2 THE ORMURI OR BARGISTA LANGUAGE. [§ 2. 



ma'ruf and majhul vowels. I have made local enquiries, and have done my best to 

 give the correct sounds, but it must be borne in mind that it is possible that l should 

 sometimes be e, and that u should sometimes be o, and vice versa. 



2. The vowel " is the well-known fatha-e-Afyani. It is the shortest possible 

 sound of a, and is described as nearly mute (sakin). The diphthong ai has been noted 

 only as a termination of masculine nouns, and is borrowed from P^sto. I have no- 

 where noted the occurrence of the diphthong au. 



3. The sound s is that of the P'sto ^^. Ghulam Muhammad Khan says that it 

 is sounded as in south-western P'sto, and is a compound of x and s. As in P'^sto, it 

 is a cerebral letter. But inOrmurl it is freely interchanged with the palatal s, and I 

 therefore consider it together with that letter in § 28, below. The letter sf naturally 

 follows suit, and is considered in § 29. The sound of s' is peculiar to Ormuri. Accord- 

 ing to Ghulam Muhammad Khan, it is a compound of x, s and r. E^uropean infor- 

 mants tell me that it is impossible to represent the sound in writing, and, as a matter 

 of fact, various persons transliterate it by widely different methods. Ghulam Muham- 

 mad Khan represents it in the Persian character by the special sign ^4. The letter | 

 istheP'sto^. In Ormuri it is pronounced exactly like the Persian z, and I have 

 retained it only for purposes of derivation. The letter z itself occurs only in words 

 borrowed directly or indirectly from Persian. 



4. The fricatives ^ and ± are the sounds represented by the P'sto £_ and ^. 

 They are sounded nearly like the English ts and dz. 



5. The cerebral t and d occur only in words borrowed from Indian languages 

 or in words of purely Indian derivation. The cerebral n and r are pronounced as in 

 P'Sto. The n is sounded like 'r, and is often so written. Thus hins or Mrs, a bear. 



6. The other sounds call for no remarks here. 



I. VOWEIvS. 



§ 2. ■'. 



This vowel occurs only as a medial or as a final. It is never initial. The mate- 

 rials for its discussion are incomplete, because, in the Persian character, it is often 

 written as i or u. See § i. Remark i. In the following cases it appears written as " 

 in Ghulam Muhammad Khan's grammar : — 



(i) As a medial letter it represents an original a, as in Av. x^vas, 0. s"h, six; Av. 

 maxsi-, 0. m'sl, a fly. Sometimes it acts as a svarahhakti vowel, as in O. w"rl, he 

 takes, from wri-yok to take (Av. ^bar-). 



(2) As a final vowel, it represents an original a in the termination of feminine 

 nouns, adjectives, and participles. It also appears in O. h\ what ? whicTi corres- 

 ponds to the O. Prs., Av., and Skr. pronominal base ci-. 



§ 3- «• 

 (i) « = original a. Thus : — 



{a) Initial : — Av. astadasa, 0. astes ; Av. az9m, 0. az. 



(b) Medial .—Av. navaiti-, O. nawl ; Av. s/P^^(^-, O. x/pa^r ; Av. parsti-, 0. pat; 



