1876.] 



139 



On the Ghalchah Languages (Wahhi and SarikoU) .—By E. B. Shaw, 

 Political Agent, late on special duty at Kdshghar. 



The dialects of which, a brief sketch is here given, are spoken in valleys 

 which descend to the east and west respectively from the Pamir plateau. 

 They are members of a group of kindred dialects which prevail about the 

 head waters of the Oxus ; the SarikoU being the only one of them whose 

 home is on the easb of Pamir, on one of the affluents of the Yarkand river. 

 The inhabitants of Kolab, Macha, Karatigin, Darwaz, Boshan, Shighnan, 

 Wakhan, Badakhshan, Zeibak or Sanglich, Minjan, &c, (see maps) are all 

 classed by their Turki neighbours under the general designation of Ghal- 

 chah ; they are mostly Shi 'ah Musalmans, and speak either Persian or other 

 kindred dialects. " Such evidence as we have, confirmed by the general 

 report of the nations round, ascribes (to them) a Tajik (i. e., an Iranian) 

 origin."* Now the Tajiks form the' substratum of population all over 

 Western Turkistan, where, as well as in Persia, the Iranians are intermixed 

 with and dominated over by Turkish tribes. To us, the Tajiks represent 

 the earliest inhabitants of the regions occupied by them, for the Turanians 

 now settled there are of later introduction ; and no recognisable trace of any 

 pre-Aryan population is to be found there. 



The Tajiks of the plains speak their own form of Persian, differing 

 merely in pronunciation and in a few peculiarities from the language of 

 Iran. The Badakhshis are said to have only adopted that language within 

 the last few centuries, having formerly spoken a dialect of their own, probably 

 a mere patois of Persian whose peculiarities gradually gave way before a freer 

 intercourse with their neighbouring kindred. 



There remain the more secluded tribes of the higher valleys, south and 

 east of Badakhshan, also of Aryan race and of the Persic branch. A glance 

 at their vocabularies will prove this : but in order to show that these dialects 

 are not mere offshoots or corruptions of modern Persian (notwithstanding the 

 numbers of Persian words which they have adopted), I have collected a list 

 of words which seem to have a closer connection with the early eastern form 

 of Persian, Zend, and even with other Aryan tongues.f 



* Wood's Oxus, ed. 1872. Col. Yule's Essay, p. xxiii. 



( f Thus the Zend maidhydna can never have passed through the Persian form miydn, 

 to make the Ghalchah word madhdn (middle). Nor the Zend syllable raesha have had 

 its two vowels a e blended into one in the Persian word rish on its way to the Ghalchah 

 form reghish (beard). The Gh. md'i is derived from Zend maesha in a different way 

 from the Persian mesh (sheep), not through it. See Comparative List of Words. 



