Since Sumerian studies began Assyriologists and other philologists have tried to compare Sumerian with some known language or group of languages, and thus to solve definitely the important problem of the origin of the primitive civilization of Chaldæa. That the Sumerian race and Sumerian language really existed, and Sumerian was spoken in Babylonia in the most remote epoch, that this language was neither Aryan nor Semitic but an agglutinative language—these are facts now established by the researches of earlier and modern Assyriologists and recognized even officially by science. J. Halévy's theory, denying the very existence of the Sumerians and their language, has now no followers among serious scientists, and the study of Sumerian is based upon such methods and facts that the appearance of another Halévy raising anew “the Sumerian question”, and bringing some new arguments in order to support his theory, seems, if not impossible, at least very improbable.

The first extract, “A,” from the text of the Tajārib al-Umam (Gibb Memorial facsimile, vol. vi, pp. 135—41), depicts the fiscal condition of the soil at the seat of the Caliphate at the date of the establishment there of Buwaihid ascendancy in a.h. 334. The passage appears in an abridged and rather inadequate form in the Kāmil of Ibn al-Athīr (viii, 342–3), and a comparison of the texts serves to show the value of the Tajārib original.

Ch. 00262, papier. Comprend—

1. Fragment d’un recueil de Śikṣās, folios numeratés (coll. Stein) 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, qui sont 90, 91, 92,93, et 44,45. 159–60 mm.; 4 lignes, belle écriture.—Voir les Sekhiyas et Mahāvyutpatti, 263.

I venture to make the following suggestions, based on some recent studies of Bengali accentuation and prosody. The subject is difficult, and, to save space and words, I state quite tentative conclusions in rather too positive terms. But my statements are merely suggestions.

As our Society has published a communication on Indian phonetics, may I make a suggestion which may perhaps interest students of the Indian vernaculars? We all know that most languages have a musical quality which enables us to recognize what language is being spoken, even if we are too distant to hear the words used, or too ignorant to understand their sense. This characteristic quality is composed of stress and pitch. It has to be acquired by everyone who would speak like a native and would be readily and easily understood. It is not only by the meaning of words, but also by the significant modulation of a phrase that we make ourselves understood. It is very interesting, for instance, to note the change of stress and pitch when a word is borrowed from one language into another. This change is audible even when the borrowed word is pronounced by itself. It is even more obvious when the borrowed word forms part of the significant music of a phrase. So far, I am merely saying what is known to all students of living tongues. What I venture to suggest is that the characteristic modulation of a language may provide useful hints as to its origins and history, that the careful study of stress and tone may be a help to the philologist. This should particularly be the case where a language belonging to one family of human speech has been recently adopted by a race that once spoke a language of another family. It is easy, for instance, to feel an alien, a Celtic element in the pronunciation of English by an Irishman, a Highlander, a Welshman.

Mārkaṇḍēya in his Prākṛtasarvasva, i, 4, discusses the various kinds of Apabhraṁśa. In the commentary he quotes an unknown author (see Pischel, Pr. Gr., § 3, note 1) who gives a list of no less than twenty-seven, but he says that really there are only three, Nāgara, Vrācaḍa, and Upanāgara. He does not consider the others as different dialects, because their variations from the Standard are very slight.

The stories about Viśvāmitra and Vasiṣṭha and their contest are often narrated and alluded to in Sanskrit writings, and are intimately connected in ancient tradition with two kings of Ayodhyā, Trayyāruṇa and his son Satyavrata Triśaṅku. They are sometimes mixed up, especially in brahmanic descriptions, with extraordinary and marvellous incidents, but are narrated in the course of the genealogies of Ayodhyā and Kānyakubja in some of the Purāṇas in as simple and natural a manner as if they were plain ‘historical’ tradition. Such being their character in the Purāṇas, it is not unreasonable to examine them as such, review them according to ordinary feelings and conduct, and see whether, when so scrutinized, they may not yield a natural and probable explanation of a series of incidents that have attracted much attention, both ancient and modern. This has been my endeavour in this paper, and the results appear to reconstruct a most interesting chapter in ancient Indian traditional ‘history’.

In a scholarly paper contributed to Baessler-Archiv this year under the title “Frühgeschichtliche Orakelknochen aus China”, the author, Fräulein Anna Bernhardi, has discussed various questions arising from the great find of inscribed bones in Honan Province, and has illustrated her paper partly from the Wirtz Collection of these objects now in the Royal Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin, partly from specimens in other cabinets. Considerable space is devoted to the consideration of the genealogies which have been found on certain of these relics, and peculiarities of writing markedly noticeable in these strange records of descent have caused Fräulein Bernhardi to ask whether they do not perhaps point to an early dissyllabism in the Chinese language, and also whether they do not show traces of a genitival form. And in order that the pros and cons of these hypotheses may be more adequately grounded, she appeals to the owners of the various collections now scattered over different parts of the world carefully to test the specimens they possess.

At the General Meeting of the 10th June, Dr. Thomas read his paper on “The Date of Kaniṣka” (p. 627 above), and the discussion was continued by—

Professor Rapson, who said:—I have read with great care Mr. Kennedy's articles on “The Secret of Kanishka”, but have come to the conclusion that the fundamental views on which the whole argument is based are in some cases demonstrably incorrect and in other cases altogether uncertain. In support of this statement I rely on the careful and detailed examination which we have just heard from Dr. Thomas. On the present occasion I propose to confine myself entirely to the evidence afforded by the coins.