‘Notre siècle a donné naissance, sous le nom de “romans”, à des ceuvres qui sont des monstres sacrés, et qui dépassent le roman en tant que genre’. R. M. Albérès, Metamorphoses du roman, Paris, 1966, 244–5.

In this paper a number of gestures used by Kenya coastal Swahili speakers is described. We describe gestures that are associated with speech in various ways ranging from some requiring speech as they are performed to others referred to via verbs or phrases which are performed non-verbally. We attempt to place the verbal-dependent gestures on a continuum of verbal—non-verbal communication. We also describe verbally-independent gestures and gesturally independent speech forms that function similarly in discourse.

The most ancient examples of divination using the Yi-ching are found in the Tso-chuan and the Kuo-yü (both texts probady date from the end of the fourth cenury B.C.E). In each divination, a hexagram is determined which, in most cases, changes into another hexagram. In a few cases the first hexagram does not change. In this brief essay, I will remark on the terminology for the change and not change of the hexagrams, and will propose an explanation for the term that designates not change.

A central Problem of Bactrian Phonology, to which Georg Morgenstierne devoted the greater part of one of his last articles, is the origin of Postvocalic t, which is found in a small number of words of disputed etymology. Since OIr. postvocalic t generally gives Bactrian d, as in G[raeeo-Bactrian] οδο, M[anichean Bactrian] 'wd, 'wṭ[ud] ‘and’ <*uta or G κiρδo, M qyrd ‘made’ <*kṛta-,it seems that some oter orgin must be sought for Bactrian t—unless, indeed, G δ and τ may be regarded merely as alternative notations of [d], as has been Proposed. Such a Possibility was first suggested by G oτo ‘and’, which accoriding to W. B. Henning is ‘not differne from οδο ’, and which I. Gershevitch has explained either as a historical spelling or as a generalized sandhivariant of οδο. However, a crucial objection to the identifieation of οδο and οτο lies in the fact, the implications of which have not yet been fully appreciated, that they differ not only in form but also in function.

There has to be something deeply unsatisfactory, disturbing and provocative about a linguistic family which is ‘isolated’, particulary when the family is as large as the Dravidian group of languages (spoken by almost 150 million in India), or when the language is so politically, economically and culturally interesting and important as Japanese.

As Dr. Y. Yoshida, Kyoto, kindly points out to me, the Buddhist Sogdian Ýδ('k)h in P 3, 14, 87 which, following Benveniste, I took as ‘limb, member’ (BSOAS, XLVI, 3, 1983, 535) can as well, even more likely, also be translated ‘wound’, as in P 7, 64. This leaves SCE 119, 121 wxwšw Ýδ'kh as the only support for a Ýδ- ‘*limb’. There it translates indriya in , otherwise 'nδ"y. But, given the fact that the six senses are also described as ‘six great thieves’ wxwšw mz'yx t'yt, it seems all too likely that Ýδ'kh in SCE also means ‘thief’ (in the numerative), however poorly this pejorative term fits the context. This spoils my suggested pun and, until other evidence emerges, removes Ýαδ-δ ‘*limb’ from the Sogdian vocabulary, leaving only B Ýαδ- m. ‘thief’and B, Chr. Ýαδ- f. ‘wound’ (cf. Khwarezmian 'Ýδ f. idem).