KHUN. 03-01-479
479
RANGKAS OR SAUKIY KHUN.
Rangkas or Saukiy
is stated to be a denomination of the people who carry
on trade with Tibet. Their khun or dialect has been reported to be spoken in
one village of Malla Johar, and four villages of Malla Danpur. The number of
speakers has been estimated for the purposes of this Survey at 614. Malla Johar,
i.e., Upper Johar, is the north-western corner of Almora. It is bounded on the
north and west by Garhwal and on the east by Tibet and Parganah Darma.
Malla Danpur is situated to the west and south-west of Johar. The home of
the Rangkas dialect is accordingly to the west of Drmiy.
I cannot find any corroboration of the statement that the Rangkas or Saukiy
are the people who carry on trade with Tibet, and I am not sure that it is correct.
The Bh
is
of the neighbouring districts all carry on trade with that country. The Bhis
of Johar, however, have the privilege of choosing their own markets, while the
rest are confined to some particular mart in Tibet. Now Rakas is the name of
one of the vil- lages of Johar, and the Bhis
of that district are known as Sokpas. Those names have perhaps something to
do with the denomination of the dialect. At all events, we can safely assume
that Rangkas is the form of speech used by Bhis
all over Upper Johar and Upper Danpur.
Two specimens and a list of Standard Words and Phrases have been forwarded
from the district. Babu Gobind Prasad, B.A., who has despatched them, expresses
grave doubts about their correctness. He has not, therefore, ventured to accompany
them by a translation. It is, however, possible to derive a general idea of
the nature of the dialect from them, and I have therefore added an interlinear
translation, though the meaning is not quite certain in all places. In the materials
I have corrected all obvious mistakes such as, e.g., khami kh instead of
khamir b. On the whole, however, I have left them as I have received them.
Pronunciation.-The phonetical system is broadly the same as in the
neighbour- ing dialects of Almora. The spelling of the specimens is, however,
extremely incon- sistent. Thus, s and 
,
and y,
and so forth are used promiscuously.
Long and short vowels are often interchanged; thus, j
and ji, I. Similarly, the various vowels are often interchanged. Compare ji,
j, jai-g,
my; li-s, l-s, and lai-s,
said; m-s and
mai-s, by a man; s, s
,
s, and s, the suffix of
the case of the agent; hvsas
and ka-hsas, was lost;
r, r,
ri, and r, the suffix of the terminative; nya and n,
the suffix of a conjunctive participle, and so forth. It is impossible to decide
in each case whether such uncertainty in the writing corresponds to a similar
uncertainty in the pronunciation.
The meaning of the sign which I have transliterated by the Anunsika
is not certain. In words such as rh
,
horse; chub, to, and others,
it is perhaps written instead of ng. In other cases it seems to denote a nasal
pronunciation of the vowel; thus, h
,
camel; si-chn,
dying.
Hard and soft consonants are apparently very freely interchanged; thus, g
and k, the suffix of the genitive; r-ch
and r-j, came; dhuk and
uk, all; bhung-ny
and pun, tall.