1904.] A. H. Francke —A language map of West Tibet with noets. 367 
to prove that the whole of Lower Ladakh was Dard before the Tibetan 
conquest, and I hope that in the next Census special attention will be 
paid to the j^a-sptmships. The only colony, which has remained en“ 
tirely Dard to the present day, is the colony of Da and its neighbour 
hood. The Dards of Dras are not Dard colonists apparently, but have 
always been in direct connection with the Dard population of Gilgit. 
Now I shall repeat once more that it is interesting to note that 
the most archaic type of Tibetan pronunciation is found in territories 
where Tibetan was a foreign language for a long time. 
From my limited knowledge of languages I may add two parallels : 
In Hanover where one of the purest Teutonic tribes is found m 
Germany, the development of the German language has been more 
rapid than in the southern mountainous districts, for instance, in 
Tirol or Styria, where there used to be a Celtic and Slav population 
before the advent of the Germans. The language of the Slav tribe 
of the Wends, between Berlin and Bautzen is in certain respects one 
of the most archaic Slav languages living. It is one of those few 
living Aryan languages which still make use of the Dual; and the 
Wends have been largely mixed with Germans. 
On the other hand, I can give two examples, which would prove 
the contrary. French is one of the most advanced types of Roman 
speech (in the garb of its modern pronunciation) ; but here the/Roman 
language was accepted by an originally Celtic population.—Hebrew is 
a far more advanced type of Semitic speech than Arabic, and yet the 
Jews were settlers among a partially non-Semitic population. 
Thus apparently geographical and other questions will have to be 
taken into consideration; but it would certainly be an interesting task 
to examine those conditions which work for a speedy or a slow deve¬ 
lopment not only of the Tibetan language, but of languages in general. 
