170 T. Bomford —Grammar of the Language spoken in the IV. Panjab. [Nov. 
The Secretary reported that the election of the Rev. J. L. Peach had 
been cancelled at the request of that gentleman who intimated that he 
would be shortly leaving India, and did not expect to return. 
The Secretary read a circular from the Royal Society of New 
South Wales, enumerating prizes to be given for original researches on 
certain subjects connected with Australia. This can be seen in the 
Society’s office. 
Mr. C. Little moved that the Society should be registered under 
Act XXI of 1860. 
The following papers were read : — 
1. Rough notes on the Grammar of the Language spolcen in the Western 
Punjab.—By Trevor Bomford, C.M.S., Multan. 
Communicated by the Philological Secretary. 
(Abstract.) 
In laying them on the table, the Honorary Philological Secretary, 
said, I wish to draw special attention to these notes, as one of the most 
important contributions to our knowledge of the Indo-Aryan Vernaculars, 
which has appeared during the past decade. Its importance lies not only 
in the value of the grammar, as illustrating an imperfectly known 
language, but as supplying a missing link which completes a chain of 
evidence materially affecting the hitherto accepted theories regarding 
the classification of the modern Indo-Aryan languages. 
The points of similarity which exists between the Ka^mlrl and 
Sindh! languages has been noted incidentally by Dr. Biihler, and by 
the present speaker, but it has not been easy to explain satisfactorily 
the evident relationship which exists between them, for till Mr. 
Romford’s Rough Notes were received, the territories in which these two 
languages were spoken were believed to be separated by many hundred 
miles of country, inhabited by a population speaking a totally different 
language—Panjabi. There was no historical or territorial connexion 
between these two widely separated, but closely connected, languages. 
Mr. Bomford’s Rough Notes have changed all this. We have hitherto 
known a so-called dialect of Panjabi called MultanI, which has been well 
illustrated by the late Mr. O’Brien’s MultanI Vocabulary. This has 
hitherto been localized in the south of the Panjab, round Multan, in 
the districts bordering on Sindh, and, as it bore many close points of 
resemblance to SindhI, it was assumed, on the information then avail¬ 
able, to be a sort of border dialect, through which SindhI merged into 
