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PREFACE

A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-aryan Languages appeared first in separate parts from 1962, and the completed volume in 1966. This was followed by two supplementary volumes, Indexes in 1969, compiled by my wife, Dorothy Rivers Turner, and Phonetic Analysis, also specifically associated with her name, in 1971 a few months before her death. That she saw the whole work in print, with which she had been so closely associated through 52 years of our life together, brought a certain measure of consolation. After the publication of my Collected Papers 1912-1972 in 1975, I set to the task of collecting material for a volume of Addenda and Corrigenda to the Comparative Dictionary, with the intention of leaving it to be deposited in the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies where, if not subsequently published, it could be consulted. But, when approaching the age of 94 with failing eyesight I learnt that funds might be available for the publication of such a volume, I thought that the best use of the short time likely to be available would be to make the material already assembled ready for the printer. This material I had acquired from books and articles, the failure to read which had, I knew, left lacunae in the Dictionary. Of these I mention with gratitude Assamese, its Formation and Development by Banikanta Kakati, revised by Professor G. C. Goswami (3rd. ed., 1972), and especially Himachali Studies, I Vocabulary and II Texts, with their full description of Kocī and Koṭgaṛhī dialects of West Pahāṛī by Professor H, Hendriksen (1976-79); Etymological Vocabulary of the Shughni Group (1974) by Georg Morgenstierne, to whom we owe so deep a debt of gratitude for the knowledge he has given us of the Iranian Indo-aryan frontier; Die Sprache von Sau in Ostafghanistan (1967) and Khowar-Texte in Arabischer Schrift (1982), both by Professor Georg Buddruss; The Problem of Shwa in Sanskrit by Professor T. Burrow (1979); articles by Professor C. Caillat in Paris, Dr. L. A. Hercus in Canberra, Professor M. B. Emeneau in California, Dr. P. B. F. Wijeratne, editor of the Sinhalese Dictionary, K. R. Norman, Editor-in-Chief of the Critical Pali Dictionary, and many others whose names appear in the List of Books and Journals.

R. L. TURNER