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accept Islàm, even if they did not bring it with them from their home. A non-descript paganism (which was probably the religion of the early Dàrds) does not easily resist the encroachments of one of the great dogmatic religions when thrown into unprotected contact with it.

Did the Dàh-Hanu Bròkpàs come by the same route as their later brethren, or did they come, as some of them say, up the valleys of the Indus and Shayok? In the latter case, it would be very strange if a migration of Dàrds, with the whole upper course of the Indus before them, should have stopped and located themselves precisely at that point on its course where a subsequent migration of their kindred, starting from the same point but coming by a different route (latterly at right angles to theirs), happens, some centuries after, to have struck the Indus. It seems more probable that the line of the later migration marks that of the earlier one; and that the ancestors of Dàh-Hanu people took the route viâ Astor, Déosaï, the Dràs river, and Kargil, (a route facilitated by the nature of the country in that direction). Crossing by a low Pass into the Indus Valley, they were there arrested by the more difficult mountains on the east of that river. They probably found this district uninhabited; for though the valley of the Indus, both below and above was, and is, occupied by Tibetan States (Baltistan or Little Tibet, and Ladàk); yet so difficult is the gorge of the Upper Indus in this intermediate portion, that all traffic from Skardo (Baltistan) directed towards Ladàk, is diverted round by the parallel Shayok Valley, only crossing back into that of the Indus by the Hanu Pass, beyond Dàh.

Both the Dàh-Hanu people and the Dàrd communities (above mentioned) settled on or about the Dràs river, are called by their Tibetan neighbours Bròk-pà (often pronounced Dòk-pà with a disregard to the spelling peculiar to Tibetans and Englishmen). Bròk means a "mountain pasture" or "alp". The reference may be to the pastures to which they in summer take their sheep (as do also their Tibetan neighbours however) or to the fact of their having settled on grounds which were formerly pastures. But the term Bròk-pà, or Highlander, seems more likely to have been applied (as Mr. Drew suggests) to a tribe seen to arrive across the high mountains and descending into the Indus Valley, than to a people coming. up that valley from its lower portion, and who have not, since their arrival, taken to a life in the high mountains in any greater degree than their neighbours.

1

A few words of notice are required for the Dràs Dàrds of the later immigration just mentioned. Their connection with their parent stock is very close, and betokens a comparatively recent separation. They say that their ancestors came from Darèl; and their settlements extend far the course of the streams leading down from the uninhabitable plateau of Déosaï, which alone separates them from Dàrdistan proper. ·

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The furthest settlements of these people at the embouchure of the Dràs river into the Indus, approach very closely to, without mixing with, those of their unrecognised kinsmen of the Dàh-Hanu Division. I have collected a few of their grammatical rules and have made a very short comparative table of some of the most ordinary words in the two dialects, by which it will be seen that they are really only different forms of the same mode of speech. These later Dàrds, as far as Dràs, are intermingled with Musalman Tibetans or Baltis. At Dràs the former are Sunnís in religion while the latter are Shi'ahs, but lower down near the Indus both are Shî'ahs. The Dards of the Dràs district keep themselves quite separate, both as regards marriage and eating, from the Baltis with whom they are intermingled in the same villages, and show also some slight traces of that abhorrence of the cow which is so marked among the Dàh-Hanu people, and which is also prevalent in greater or less intensity among many of the other Dards in their own home. To carry the linguistic inquiry a little further back, a comparison with Dr. Leitner's account of the Astori form of the Dàrd language will show that the speech of the Dràs Bròkpàs is almost identical with that of the people of Astor or Hazora who are one of the chief branches of the Dard race in Dàrdistàn, only divided by the river Indus from Gilgit. We have therefore a continuous chain of communities leading from Dàrdistàn proper to the settlements on the Upper Indus at Dah-Hanu. The small gap that does exist in point of language and dress between these latter and the most advanced (geographically) of their brethren, would seem to indicate a lapse of time occurring between two successive migrations. The foremost may be in all probability considered the earlier, and in either case they profess the religion of their environment.

Thus we have here the furthest extension in this particular direction, of an Indo-Arian migration, a kind of side-eddy from the great stream. As when one of our Indian rivers is filled by the melting snows, if a sudden increase of the flood comes down, one may see the waters, dammed up as it were by the too slowly moving masses in front, trickle off to one side in the endeavour to find a speedier exit. But soon, the temporary increase abating or the circumstances of the ground proving unfavourable, this side channel ceases to flow onward and stagnates to a pool, leaving the traces of its abortive course as far back as the point of divergence. So it would seem that long after the successive floods of Indo-Arians had poured over the long water-parting of the Hindu-Kush, the latest or the most easterly wave (the Dàrd one) expanding in its turn after a vast lapse of time, but finding the southward way blocked in front of it by the earlier comers, sent off side-currents to the south-eastward. These were but puny streams, wanting moreover sufficient vis à tergo to carry them onwards when they found themselves amid a foreign element and progressing towards a higher

and more barren country, instead of reaching the fertile plains to which a southerly course had formerly led their brethren, the Hindus. Here therefore they remained, wedged in among alien populations, but connected with their starting point by the living trail of their passage.

Note.-With reference to the question whether any and what degree of connection exists between the Dàrds and the Ghalchahs of the Upper Oxus (see my paper on the latter in the Asiatic Society Bengal, Journal 1876),—it is curious to see that Mr. Drew from native (Dàrd) information classifies one of the Ghalchah tribes, the Wàkhi (called by him Wakhik or Gòijàl) amongst the Dàrds. See Drew's Jummoo and Kashmir, p. 457. The termination k of the word Wakhik is probably a mere Dàrdu affix, (cf. dostek, grestok for dost, grest).

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Dr. Leitner also (Dardistán, Vol. I, Part II, p. 24) says that Gòjàl is the name given by the Chilásis to the people between Hunza and Pamer on the Yarkand road. Now these people are the Sariqoli Ghalchahs. He adds "there are also Gojàls under a Rájá of Gojal on the Badakhshán road.' These can be no other than the Wakhi Ghalchahs, called by Mr. Drew also Goijal, and the idea suggests itself that perhaps Gojal may be the Dardu form of the name Ghalcha given to the same tribes by their Turki neighbours. It is formed by a mere inversion of the position of the latter two consonants, viz., 7, and j or ch: J for Nucklow for Lucknow). At any rate we see that there is an affinity asserted by the Dàrds between themselves and the Ghalchahs, those neighbours who seem to be, one the most primitive race of the Indian family and the other the most primitive of the Iranians. This assertion of affinity is, to some extent borne out by a comparison of the dialects (see Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, for 1876, Paper on the Ghalchah languages).

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(as) غلجه

Some Grammatical forms of the Dard dialects spoken by the Brok-pàs of (i) Dàh-Hanu and of (ii) Dràs.

SOUNDS.

There is no broad á, like aw in pawn, as in some neighbouring dialects and languages.

The accented à to be pronounced as in father; unaccented a as in ordinary, oriental.

The accented é as ey in they, but more staccato. Unaccented e when final is neutral in sound as in the English word the when rapidly pronounced. before a consonant; this sound approaches that of unaccented a. not final, it is pronounced as in then or yes.

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Besides the long and short ò, o and ù, u, there is a double-dotted ö, pronounced as in German schön, and a double-dotted ü as in German mühe or French tu.

With regard to the consonants; the dh represents the English soft th of the, this, &c., and not the Hindi aspirated d'h (which will be represented with an apostrophe, as d'h, t'h). Similarly gh is ¿ (ghain) and not the aspirated Hindi consonant.

Teh is the compound used by Mr. Drew, in a short list of Dàh-Hanu words given in his "Jummoo and Kashmir," to represent a ch pronounced with the tongue curled back to the roof of the mouth. It stands, as he remarks, to the English ch in the same relation that the Hindi palatal ț does to the dental t, [or that the Wàkhi sch does to the English sh (see my paper on the Ghalchah Languages in the Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, for 1876); or that ǹ (see below) does to r].

The ñ (with a mark over it) is the French nasal n which is felt rather as affecting the previous vowel than as a distinct sound. When followed by a vowel however, it acquires something of the sound of ng in the word young, but never to the extent of allowing any distinct g to be heard as in English younger, hunger. Thus mon "I" is pronounced exactly like the French mon my." Again hans "I am" and byuñs "I go" would be spelt in French hanse, biounsse. But haña (where n is followed by a vowel) is sounded (as regards the medial consonant) somewhat like the English word hanger (not as in anger).

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The ✈ (with a dot over it) represents the palatal r of Hindi, pronounced with the tongue turned back. It approaches the sound of a d.

The r (with a dot under it) represents a sound intermediate between an r and a French j or the z in "azure;" that is, the r is not clearly trilled but slurred over; while the tongue is almost in the position for an r a stream of air is passed, without vibration of the tip, between it and the palate. Thus in the word potro "grandson", the sound is intermediate between potro and potjo (as in English we may sometimes hear people pronounce the word "trill" almost like “chill”).

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The (with a dot underneath) represents the French j or the z in
It approaches the last letter in sound.

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The y is only used as a consonant, as in English "yes," "sawyer”, &c., (not as in "by," or "every").

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And so with gố “a cow," Gen. gós, and the other cases gô; gôlô bull,” Gen. gólos, other cases góló; biü “ a boy,” Gen. biüs, other cases biü. But Genitive of tchigà "a woman" is tchügoya while the Dat. is tchügéra, the Acc. tchigà-zé, the Abl. tehügé-yono and the Instr. tchigà-ya. The post-position süma "with", governs the Genitive.

The Plural is irregular though generally ending with a vowel for the nominative and by the same vowel followed by n (and by the appropriate post-positions, if any) for the oblique cases.

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