122 Sifdn and Horsok Vocabularies. [No. 2. 



head in the way of practical exposition by samples as to make the 

 special discovery I announce perfectly appreciable without those 

 details, which, moreover speaking generally of this vast group of 

 tongues, I have shown reasons for deeming less important than they 

 are wont to be held both philologically and ethnologically. 



This series of vocabularies is entirely my own work in a region 

 equally interesting and untrodden. It consists of seven languages, 

 viz. the Thochii, the Sokpa, the Gyami, the Gyarung, the Horpa, the 

 Takpa and the Manyak ; and so novel is a deal of the matter that it 

 will be necessary to explain at once what these terms mean, and 

 to show where the races of men are to be found speaking these 

 tongues. Horsok is a compound Tibetan word by which the people 

 of Tibet designate the Nomades who occupy the whole northern part 

 of their country, or that lying beyond the Nyenchhen-thangla* range 

 of mountains, and between it and the Kwanleun or Kuenliin chain. 

 Horsok designates the two distinct races of the Hor or Horpa and 

 the S6k or Sokpa, neither of whom, so far as I have means to learn, 

 is led by the possession of a native name at once familiar and general, 

 to eschew the Tibetan appellations as foreign ; though it will soon be 

 seen that they are really so, if our identifications fail not. The 

 Horpa occupy the western half of the region above defined, or north- 

 ern Tibet ; and also a deal of Little Bucharia and of Songaria, where 

 they are denominated Kao-tse by the Chinese, and Ighurs (as would 

 seem) by themselves. 



The Sokpa occupy the eastern half of northern Tibet as above 

 defined, and also, the wide adjacent country usually called Khokho- 

 nur and Tangut by Europeans, but by the Tibetans, Sokyeul or Sok* 

 land. 



* This important feature of the geography of Tibet is indicated by the Nian-tsin 

 tangla of Hitter's Hoch Asien and by the Tanla of Hue. I have, following native 

 authority, used in a wide sense a name which those writers use in a contracted 

 sense ; and reasonably, because the extension, continuity and height of the chain 

 are indubitable. Nevertheless Ritter and Guyon have no warrant for cutting off 

 from Tibet the country beyond it up to the Kuenlun, nor are Katche and Khor, 

 the names they give to the country beyond, admissible or recognised geographic 

 terms, Khor, equal Hor, is purely ethnic, and Katche is a corruption of Khachhe 

 or Mahomedan, literally, big- mouth. 



