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KANSH.

　Kansh is the dialect spoken in a glen within the Bias valley, containing only the village, called by outsiders Malna and by the villagers themselves Mln. According to Mr. Diack, 'the glen is a very deep and narrow one, extending from the mountain ridge (at that point impassable or nearly so) forming the tri-junction of the Bias, Chenab, and Spiti watersheds down to the valley of the Parbati, a large tributary of the Bias from the east. At the point of junction between the Malana stream and the Parbati the sides of the glen are steeply precipitous and the path zig-zagging from one side to the other is extremely difficult. The only other ways of entering the glen are by very high and somewhat difficult passes between it and the Bias valley on the one hand and the Parbati valley on the other. The village of Malana is thus very isolated, and to this isolation doubtless is due the preservation of the ancient and curious dialect spoken there.'

　The number of speakers has been estimated for the purpose of this Survey at 980. The dialect was not separately returned at the last Census of 1901.

AUTHORITIES-

　HARCOURT, A.F.P.,-The Himalayan districts of Kooloo, Lahoul, and Spiti. London 1871. Contains a Malauna vocabulary on pp. 379 and ff.

　FANSHAWE, H.C.,-Kulu-Language spoken at Malana. Panjab Notes and Queries. Vol. i, Nos. 376, 471, 554. Compare Mr. Tribe's notes in Nos. 806, 879, and 958.

　DIACK, A.H.,-The Kulu Dialect of Hindi: some notes on its grammatical structure, with specimens of the songs and sayings current amongst the people, and a glossary. Lahore 1896, pp. 99 and f. Contains a Kanashi vocabulary on pp. 102 and ff.

　 I am indebted to Mr. G. C. L. Howell, Assistant Commissioner of Kulu, for two specimens and a list of Standard Words and Phrases in Kansh. These materials are far superior to anything that has hitherto been published about the dialect, and the remarks which follow are entirely based on them. Mr. Howell writes that he has not as yet been able to make a thorough study of Kansh, and that several points in pronunciation and grammar still remain uncertain.

　Name of the language.-Mr. Howell points out that the word Kansh is stated to be derived from Kansh, the name of an unknown region.

　Pronunciation.-The materials have been noted down in Roman and vernacular characters. Among the latter versions there is one written in the Tibetan alphabet, which in many respects seems to be superior to the rest, and which I have therefore mainly followed.

　Mr. Howell states that he cannot hear any aspirates in the dialect, but that his clerks sy they can. The state of things is probably the same as in Tibetan, where unaspirated mutes are much less aspirated than in English, and the corresponding aspirates more like the English unaspirated sounds. I have therefore introduced aspirates where the Tibetan text gives them.

　Cerebral letters have likewise been introduced from the texts in Tibetan character. The same is the case with the palatal ny, for which the Romanized text has n.

　The dialect possesses semi-consonants in words such as tek', great; buratak', comes; duj', to him, and so on. The materials available are, however, still insufficient for giving detailed rules about their use, and I have not attempted to note them consistently.