1904.] 
G. Dutt —Farther Notes on the Bhojpuri dialects. 
245 
Further Notes on the Bhojpuri dialects spoken in Saran. (Vide Journal 
A. S. B. Part I, No. 3 , Pages 192—212 of 1897).—By Girindranatb: 
Dutt. 
[Read January, 1904.] 
When my notes on the Saran dialects appeared in the Journal of 
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Part I, No. 3 of 1897, I was called upon 
by Dr. Grierson, in charge of the Linguistic Survey of India, through 
the Collector of Saran, to furnish him with further information regard¬ 
ing the Bhojpuri dialect spoken in Saran. Vicissitude of fortune had 
so long prevented me from forwarding to the Society a copy of the 
Notes I had submitted to him, and this I now do in a revised form, with 
a hope that they will be as interesting as my former notes. 
The Bhojpuri dialect spoken in Saran is not the strict Bhojpuri 
boli prevalent in Arrah, as I have shewn in my previous report. 
It bears close affinity to the dialect spoken on the Northern part of 
District Shahabad bordering the Saraju and the Ganges. The whole 
population of Saran may be said to speak this dialect with slight 
changes in different Pergannas which border another district. Thus 
the Bhojpuri dialect forms the principal dialect of the district, and the 
various dialects which have been influenced by the dialects prevailing in 
the conterminous districts have been rightly classified by Dr. Grierson 
in his Linguistic Survey Report as sub-dialects under it. Natural 
barriers such as seas, rivers, mountains and deserts prove a very strong 
impediment on the way of languages or dialects travelling from one 
country to another. “ Language,” says Mr. Sayce, “ is the test 
of social contact, not of race,” and these barriers prove an almost 
nnsurmountable obstacle to social contact. People of one district 
will gladly prefer to undertake a matrimonial expedition 30 miles 
off in the same district but will not hazard a match just on the other 
bank of the river and nearer home in another District except in the 
rare instance that it is a marriage de convenance fetching a large dower 
or same prospective hopes. But yet there is much of social contact to 
coat their tongue. They cultivate land, carry on trade on the other 
J. i. 32 
