of Tibetan, including the Skardu dialect of Balti, with an of the of Fida Hussein Shame em, Baltistan's leading poet.

alveolar and slightly retroflexed tongue-tip contact, as [tr-] and [dr-] respectively. My informant Mohammad Zakir Hussein Baltistani was a speaker Khapalu dialect; but he had spent some time in Skardu too, where the prestige dialect is spoken. When I met him, in 1964-5, he was a 17-year-old student, employed part-time by Radio Pakistan as a news-reader in the Balti-language My personal servant, Abdul Karim, was also a Khapalu-speaker; but I had to exercise caution in any use I made of him as a pronunciation informant because of an easily noticeable speech defect. Through employing him I was, however, able to have daily practice in speaking Khapalu Balti. This was important to me because the Pakistan Government did not allow me to visit Baltistan and stay in a