Abstract
IT is reported that Colonel D. L. R. Lorimer, whose studies in Indo-Iranian linguistics are well known, accompanied by Mrs. Lorimer, has recently returned to Srinagar from an expedition of linguistic research among the mountain tribes of Hunza and the area to the north, upon which he has been engaged during the last fifteen months. The chief object of the expedition was to extend and complete Colonel Lorimer's studies of Burushaski, the language of the Burusho of Hunza; but he has also devoted attention to Wakki, a language of the Iranian group spoken in Wakkan and also by Wakkan settlers in northern Hunza. Colonel Lorimer, it is stated in a dispatch from Srinagar in The Times of October 9, has succeeded in obtaining a record of a language, Boma, hitherto unknown, spoken by a tribe of musicians and metal workers who have been settled in Hunza for many generations. According to their own tradition, they are a people of Badakhshari origin, who at some period were transferred to the rule of the Mir of Hunza for services he had rendered the ruler of Badakhshan. They have remained an exclusive group and still do not intermarry with the Burusho, although they, like the other peoples of Hunza, are Moslems. Hence while they speak Burushaski fluently, they have retained their cultural and linguistic individuality intact. Their language, which is said not to resemble the Badakh-shani of their traditional place of origin, appears to be more closely related to the Sanskritic than to the Iranian members of the Indo-Iranian linguistic group. If this be confirmed by further study, it would agree with the character of other languages of the so-called Dards of Hunza. Colonel Lorimer is now about to return to England for the purpose of studying the large amount of ethnographical and linguistic material he has collected among the less well-known mountain peoples of the area.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Linguistic Research in Kashmir. Nature 136, 638 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136638b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136638b0