JOURNAL 
OP THE 
ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL. 
Part I.—HISTORY, LITERATURE, &e. 
No. II.—1877. 
On the Shighni (Ghalchah) Dialect.—By R. B. Shaw, Political Agent , 
Ladah. 
A few words of the Shighni dialect, collected by Munshi Faiz Bakhsh, 
were attached to my former paper on the Ghalchah Dialects printed in the 
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Pt. I, for 1876. I see that the 
late Oriental Congress held at St. Petersburg expressed the opinion that a 
study of the forms of speech in use about the head-waters of the Oxus was 
very desirable. I hope therefore that this short grammar and specimen 
story of a third of those dialects may he acceptable. 
Shighnan and Roshan, the districts where it is spoken, lie in the valley 
of the Oxus just above the country of Darwaz, on the great bend which the 
river takes round Badakhshan. They extend also up the valleys of some 
of its feeders which descend from the Pamir. They are both under the 
same Ruler ( Asaf Ali Khan is the name of the present Mir). His domi¬ 
nions form the most northerly of the Hill-States dependent on Afghanistan. 
My informant (a Shighni) saw him go, some six years ago, to do homage 
at Faizabad to ISTaib Muhammad Alam, the Governor of Afghan Turkistan. 
The next year, his son went on a similar errand, since which my informant 
has been absent from his country. On both occasions tribute was taken : 
2000 tillas (gold coins), 1000 yambu (Chinese shoe-silver) &c. These are 
probably mere round figures used to express a considerable (and unknown) 
amount; for these two items alone would be worth about £18,000. The 
next district to the north, Darwaz, is represented as being subordinate to 
Bokhara. Shighnan was not invaded by the Afghans, but followed natural- 
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