No. 47.— 1896.] knox's Sinhalese vocabulary. 155 



ROBERT KNOX'S SINHALESE VOCABULARY. 



o 



By D. W. Ferguson. 



In searching for information relating to Captain Robert 

 Knox, the twenty-years' captive in, and writer of the well- 

 known book on, Ceylon, I happened to consult the manuscripts 

 of Dr. Robert Hooke, Secretary of the Royal Society from 

 1677 to 1682, which are preserved in the British Museum 

 Library. In one volume of miscellaneous papers (Sloane, 

 1039) I was fortunate enough to find (on the folios numbered 

 162-165) a vocabulary of Sinhalese words, partly in Dr. Hooke's 

 handwriting, but chiefly in that of Knox himself. Not being 

 entered in the Catalogue, this interesting document seems to 

 have escaped the notice of scholars — at least I have never met 

 with any reference to it. In his Preface to Knox's Historical 

 Relation, Hooke says : "He could have given you a compleat 

 Dictionary of their Language, understanding and speaking it 

 as well as his Mother Tongue. But his Occasions would not 

 permit him to do more at present." It is probable that this 

 list of words was written shortly after the publication of 

 Knox's work ; and it certainly justifies to some extent Hooke's 

 assertion in the first sentence quoted above. A comparison 

 of this list with the Sinhalese words given in Knox's book 

 will show that the former contains a large number of vocables 

 unrecorded in the latter. (For the purpose of comparison, 

 and in order to make Knox's list as complete as possible, I 

 have added, after the words in the manuscript list, those 

 given in the Historical Relation .*) Sinhalese was to Knox, 

 during his enforced residence in Ceylon, purely a spoken 

 language : that he never learnt to read or write it we may 



* The explanations are mostly in Knox's own words, though in many 

 cases in an abbreviated form. I have considered it beyond the scope of 

 the present Paper to enter into any lengthy discussion of the various points 

 suggested by the occurrence of certain words in Knox's book, 



