1866.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 67 



The early Brahmans, with great scientific precision, named their 

 letters after their pure literal sounds, added for the sake of pronun- 

 ciation to the fundamental uncoloured vowel, instead of mixing them 

 with different vowels and consonants at random. The superiority 

 of this system of nomenclature is so great, that it is difficult to suppose 

 that it would he rejected in a hurry — and yet we find the shawl-weavers 

 converting the simple Sanskrit a, d, ?', i, u &c. into a dou a, acton a, 

 yoyou ye, is-harauce, upalba wos, &c. It would be an interesting fact 

 to know if this he the result of that tendency in the uneducated 

 masses to convert everything to he learned into a metrical sing-song, 

 to assist the memory ? or a deliberate attempt of the Brahinans of 

 Kashmir to imitate the alpha and beta of the Semites ? 



The list of nouns given by Major Leech clearly points, like the 

 alphabet, to a Sanskrit origin. Most of the text words, such as those 

 expressive of near relationship or domestic animals, are purely. Sans- 

 krit ; but there are some which appear most puzzling. Thus the 

 most important word of relationship, that indicative of a father, in- 

 stead of being a modification of pitri or pita is maul, which bears 

 no analogy to any Sanskrit word that I know of. The name for a 

 child, nicliir, is equally strange. The word daughter, duhitd, the 

 young milker of the family of the early nomades, has preserved its form 

 in all the Aryan tongues, European or Indian, which have yet been 

 examined ; but in the Kashmiri it appears in the utterly unrecog- 

 nizable form of Kud. There are others equally inexplicable, and 

 the question hence arises, are these the genuine Kashmiri words of 

 the Brahmans of the valley, or pet or slang modifications of the 

 illiterate vulgar, as the mass of shawl- weavers undoubtedly are ? 

 Nothing but a careful examination of the language of books and of 

 the higher classes can decide this ; and to do it, the language shonld 

 be studied in its native country, and not in an outlying colony. In 

 the Bengali, the ordinary words for son and daughter are chhele and 

 meye, which at once indicate the admixture of the early Indian 

 Aryan with the aborigines of the country. Are the non- Sanskrit 

 Kashmiri words for father, son, and daughter due to any such mis. 

 cegenation ? or are they the result of casual importations ? A correct 

 reply to this question would be of great importance to the ethno- 

 logical inquirer. 



