Phonological distinctions vanish in the course of the evolution of a language, but in diachronic phonology it is known that the distinctive oppositions involved do not necessarily disappear as a consequence thereof. Certain effects brought about by the ancient phonemes while they were still articulatorily different do survive after the originally distinct articulations have merged into one. The surviving effects are customarily called ‘reflexes’, that is, of the phonemes now extinct, and it is they that permit us to assume with a considerable degree of certainty that the distinctions now perceivable by virtue of the surviving effects were once vested in different phonemes in the same language. The doctrine of phoneme reflexes has contributed immensely to an ampler, more complete, and more refined knowledge of the sound system of the ancient Indo-European languages. In Semitics, however, this line of investigation has hitherto been much less exploited. While there can be no doubt that we have a fairly good knowledge of what might be termed ‘the common Semitic sound system’, such insights can only tell us what phonological distinctions exist in one historical Semitic language, while being absent from another, and how correspondences should be drawn up between them. The advantage, however, of the study of reflexes is that it affords insights into the mechanism of one and the same language and permits inferences on historically unattested distinctions as well as the reconstruction of a stage of a language prior to its earliest written documentation. We can grasp here the real difference between comparison and reconstruction: while comparison enlightens us as to how languages differ, it cannot make us see the true identity or physiognomy of any given language. This latter task is dependent upon the doctrine of reflexes. If certain otherwise common Semitic distinctions involving pharyngals are reflected in Early Akkadian as neatly regulated mechanisms of vocalic patterns, we must infer that it is not true to say that Akkadian is set apart from other Semitic languages by the absence in it of pharyngal articulations, because these articulations, since they left traces, could not have been absent in that language in its earliest stages. The identity of Akkadian will, therefore, have to be established on the ground of the presence, rather than the absence, of a certain statable number of pharynsal phonemes.

The aim of this paper is to elucidate some of the phrases and slogans which occur in the Muslim traditions about the Fitna, the first ‘civil war’ in Islam, which, according to tradition, begins with the murder of the caliph ‘Uthmān in 36/656 and ends with the recognition of Mu'āwiya as caliph in 41/661. These phrases and slogans are discussed in the light of ideas and terminology found in Judaism, and it is suggested that a better understanding of them can be gained by the comparison with Judaism than by the attempts to interpret them in more traditionally Muslim terms. It is argued that both the lā ḥukma slogan and the ḥudūd references indicate a dispute within the early Muslim community about the authority to be accorded to Scripture, and that the terminology used is so reminiscent of that used in Judaism that it is likely that the dispute was the same as that which we know was the mam one between Jewish sects in the early Islamic period—the relative status of Scripture and Oral Law. This would be an issue which has not previously been mentioned in discussions of the issues involved in the Fitna and, if the suggestions made here prove to be acceptable, it would provide more material for discussion of the sectarian circles which contributed to the development of Islam.

With the affluence brought by oil, the cities, towns, and villages of Saudi Arabia are being transformed as they are rebuilt; the older mosques are being replaced by new ones in concrete and built in styles unknown in Najd 30 years ago. As a result, structures built in accordance with traditional designs are being gradually obliterated by modern, alien buildings. This process has virtually wiped out the older mosques on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia and those in Najd may well vanish in the course of the next few years. This article attempts, albeit very incompletely, to catalogue some of the traditional mosques of Najd and to describe their architectural characteristics. I shall deal with these buildings within their geographical areas beginning with al-Ḥawṭca in southern central Najd and moving northwards, towards al-Qaṣīm and Sudayr.

The Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities of the British Museum has in its collections an inscribed plaque (BM 136772) which is intriguing for bearing not one but one and a half inscriptions, for being almost perfectly legible, and yet for having no obvious purpose. There is no information about its provenance (the plaque was in a European private collection for some considerable time) other than that it is said to have come, indirectly, from Iran. Of this there can be little doubt, as we shall see. The plaque is of sheet silver, roughly rectangular, and measures approximately 13 · 5 cm. in width and 14 · 5 cm. in length. At some time it has been folded in half both ways, leaving a horizontal crack across the middle. Another crack runs across the bottom right-hand corner. It is possible to give these orientations because of the 21 lines of writing which, from their division, were incised in the plate after it acquired its present shape. The writing is ‘inscriptional’ Parthian. The first 14 lines bear a close copy of the corresponding version of the rock inscription of Shapur I at Ḥāǰīābād (by Persepolis), and 11. 15–21, probably by another hand, contain a repetition of the beginning of this. But this is by no means to say all.

1.l. From May 1974 to May 1976 I carried out field research in the Nilgiri Hills, South India, with the purpose of collecting materials on the languages, oral traditions, religious beliefs and practices, and customs of three tribal communities, the Ālu Kuṟumbas, the Pālu Kuṟumbas, and the Muḍugas.

In this paper I shall present some first specimens of the language and folklore of the hitherto nearly unknown Pālu Kuṟumba tribe.

Saint worship is a form of religious expression common to most Islamic societies, but it is especially important in the religious life of the Māppiḷas, the Muslims of Kerala State, South India. The Māppiḷas' largest public festivals are a variant of saint worship known as nerccas. These are expensive and elaborate ceremonials which combine nominally Islamic elements with certain features of indigenous folk festivals. Thus, while the focal point of each nercca is the reverence shown to a pīr, shaykh, or shahīd, all the festivals are conducted within a ritual framework derived from the worship of folk deities in Kerala. The nerccas are important just because of this hybrid character; that is, they provide examples of an especially complex variety of Islamic saint and martyr worship. However, the festivals are equally important when they are viewed solely as a source of information about Kerala Muslims, for the Māppiḷas possess only the most fragmentary records concerning their own past and the nerccas offer one of the most important means by which it is possible to study the history and religious culture of this important Muslim community.

It was Harold Fleming who first drew the attention of linguists to the Bayso language. Reports concerning the existence of such a people on Gidicho Island in Lake Abaya go back to the beginning of the century and descriptions of various cultural and economic aspects of the life of the Bayso and other inhabitants of Gidicho appeared subsequently; but concerning the language nothing was available until the publication of Fleming's germinal article in 1964. The latter followed a brief period of work on the island with a Bayso speaker. The 216-item vocabulary list and brief indications of the grammar have nevertheless proved tantalizingly suggestive to everyone working on questions of genetic relationships within Cushitic. Alongside the Bayso material the article also presented the first data on the Rendille language of north-east Kenya. Fleming's conclusions that Bayso, Rendille, Boni, and Somali constitute a Macro-Somali group were seen as linguistic support for H. S. Lewis's hypothesis of a south Ethiopian (rather than a northern Horn of Africa) origin for the Somali. Since the initial presentation of these proposals, linguistic research into the Dasenech (Galab), Elmolo, and to a limited extent Arbore, languages has led German linguists to propose an extension of Fleming's Macro-Somali to include these languages. Until very recently the limited nature of the data available on many of the relevant languages had tended to detract from the strength of arguments about their internal relationships. Heine's reports of his recent researches on Rendille, Elmolo, and Boni, as well as his work on the diachrony of the ‘Sam languages’ have done much to advance our knowledge. To date, however, the material available on Bayso has remained restricted to what was presented by Fleming in 1964. The primary purpose of the present paper is to set out the results of research conducted for a period of 17 days during September 1976.

Over and over again, the question has been raised as to whether it is worth while studying Manchu. It can no longer be considered a short cut to mastering the difficulties of Chinese, and so the only Tungus written language seems to have been left entirely to the attention of linguists and, maybe, anthropologists. On the other hand, the growing interest of Chinese and Japanese scholars in the Manchu archives proves that there is much valuable information for the historian. A large number of Manchu books are buried in libraries and are hardly known and available even to Manchu specialists who deal with a limited number of well-known texts, classics, dictionaries, grammars, the Chin-p'ing-mei, and the Liao-chai chih-i. It is not that these materials do not offer interesting problems, but it is often overlooked that they only constitute a part of Manchu literature the scope of which is much wider, as systematic research in libraries all over the world has proved. Therefore the most pressing problem in Manchu studies is to gain bibliographical control over the existing texts and make them available to the researcher.

The Gobi desert has played a vital part in the history of the Burmans, as in that of many other peoples of Asia and Europe. Winds blow continuously between Paris and Peking—from east to west for half the year, from west to east for the other half. Surface soil, once broken (as in the early Neolithic), is loth to settle. Wind-blown soil, or loess, chokes all the rivers and prevents their exit to the seas. Fresh-water lakes go saline and undrinkable. And soon a vast country, from the centre outwards, becomes uninhabitable by man. The problem is still acute. With three of our four continents still desert-eroded, it remains a question whether our planet can be saved from going the way of Mars.