In glaring contrast to the period of the Mamluk sultanate (1250–1517), which abounds in rich, most detailed and accurate source material, hardly surpassed either in quality or quantity by the source material pertaining to any other region of Islam, the period of Ottoman rule in Egypt (1517–1811, approximately) is conspicuous for the dearth of its historical sources written by contemporary inhabitants of the country. This state of affairs, gloomy enough in itself, becomes even more gloomy in the light of the fact that the first 70 years or so of Ottoman rule are almost totally obscure. The very concise chronicles of Ibn Abī al-Surūr al-Bakrī and al-Isḥqī, which contain no more than the barest outline of the events, give only a faint glimpse of what happened in Egypt in the above-mentioned period. Thus the process of Egypt's transition from its Mamluk into its Ottoman shape is practically unknown except for the first few years (922–8/1517–22) of Ottoman rule described by Ibn lyās. It is only after that transition had reached a very advanced stage that a somewhat clear picture of Egyptian history and society can be drawn from historical works compiled by contemporary Egyptian authors; and it should be stressed in this connexion that however important other kinds of sources may be—such as the Ottoman archives, and to a much lesser extent, the itineraries of European travells—they are certainly no substitute for the works of the local historians.

Only comparatively recently was it recognized that the few MSS of portions of Kemālpaazāde's ‘History of the Ottoman Dynasty’ which exist in the libraries of Western Europe represent less than a half of the complete work and that there survives in Istanbul the great bulk of the ten books of which it originally consisted.

1. The importance of the Avesta for the study of the history of Iranian languages and religions is matched by the interest it holds for the Vedologist. Whoever attempts to fathom the prehistoric origins of Rigvedic poetry and ideas will have to turn to the sacred book of the Parsis, which on innumerable occasions will help him to check his reconstructions: it is one of the most serious defects of Bergaigne's treatment of the Ādityas in his Religion védique (III pp. 98 ff.) that he omitted to avail himself of this rich source of information. The Avestic evidence offers, in fact, often more than a check. There are instances where it can bring us nearer to Proto-Aryan origins than the Rigveda itself. This point was most impressively vindicated by Benveniste and Renou in their monograph Vṛtra et Vṛθragna (1934). Nowhere, however, does it become clear more immediately than in the case of God Mitra/Mithra. It was the Avestic evidence that enabled Meillet (J As., juillet-août 1907, 143 ff.) to establish his original nature as the personified Contract/Treaty.

Kajali is a Tāti dialect spoken in at least two, and possibly more, villages in Khalkhāl, the south-eastern province of Persian Āzarbāijān. Kajal, the main village where this dialect is spoken, lies in Kāghaz-konān, the southwestern district of Khalkhāl, and has a population of over 400 persons, who live mainly by cultivating cereals (particularly wheat and barley), growing fruit, and keeping a small number of farm animals. Most of the Kajali men go to Tālesh, the Caspian province east of Khalkhāl, during the winter to work, and return for the summer.

The Boxer Movement is traditionally treated by Chinese and foreigners alike as a political or military phenomenon. In this study, however, it features as an episode in social history. Moreover, our interest lies in a static picture rather than in the dynamic development of the movement. Questions of political wisdom or foolhardiness are not our main concern. This, of course, does not mean that we shall not take political factors into consideration, but that we shall regard them only as data in the mathematical sense. To us, the movement is neither sublime nor ridiculous. It is a religious uprising—the most important religious uprising in the world as a whole to take place in the present century. Neither Mafia in Europe nor the Tong Hak in Korea, for instance, can be compared with it in either scale or influence.

Lǔ xùn's first story Kúangrén rìjì ‘Diary of a madman’ was published in the review Xīn Qīngnián (La Jeunesse) in May 1918. This was during the New Culture Movement when the editors of the review were engaged in their onslaught on Confucian morality, the literary language, and other aspects of the Chinese tradition. Lǔ Xùn's story was intended as a contribution to this movement and was written, according to the author's own account, at the request of one of his friends and fellowprovincials on the editorial board, Qián Xuán-tóng .

In four Chinese texts almost certainly written before the middle of the sixth century a.d., of which two have been attributed to the Tsin period (265–420), there were references to two ‘Po-Ssῠ pine resins ’ to a ‘Po-Ssῠ resin’ subsequently likened to ‘pine resin’, and to a resin subsequently attributed to the ‘Po-Ssῠ’ and also likened to ‘pine resin’. They were ‘ju t'ou perfume ’, the ‘mo drug ’, ‘An-hsi perfume ’, and lung nao or ‘P'o-lü perfume ’. An-hsi perfume became the name for benjamin gum (Styrax benzoin Dryander) which, with lung nao or tree camphor (Dryobalanops aromatica Gaertn. f ), were in later times famous trade-products of northern Sumatra. To-day ju, the abbreviated form of ju t'ou, is identified with species of Pistacia (a mastic) or with frankincense (Boswellia spp.) and mo with myrrh (Commiphora spp.). These are products of Somaliland, the Middle East, and India. In the sixteenth century, however, and long before then, Chinese herbalists believed that ju and mo also came from South East Asia. The text which first mentioned ju in fact ascribed it to the ‘Southern Ocean Po-Ssῠ’, a definition indicating a South East Asian origin.

Since the publication in 1954 of M. Cœdes' sixth and last volume of edited and translated Cambodian inscriptions, almost every legible text of Old Khmer which has so far come to light has been readily available in transcribed form to the student of the Khmer language. It is a humble and restricted literature which has come down to us, as the praises of gods and kings and most of the important edicts were written in Sanskrit while the native tongue was found useful chiefly for recording (and ensuring that everyone understood) such matters as the duties of temple slaves, the revenues due to the foundations, and the pious deeds of the local gentry. The language lacks uniformity because the field covered by the inscriptions is both geographically and temporally extensive, spreading over the whole area of Cambodia and spanning the seventh to the fourteenth centuries.

Faced with the fact that in many varieties of Arabic, including Bedouin dialects of the kind to which Sibawayhi was wont to turn, polysyllabic words and certain other unitary complexes are characterized in pronunciation by the prominence which makes one syllable stand out to the ear above the others, the linguist is understandably puzzled by the failure of the Arab grammarians to mention the subject of accentuation. Bewilderment increases with the realization not only that rules of prominence are statable for a given colloquial but also that correspondence between colloquials or between a colloquial and a given ‘Classical’ pronunciation is equally regular. Confusion is complete when the ‘rules’ given in all reference grammars of Classical Arabic are found to take no cognizance of regional differences of pronunciation and, what is worse, to bear little or no resemblance to the facts in any one region.

1. MS Or. 7698, entitled Ādāb al-murīdīn, was attributed by A. G. Ellis and E. Edwards to ‘Ubaidullāh b. Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-'Azīz al-Samarqandā. The text begins on fol. 13a and is preceded in the MS by the ‘Ajā'ib al-qulūb of al-Samarqandī. A rather late note on the front page, by a hand different from that of the scribe of the two treatises, gives the contents of the MS as ‘Risāla fī ‘ajā'ib al-qulūb li-'Ubaidillāh b. Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-'Azīz al-Samarqandī quddisa sirruhu: Kitīb Ādāb al-murīdīn’. Ellis and Edwards erroneously assumed that like the ‘Ajā'ib al-qulūb the Ādāb al-murīdīn was also by al-Samarqandī.