The attribution of the book to al-Farabi rests solely on the note on the flyleaf, which can, however, be shown to be spurious. Examining the manuscript some years ago, I noticed that the fly-leaf was pasted over the recto of the first folio of the manuscript, and that underneath some writing was faintly visible. The fly-leaf was then separated from the folio of the manuscript, and the recto of the folio turned out to be in effect the title-page of the manuscript.

Needless to say the Amharic speakers also have close contact with the speakers of the other Semitic Ethiopic languages as well as of the Cushitic languages. Nearly all the Semitic Ethiopic and Cushitic languages have many Arabic loanwords for the same reasons mentioned above in connexion with Amharic. It is, therefore, often difficult to know whether an Arabic loanword in Amharic came directly from an Arabic dialect or through the intermediary of another Semitic Ethiopic or Cushitic language. Since we have no adequate means at our disposal for a historical treatment of the Semitic Ethiopic vocabulary, we shall most probably never be able to determine the precise origin of some of the words considered here as borrowings, that is to say whether they come directly from an Arabic dialect or through another Semitic Ethiopic or Cushitic language.

The beginnings of history writing in Islam were cultivated in two centres—Medina, representing Islamic interests and primarily concerned with the Sīra (Life of the Prophet) and the early history of Islam, and Irāq—more specifically Kūfa and Basra—representing tribal interests and lines of historical studies. These beginnings were collective pursuits, individual activity being a part of a school and adding further to its development.

Arab historical writing was not a specialized study in the seventeenth century. Organized work in Arabic and Islamic studies was still a recent development in western Europe generally. The first modern English Arabist, William Bedwell (1562–1632), was during most of his life an isolated figure: the principal result of his studies was an Arabic lexicon which was never printed, although he bequeathed the MS to Cambridge with a fount of Arabic type for that purpose. In the third decade of the century, however, some younger scholars began to interest themselves in Arabic.

The sīra authorities provide a mass of contradictory data on the chronology of the Prophet's raids and the task of fitting these inconsistencies into a cogent chronological pattern is beset with difficulties. In the main sources, for example, Mūsā b. ‘Uqba, Ibn Isḥaq, and al-Wāqidī, we find noticeable divergencies in the dating of a specific event. This is so even with important incidents such as the expulsion of Banu Qaynuqā‘and a comparatively late event such as the attack on Khaybar. A textual collation of the chronological material does suggest, however, that in some cases it may be possibleto win through to a safer position.

In BSOAS, XVIII, 1, 1956, 35, I had occasion to postulate a word *mišapati- to explain what seemed a likely survival of it in the word mṡapantin-, mṡapantn- (written also with -mt- for -nt-, and without the -in- in the abstract mṡapantune) in texts from the Agni-visaya. Only in the final proofs was it possible to insert a reference to the corresponding word in an Iranian text of Buddhist Sogdian. This supplementary note is needed in justification.

In the majority of the extant manuscripts of the Patmut'iwn Aluanic by Movses Kalankatuai, and subsequently in the printed editions and the Russian translation of this work, a passage containing some not unimportant historical information concerning Caucasian Albania in the ninth century A.D. has come to be omitted. In 1897 Dadean reproduced in Ararat the text of this passage as he found it in two manuscripts in the patriarchal library of Etchmiadzin, but owing to the comparative inaccessibility of the said journal and perhaps also to the fact that the passage has never been translated, it has been overlooked by Western scholars.

My article written some twenty years ago had a twofold purpose: to insist on the importance of a systematic study of the toponymy of Persia and, by way of example, to examine the Mongolian stratum of placenames in the southernmost area of the Persian province of Azarbayjan.

Much of what I said in the first part of the original draft has happily become superfluous in view of the appearance of a very welcome series of volumes which, in the years 1328–32/1949–53, was published by the Persian Army Survey, under the title of Farhang-i joghrāfiyāyi-yī Irān. The production of this series is chiefly due to the enlightened endeavours of the former chief of the Survey, General Hosayn ‘Ali Razmārā (brother of the assassinated premier).

From the studies of Zurvanism made in this century, a large measure of agreement has been reached. It is accepted that Zurvan ‘est en general le dieu du firmament lumineux et étoilé … avant tout le dieu du sort … en général regardé comme un dieu quadriforme’; and that his cult was ‘enraciné surtout dans l'lran occidental’. But a fundamental disagreement has developed over the origin of Zurvanism. H. S. Nyberg, although pointing out scrupulously that ‘le mythe zervanite n'st directement attesté que dans le mazdéisme’, and that ‘nous ne trouvons jamais un système zervanite où Ormuzd ne soit représenté’, has nevertheless maintained that Zurvan is an ancient Iranian god, whose cult, older than Zoroaster, has been partly adopted into, and partly obliterated by, orthodox Mazdeism. In this he has been followed by a number of scholars.

In a previous study I indicated that some verbal constructs in Hindi whose components were analysable, at the morphological level, as noun + verb could be considered as comprised in the overall category of verb at the syntactical level on account of their patterning in the participial forms, and suggested T. Grahame Baileys term ‘conjunct verbs’ as a convenient term of reference for this sub-category. The aim of the present study is to consider ‘conjunct verbs’ more closely, and to relate both these and what Bailey terms ‘compound verbsx2019; to each other and to the Hindi verbal system as a whole.

In 1955, the appearance in the Patrologia Orientalis of the Old Georgian version of St. Luke's Gospel brought to a successful conclusion the project initiated some thirty years ago by the late Professor Robert P. Blake of Harvard University, namely the critical editing of the famous Adysh (or Adishi) Gospel manuscript, copied at Shatberd in Tao-Klarjet'i in A.D. 897, and later removed thence to be preserved in a remote village in highland Svanet'i.1 After Blake's death in May 1950, his work was brought to completion by Canon M. Brière, who had already collaborated on the edition of St. John.2 Now that their pioneer work has made this important Biblical text fully accessible to Western scholars, the time seems ripe to attempt a brief survey in the most general terms of recent work published or in progress in Georgian New Testament studies.

One of the few Old Persian words whose precise meaning has not yet been established is yakā-, the name of a material which was used in the building of Darius' palace at Susa. In the Great King's own words ‘it was brought (to Susa) from Gandara and Karmāna’.1 That a timber was meant appears from the Akkadian version (the corresponding Elamite sentence is missing), in which yakā- is translated by GIšMlŠ-MA-KAN-NA. Admittedly the Akkadian word is partly restored; V. Scheil, in his edition,2 printed it as [miš]-má-kan-na. However, both E. Herzfeld3 and F. W. Konig4 thought they could see the determinative GlŠ and a trace of MlŠ; at all events the preserved part of the word leaves scarcely any doubt as to the correctness of the restoration.

The Shahbazgarhi Inss. of Aśoka distinguish the three sibilants ś, ṣ, s. Hultzsch remarks ‘While at Kalsi these three symbols are used indiscriminately, the Shahbazgarhi text generally employs each of them where it would have been in its proper place in Sanskrit’ [v. Hultzsch, Inss. Aś., p. lxxxvi]. The dialect of the Mansehra text is nearly identical with the Shahbazgarhi one [v. id., p. xcvii].

Neolithic sites of the North Karnataka region produce artifacts belonging to two distinct industries.1 The first comprises mainly blade and ‘geometric’ tools manufactured from a series of siliceous rocks. Their manufacture entails a definite tradition of core preparation and striking of bladeflakes.2 The second industry comprises core and flake tools manufactured from a group of igneous and metamorphic rocks. Their manufacture entails different techniques based upon flaking, grinding, and pecking. The artifacts to be studied here belong to the second industry.

This study is concerned with the interpretation of number and gender concord as abstracted from sentences of different types whose common feature is the inclusion of a participial form. This term is used here, rather than the more usual ‘participle’, as the forms being considered here do not exactly correspond with what are described in the traditional grammars as ‘present (or imperfect) participle’ and ‘past (or imperfect) participle’; the term is applied here to those members of a verbal paradigm which can be colligated with huaa, huii, or hue.

Although most rimes in the Chiehyunn have only one set of finals for either the herkoou or the kaikoou (that is, with or without lip-rounding), there are some exceptions. Apart from the problematical doublets in the 3rd and 4th grades of some rimes (the so-called chorngneou), which are not strictly distinguished by final, the chief exceptions are the rimes with both ‘1st grade’ and ‘mixed 3rd grade’ finals (e.g. the rime-set) and the rimes with both ‘2nd grade’ and ‘mixed 3rd grade’ finals. This paper will deal with the latter only.

The official chronicle of the short reign of the Emperor Shun-tsung (28 Feb. to 31 Aug., A.D. 805) was composed by Han Yü, the most famous prose writer of the T'ang dynasty. To this we owe the survival of what purports to be this chronicle, as a unique example of the ‘Veritable Records’ (shih-lu) composed in the T'ang History Office. I say purports to be because it is not at all clear what relation the version we now possess bears to that which came from Han Yüs brush. Mr. Solomon1 has given a brief, lucid analysis of the problems regarding this text but he has not, I think, examined quite all the evidence or considered all the possible interpretations of it. I shall deal more fully with this point below.

The particle , yu is (with hu and , ye) one of the three main interrogative particles in classical Chinese. It has been claimed by some Chinese scholars that in certain cases yu is not interrogative and is equivalent to yee, a particle with a bewildering variety of functions. One example is given by Wang Yiinjy (1766-1834).1