ABSTRACT
This book is based on the Khapalu and Skardu dialects of Balti, a member of the Tibeto-Burman family, spoken in Baltistan. The work is distinguished by its phonetic acuity, particularly important in the case of Balti, whose importance to the Tibeto-Burman and Sino-Tibetan comparatists is its close phonetic relationship to the Tibetan script. This book will undoubtedly become a standard work for the linguistics of the Tibetan language family in general.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |1 pages
lntrodu cti on
A.F.e. Read's Balti Grammar and dictionary of a six-month research programme into the of the Balti dialect of Tibetan made in Rawalpindi in 1964-5 during a of Oriental and African Studies, of London. My interest in this dialect lowe to a missionary of the
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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
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Etymologies
For my Classical Tibetan (or Written Tibetan) etymologies I have relied on H.A. Jiischke's A sizable number connection with Classical Tibetan; on the contrary, they are loan words drawn indications by the letters respectively, especially useful. Traditionally, the Baltistanis were converted from Buddhism to Mohamme- danism by Syed Ali Hamadani in 783 A.H. and further converted to the exclusively BaItistani Nur Bakshi sect by Syed Nur Baksh in 842 A.H. (1464
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of a disagreement that has arisen over the definition of the term of of eater, eat-
the Balti word za-khan 'eater', 'someone who eats', by hyphen, though the two lexical items and -er, are not nonnally separated in this way in English. The Concise Oxford Dictionary does not go beyond entering the lexical item -er as 'suf. forming especially agent nn. nn. & vbs. - so E words as
chapter |2 pages
of the following (non-stress-bearing)
suffixes: -can (some words only), ci, (-s)-e, -en, -i, -ing, -la, -mo (except bruk- mo), -mo (pron. ngo), -na, -pa (II), -pa (VI), -pho, -phu, -phun, -po, -re, -sang, -shik, -tsa (II, 'some'), or -tu, in which case it is the syllable immediately before this suffix that is the stress-bearing syllable (unless that syllable is also one these non-stress-bearing syllables; but that is rarely so ).4
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" ( " ); " " " of letters with r . " "
vow vel non-syl; 3. Sequences vel plo vel non-asp; ved (K.) (S.) asp; vel (K.) (S.) vel ved; ved (K.) (S.) vel non-asp; (K.)
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" vcd
vel; alv plo vel; alv fri vel Iz vcd; vcd; vel; pos vel retroflex vcd; (for It the lateral consonant is usually voiced when it occurs (i) in medial den plo vel; den tap vcd 7. Clusters of letters with g gt vel fri vel; den plo vel non-asp vcd;
chapter |3 pages
" " . " " , " " " ved " plo vel; pal " " . " " " plo vcd; " " fri vel; alv lat " (K.) " " , of letters with m " );
" (S.) den plo stop " " " asp (medial) fri ved; vel; alv aff vel non-asp (medial) plo vel; fri vel (S.) " (K.)
chapter |2 pages
of them indistinguishable from k, " , " ) of Zakir Hussein the Khapalu dialect dispenses with the of the following lexical items:
ng, p, and m respectively; I have, therefore, put the voiceless alveolar fricative features in brackets in the phonetic description that follows to show that they are optional: vel; vel fri, alv, following i or u aspirated, following i or u
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The English-Tibetan section Notes
The greater part of this dictionary comprises Balti lexical items and words rendered into English; but, since I believe that it will be especially useful to comparatists in the field of Tibeto-Burman and Sino-Tibetan studies, I have included references to Bielmeier's two publications, and have added an English- Tibetan glossary of especially common words.
chapter |9 pages
Abbreviations
A. Arabic ad} adjective affricate alveolar arch archaic article aspirated past participle present
