 language, like the Pus'hto, has a short indistinct (?) vowel sound 

 approaching the English u in hut, or the German u ; and that " it is 

 not given in my Pus'hto Grammar (1st Ed.) though well known and 

 even marked out by the natives themselves." He then goes on to 

 say, a few paragraphs further on, that he " first mistook this sound 

 for a short i, but soon found that it was a peculiar swift a, or in fact 

 an indistinct vowel between short a and short i" He then states, 

 that " the sound of Kafir a can only be compared to the peculiar in- 

 distinct sound in Pus'hto ; as^y* a^f (mas.) and &£& ^f (fern.), 

 which can only be learnt by hearing." To what sound'in these four 



* "On the Language of the so-called Kdfirs of the Indian Caucasus.— Bv the 

 Rev. Ernest Trumpp, D. Phil., Missionary of the Church Missionary Society " 

 Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, Yol. XlX. for 1861. 



f The word « Kohistan" is applied to all mountain tracts by the people of 

 these parts— there is the Kohistan of Kabul, the Kohistan to the north of the 

 Suwat river, &c., and not to "Sooner" only, as the Doctor calls it fKunir he 

 means^. l v 



