192 
J. Drake— Story of Prodigal Son in Kurku Language. [No. 3, 
The story of ttie Prodigal Son, translated into the Kurku Language.*—By 
Rev. John Drake, Missionary to the Kurkus , Ellichpur, Berar. 
\_Communicated by G. A. Grierson, Ph.D., C.I.E., I.C.S.] 
[Read July, 1897.] 
[The following translation is a specimen of another Aboriginal Lan¬ 
guage spoken in the Central Provinces and Berar. It has been prepared 
for Dr. Grierson in connection with his Linguistic Survey, but unfortu¬ 
nately reached him too late for that purpose. However, as trustworthy 
specimens of these Aboriginal Languages are very rarely met with, the 
Editor readily accepted Dr. Grierson’s suggestion to publish it in this 
Journal. 
The Kurkus, or Korkus as their name is spelt in the last Census 
Deports, are a Kolarian tribe living in different parts of the Central 
Provinces and Berar. We learn from Dalton’s Descriptive Ethnography 
of Bengal (page 231) that their name is said to be a plural of kur “ man.” 
They are also spoken of as Muasi, but this rather seems to be merely 
the name of one of their tribal subdivisions. The total number of Kur¬ 
kus is entered in the last Census Reports as 96,218 for Central 
Provinces, and 37,126 for Berar, thus giving a total of 1,33,344. The 
Berar Census Report states that “ the primitive hill-men are beginning 
to find their way into the world, and as they do so their language will 
probably merge into that of the province.” Under such circumstances, 
it is to be hoped that the following specimen of their language, however 
short it may be, will still be welcomed . 1 
As to the Author’s system of transliteration, no attempt has been 
made to adapt it to the Society’s system, on account of its dealing with 
the sounds of a Kolarian language, a general standard for which does 
not exist. He distinguishes every short and long vowel by different 
vowel-marks (except in the diphthongs ai and au) ; thus d and a, e 
and e, etc. The letter 3 means a sound much like the German ch in 
ich, dich, etc.—Ed.] . 
1 A description of the Kurkus by W. H. P. Driver will be found in this 
Journal , Vol. LXI, for 1892, Part I, page 128 ff. 
