294 Trevor Bomford— Language spoken in the Western Pahjclb. [No. 4, 
2. The Banya characters. It was in these that the Serampore 
Missionaries printed the New Testament in 1819. They used 35 
different symbols which have been described as belonging to the Asdka 
or Indo-Bactrian group of alphabets. Their translator and scribe was 
probably a native of the Bahawulpur state — possibly from the town of 
Uc, for they generally speak of the language as Ucl. Since those 
days the shape of the letters (as written by the Banyas) has altered 
considerably and some have died out. In Multan itself there are now 
some 30 symbols in use. 
The objection to these characters is— 
(1.) The great variety of them which exist. In and about Mul¬ 
tan itself there are three principal styles in which these characters 
are written, viz., (a) the Multan style proper, (Z>) the Karori or style 
used in and about Karor, a very old but small town in the Multan dis¬ 
trict, (c) the Uc style, but probably minor varieties might be found 
every twenty miles or so. 
(2.) As no vowels are written it is very difficult for any one not 
acquainted with the subject matter to make out the meaning of any 
writing. 
Note. — One of the letters may best be expressed in Roman letters 
by “ nr” pronounced rather nasally. It is very common and is 
the termination of the infinitive as “ akharc to say.” I 
mention it here because in an essay I once read on the language 
of the European gypsies, the writer argued that they must 
have come from the neighbourhood of Hunza because this sound 
was very frequent in the language of the people of those parts. 
It is represented in this paper by * n,’ in Persian by y 
The Declension of Nouns. 
a. The Genitive. This is used as in Urdu, but instead of ka, ke 
and kl, Western Panjabi uses.— 
I a da, before a noun in Nom. Sing. Masc. 
<—£ de, before any other masculine noun. 
dl, before any feminine noun in the Singular, 
diyyit, before any feminine noun in the Plural. 
Example:—‘ Darya da hamsaya na bhukha na trihay a,’ 
The neighbour of a river ( i. e. the man who lives near a river) 
is neither hungry nor thirsty. 
‘ Yar dl yari mai kff bhun piyarl,’ 
The friendship of my friend is very dear to me. 
Notes. — 1. In the Serampore New Testament we have an inter^ 
esting survival in connection with this “ da,” etc. 
