Lizards, Walls, Dragons: on an apparently undocumented Nepali lexeme (भित्ति)

I have not posted in some time due to dissertating, searching for (and thankfully finding) a job, and subsequently moving. Here's a short posting on a Nepali word which I heard from my wife which I can't find in any Nepali dictionary.

When we moved into our new house, we discovered that there were a number of house-lizards already resident (and, less amusingly, quite a few German roaches), which our cat has really enjoyed hunting down. I remembered having such lizards in our house in India, and immediately I saw them remarked to my wife "देखो! छिपकली है!" (Look! There's a lizard!"), using the Hindi word for "lizard", छिपकली [chipkalī]. My wife replied, "in Nepali we call them 'bhitti' (भित्ति)."

I'd never heard this word before, and was curious. I checked Turner's A comparative and etymological dictionary of the Nepali language as well as his mammoth four-volume A comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan languages. Neither mentions bhitti or anything like it. I also checked a number of Hindi dictionaries, none of which turned up anything. Except for Platts' A dictionary of Urdu, classical Hindi, and English, which has an entry for भित्तिका bhittikā:

S بهتکا भित्तिका bhittikā, s.f. Wall (=bhīt, q.v.); small house lizard.

This isn't quite bhitti, but it's close. I had already supposed (and my wife had already suggested) that bhitti was connected with the word for "wall" (in Nepali, भित्तो bhitto or भित्ता bhittā), given that they're often found on walls. So bhitti is something like "wall-(related) creature". [Turner does have an entry for bhitti, but he gives the meaning "wall".] 

Platts' entry indicates a Sanskrit origin, and indeed  bhittikā looks awfully Sanskritic, with the "diminutive" -(i)ka suffix, which is not really always diminutive, but rather can also attach to words with no change in meaning. But here perhaps a diminutive based on "wall" makes sense. 

Interesting, the Sanskrit word for "wall, panel, partition", bhittí, comes from a root √bhid- "to split", which is very dear to my heart (part of the Proto-Indo-European dragon mythology). 

So there's a "new" Nepali word:  bhitti "house-lizard", which doesn't seem to have been recorded before. It may be dialectal (i.e. I'm not sure that Kathmandu Nepali speakers would use it), and that's perhaps why it wasn't previously recorded. In any case, I think it's a cool word, given that it does sort of connect lizards and dragons, indirectly.

[Incidentally, Platts suggests that Hindi छिपकली [chipkalī] derives from the root chip- "to hide", which is what I always assumed (going back to an early Indo-Aryan *chapp- "press, cover, hide". Turner, on the other hand, derives it from Sanskrit शेप्या śepyā which means "tail" (and "penis", but I think "tail" is what is relevant here). The (potential) Nepali cognate of Hindi छिपकली [chipkalī] is छेपारो chepāro, though the latter might be more plausibly derived from  Sanskrit शेप्या śepyā "tail", especially as छेपारो chepāro seems to refer to outdoor lizards (while माङ्सुलि māṅsuli is used for house lizards).]

Indian voices from 1913-1929: Gramophone Recordings from the Linguistic Survey of India

George Grierson pioneered the vast Linguistic Survey of India in 1894, an immensely useful resource for anyone working on languages of the Indian subcontinent. A set of recordings were also made as part of the survey, which were recently uncovered in the British Library. These recordings are now freely available from the University of Chicago's Digital South Asian Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/

In order that the languages might be more easily compared (and because "it contains the three personal pronouns, most of the cases found in the declension of nouns, and the present, past, and future tenses of the verb"), Grierson chose to use translations of the Biblical "Parable of the prodigal son", and many of the recordings are of speakers reciting this parable in their native language.

Here is the recording of the "Parable of the prodigal son":

  In Hindi (one of the major languages of India)

  In Khasi (a Mon-Khmer language spoken in Shillong, Meghayala, [the former capital of Assam])

OPEN Magazine has a great article about these recordings, their rediscovery and content, available here: Voices from Colonial India

It's well worth a read, but here are a few highlights. For instance:

Some of the Sanskrit recording took a bit of doings. Background: strict followers of the Vedic/Hindu tradition are supposed to safeguard the Vedas from the ears of those who are not dvijas ("twice-born", those who wear the sacred thread). This prohibition was taken seriously by some authorities, for instance, in the Gautama Dharma Sutra we find:

अथ हास्य वेदमुपशृणवतस्त्रपुजतुभ्यांश्रोत्रप्रतिपूरणमुदाहरणे जिह्वाच्छेदो धारणेशरीरभेदः
"Now if he [a Shudra = a non-dvija/untouchable] listens intentionally to (a recitation of) the Veda, his ears shall be filled with (molten) tin or lac.   [Gautama Dharma Sutra 12.4]

From the OPEN Magazine article:

...All of this, of course, could not have been accomplished without some Brahminical drama. The scholar Ganganath Jha, who was approached for the Sanskrit reading, was scandalised to learn that a mlechha [Sanskrit for "barbarian", "foreign devil", and thus by definition a non-dvija] would be privy to his chaste Sanskrit. A demand was made for a certifiably Brahmin gramophone operator. The Raj, almost as unbending as Brahmins, refused. A compromise was reached: Jha sat in a room and spoke into a large horn-like object that projected his voice into another room where the operator sat. Communication between the two was by means of a complicated system of switches to ensure that the operator didn’t physically hear the Sanskrit. And that was enough to assuage the Brahmin guilt about speaking Sanskrit into a device that held the power to broadcast it to the world...

Jha's recording must have been of some Vedic text, because I am unaware of any general prohibition against speaking Sanskrit in the presence of non-dvijas. Sadly, I cannot find this recording on the University of Chicago's Digital South Asian Library site (they do have a general entry for Jha here: https://coral.uchicago.edu:8443/display/lasa/Ganganath+Jha+Ken.+Sanskrit+Vidyapith+%28Allahabad%2C+India%29).

[Brahminical rationalisations can be both amusing and creative: My advisor, who is a (German) Sanskrit scholar, once told me about one spoken Sanskrit conference he attended (where, I believe, he was the only non-Brahmin/non-Indian) at which there was one attendee who was a bit unhappy with the presence of a non-Brahmin, and was careful not to let my advisor's shadow touch him... Other attendees came up with rationalisations: German sounds a bit like Sharma, a Brahmin surname, and so they theorised that Germans are perhaps "long-lost" Brahmins, and therefore my advisor's presence could be a acceptable.]

Another interesting bit from the OPEN Magazine article:

Many of the speakers chose to sing or recite poems or limericks. Particularly lingering is the voice of Hassaina of Delhi who has clips in the Ahirwati and Mewati languages. Who was this girl who sang with such sang-froid of love and waiting on 26 April 1920?  Nothing is known of her. She survives only as a voice.

Here is Hassaina's song: http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6838AK

[27 May 2011: Nepali is actually represented too, hidden under "Khaskura", including both the parable of the prodigal son translation, and a delightful song sung by a Shillongwala Nepali, Babu Dhan.]

Nepali, Nez Perce, and Na'vi: On alien-language in Cameron's Avatar, with remarks on etymology and "Universal Grammar"

In order to lend authenticity to his film Avatar, James Cameron had the language of the alien Na'vi people designed by linguist Paul Frommer, as reported by Benjamin Zimmer[1] in his 4 December article "Skxawng!" (in his New York Times column "On Language"). Cameron apparently choose Frommer partly on the basis of his co-authored textbook Looking at Languages[2], where one of the exercises involves deciphering Klingon word order [spoiler: it's object-verb-subject] (Klingon is another linguist-designed language).

An interview with Frommer is available at the Unidentified Sound Object blog, in which Frommer reports on some interesting features of the language he developed. The language of the Na'vi (who look sort of like blue cat-people, see above) involves some typologically-unusual linguistic features, including: the presence of ejectives in the phonological inventory, specifically [k'], [t'], and [p'] (click to hear what these sound like), and---more interesting to syntacticians and morphologists---a tripartite system of case marking.

Like ejectives, tripartite case-marking is present but rare in human languages, found in the Australian languages Wangkumara and Kala Lagaw Ya (though these two languages are apparently unrelated) as well as in the Amerindian language Nez Percé spoken in the northwest of the USA (on which see further Cash Cash[3]). The tripartite case-marking system involves differences in morphological case-marking on (a) agents of transitive verbs [agentive/ergative case], (b) objects of transitive verbs [objective/accusative case], and (c) agents of intransitive verbs [absolutive/nominative case].

However, there are languages which are much less exotic (at least to me) that could also be seen as employing tripartite case-marking, including many Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindi and Nepali:-- see examples below (where nom=nominative/absolutive case; acc=accusative/objective case; erg=ergative/agentive case).

Hindi:

(1) लड़का कल आया

laṛkā-[Ø] kal āyā

boy-nom yesterday came

"The boy came yesterday."

(2) लड़के ने लड़की को देखा

laṛke-ne laṛkī-ko dekhā

boy-erg girl-acc saw

"The boy saw the girl."

Nepali:

(3) केटा हिजो आयो

keṭā-[Ø] hijo āyo

boy-nom yesterday came

"The boy came yesterday."

(4) केटाले केटीलाई हेर्यो

keṭā-le keṭī-lāī heryo

boy-erg girl-acc saw

"The boy saw the girl."

[Though the "accusative" case-marker (Hindi ko, Nepali lāī) in Indo-Aryan is not straightforwardly a marker of objects of transitive verbs, rather it tends to occur particularly on objects which are animate and/or specific--see Bhatia[4].]

The fact that the Na'vi language shares this feature with Indo-Aryan perhaps makes all the more appropriate that the name of Cameron's film is also Indo-Aryan. Avatar, from Sanskrit अवतार (avatāra), is usually translated into English as "incarnation", used to refer to gods assuming human bodies (e.g. the god Vishnu becoming Krishna). It also has an extended use in the world of cyberspace, where it refers to the graphic representation of a user or his alter ego. The sense in Cameron's film, I take it, actually draws on both of these meanings, as some of the human characters control Na'vi-appearing bodies.

Interestingly, in the Mahabharata, one of the two major Indian epic poems, where avatars are a cental concept, the term avatāra is actually never employed (Sutton[5]:156-7); however the concept is frequently alluded to (Biardeau[6]:1621n2, Hiltebeitel[7]:109n56) by usages of the verb avatr̥̄-, which literally means something like "stepping down" (prefix ava- "down, off" + √tr̥̄ "to cross over"). In fact, the verb avatr̥̄- is conventionally used in the Mahabharata to refer to people "stepping down from their chariots" (Hiltebeitel[7]:232).

Returning to Na'vi, in his Unidentified Sound Object interview, Frommer remarks that:

As I mentioned, there’s nothing in Na’vi that couldn’t be found in some human language—and that’s important, since humans have learned to speak it.

I found this idea that the Na'vi language is learnable by humans rather intriguing, since part of the Chomskian notion of (natural human) language is that it relies on biocognitive structures which are unique (at least on Earth) to humans (i.e. not present in any other Terran creatures). Would/could language as developed in an extraterrestrial species rely on biocognitive structures which would be equivalent to those underlying human language?

This reminds me of a story that Prof. Peter Lasersohn told in one of his semantics courses; paraphrased (as well as I can remember it):

Logicians and philosophers had long treated human language not being expressable in terms of formal logic. Richard Montague famously developed a system of formal semantics for language (Montague[8,9,10]); in one of the earlier accounts he states: "There is in my opinion no important theoretical difference between natural languages and the artificial languages of logicians; indeed, I consider it possible to comprehend the syntax and semantics of both kinds of language within a single natural and mathematically precise theory. On this point I differ from a number of philosophers, but agree, I believe, with Chomsky and his associates" (Montague[8]).

However, the Chomskian notion of "Universal Grammar" involves an abstract (but biocognitively instantiated) system which underlies all human language but is unique to humans. Montague, on the other hand, used "Universal Grammar" in the sense of a formal syntax and semantics which would be truly "universal", that is, applicable to any language, human or otherwise.

When Barbara Partee (a semanticist who was instrumental in popularising Montague-Grammar among generative linguists) explained Chomsky's sense of "Universal Grammar" to Montague, he was perplexed, remarking that he did not understand why linguists would adopt a human-only conception of "Universal Grammar" which would thus automatically disqualify them from being the ones the world would to turn to---in the event of humans making contact with aliens---for the decryption of extraterrestrial language.

References:

[1]Zimmer, Benjamin. 2009. "Skxawng!" On Language, New York Times, 4 December 2009.

[2]Frommer, Paul R. & Finegan, Edward. 2004. Looking at languages: A workbook in elementary linguistics. Boston: Wadsworth, 3rd edn.

[3]Cash Cash, Phillip. 2004. "Nez Perce verb morphology". Ms., University of Arizona, Tucson.

[4]Bhatia, Archna. 2008. "Animacy, specificity and overt object case marking in Hindi". Ms., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

[5]Sutton, Nicholas. 2000. Religious doctrines in the Mahābhārata. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

[6]Biardeau, Madeleine. 1999. Le Rāmāyaṇa de Vālmīki. Paris: Gallimard.

[7]Hiltebeitel, Alf. 2001. Rethinking the Mahābhārata: A reader’s guide to the education of the dharma king. New Delhi: Oxford University Press [Indian edition].

[8]Montague, Richard. 1970a. “Universal grammar”. Theoria 36: 373-398.

[9]Montague, Richard. 1970b. “English as a formal language”. In Bruno Visentini et al. (ed.), Linguaggi nella società e nella tecnica. Milan: Edizioni di Comunità, 188-221.

[10]Montague, Richard. 1973. “The proper treatment of quantification in ordinary English”. In K.J.J. Hintikka, J.M.E. Moravcsik, & P. Suppes (eds.), Approaches to natural language. Dordrecht: Reidel, 221-242.

Condos, Buttocks, and Thorns: On the development of some vulgar Indo-Aryan words and some amusing English-Nepali homophony

The first Nepali word I recall learning in a natural language context (i.e. not from a grammar) is कण्डो (kaṇḍo), for which Turner[1]:70 gives the following definition: "(vulgar) s. Buttock, bottom, rump, anus".

What has provided me with many moments of childish amusement is that this word is essentially homophonous with English condo, the truncated form of condominium: "(N. Amer.) An apartment house in which the units are owned individually, not by a company or co-operative; an apartment in such a building", OED[2]. Thus overhearing people talking about selling their condos for $150,000 etc. always affords me a good (though usually silent) chortle.

Condominium is itself an interesting word, deriving ultimately from a modern Latin formation con+dominium, literally meaning "joint rulership" and appearing with that sense early on:

[a1714] BURNET Own Time (1823) IV. VI. 412 The duke of Holstein began to build some new forts..this, the Danes said, was contrary..to the condominium, which that king and the duke have in that duchy.

The use of condominium (and its truncation condo) to refer to an "individually-owned apartment" appears to be mainly a (recent) North American development; the earliest citation from the OED dates to 1962; the abbreviated condo appears soon after in 1964 (attributed to Chicagoans):

[1962] Economist 31 Mar. 1255/1 The legal concept of buying a single flat, instead of a share in the whole building, is just making its way in the housing field in the United States where it is known as a ‘condominium’.

[1964] Financial Times 27 Nov. 3/6 The condominium or the ‘condo’ as Chicagoans have come to know it is essentially a development from the co-operative concept.

The semantic development from "jointly ruled" to "individually-owned" is rather interesting, indicating that in modern usage the word must be have been reanalysed as monomorphemic (as the sense of "joint, together" of the prefix con-/com- is obviously no longer present).

Returning to the heart (or perhaps 'rump') of the matter, let us consider the etymology of Nepali kaṇḍo "buttock(s)". Turner[1] notes that in Western dialects of Nepali it means "back, spine" and thus compares it to Sindhi kaṇḍo masc. "backbone", Lahndā kaṇḍ fem. "back", Hindi kā̃ṭā masc. "spine", Gujarati kā̃ṭo masc. "backbone", Marathi kā̃ṭā masc. "backbone". He notes if Nepali kaṇḍo is to be considered cognate with these words, it exhibits irregular phonetic development, for the expected form in Nepali would be *kā̃ṛo. He indicates this is not problematic given that "words denoting parts of the body often show irregular phonetic development, whether owing to deliberate deformation or borrowing from other dialects".

Turner[1] suggests that, given this caveat, all of the above words could derive from Sanskrit kaṇṭa-, kaṇṭakáḥ "thorn, fish-bone", with later semantic widening/reanalysis to "bone, back-bone, bottom" etc. These Sanskrit forms are probably also the source, he notes, also of Romani kanro masc. "penis", Bengali kā̃ṭ "clitoris", and (with a much less naughty sense) Oriya kaṇṭi "the wooden part of a plough".

Given the apparent irregularities in the development of Nepali kaṇḍo, Turner[1] also proposes a possible alternative etymology, from unattested Old Indo-Aryan *kāḍa-, citing modern forms: Romani kar m., Sindhi kāṛu masc., Gujarati kāḍ masc., all meaning "penis". This seems less likely to me, as the semantic development from "thorn, fish-bone" > "bone" > "backbone" (as in Western dialects of Nepali) and thence to "buttock(s)" in standard Nepali is much more natural than supposing that a word meaning "penis" developed to mean "backbone, spine" in Western Nepali. Plus, given the hypothetical ancestor *kāḍa, the nasal in Nepali kaṇḍo would be unexpected.

Development from "thorn" to "backbone" and thence to "buttocks" in standard Nepali is easily explicable. The tip of the backbone could be metaphorically conceptualised as a "thorn" (cf. the yogic concept of kuṇḍalinī "the corporeal energy residing in the base of the spine"). From "tip of the backbone" the sense could have been reinterpreted alternatively as "backbone, spine" in Western Nepali, and as "buttock(s)" in standard Nepali.

The other semantic developments in apparently cognate Romani kanro "penis" and Bengali kā̃ṭ "clitoris" represent alternate metaphorical extensions of the original sense "thorn". The naturalness of the metaphorical extension from "thorn" to "penis" is clear in the (nonce?) Hindi usage of कांटा (kāṇṭā) "thorn" in the song Kaanta Laga ("Pricked by a Thorn"):

Where the relevant line is बंगले के पीछे, तेरी बेरी के नीचे, हाय रे पिया, कांटा लगा ("behind the bungalow, beneath your jujube tree, oh darling, (I got) pricked by a thorn").

References:

[1]Turner, Sir Ralph Lilley. 1931. A comparative and etymological dictionary of the Nepali language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd. [Reprinted, Mumbai: Allied Publishers, Ltd., 1980.]

[2]The Oxford English Dictionary, September 2009 rev. ed.

"Thrice Honoured Moon": The Mystery of the Nepalese Inscribed Khukuris

The khukuri is a traditional Nepalese knife, and is part of the equipment of Nepalese Gurkha soldiers:

In 2001 I began my collection of Nepalese khukuris with a British Army Service model from Himalayan Imports/BirGorkha Khukuri:

Since then I've collected a number of khukuris, both modern and antique--though this number has been sadly rather small due to my graduate student salary, I have had the opportunity to view a variety of beautiful examples of antique khukuris of my friends on various forums (e.g. Bladeforums, Sword Forum, IKRHS etc.). Some of the most (linguistically) interesting ones began to appear in 2002/3 when Atlanta Cutlery [AC] started selling old khukuris from a hoard they'd acquired from Nepal. A number of these khukuris have were found to have rather mysterious inscriptions in Nepali stamped on the blade spines.

Before turning to how these inscriptions were deciphered, do let's first consider the etymology of khukuri (because this is a linguistics/philology blog after all).

Note: I have never seen an etymology given for Nepali khukuri. Turner [1] in his Indo-Aryan dictionary surprisingly does not treat khukuri (this is particularly surprising since he served as a Gurkha officer). Thus the following etymology is not a rehearsal of any previous study.

The ultimate Proto-Indo-European root of Nepali khukuri (खुकुरी) must be PIE *kes- "to scratch" (see Pokorny [2]:1.585, Watkins [3]:41). It is from the zero-grade form of this root with -eu- extension (i.e. *kseu-) that derive both Greek ξυρόν (ksurόn) "razor" and Sanskrit kṣurá- "razor" (in the Ṛgveda), "sharp barb of an arrow" (in the Rāmāyaṇa), as well as Sanskrit kṣurī "knife, dagger".

From Sanskrit kṣura and kṣurī come a number of words in Modern Indo-Aryan languages for "knife, dagger" [1], though these are mainly ch- forms (rather than kh- forms, see below), and even late Sanskrit shows ch- forms like churī/chūrī "knife, dagger", also churikā- (in the Kathāsaritsāgara). Modern Indo-Aryan forms include: Hindi churā "dagger, razor", Nepali churā "razor", Punjabi churā "large knife", churī "small knife", Gujarati charo "large knife", Bengali churi "knife" (and Assamese suri "knife"), as well as Armenian Gypsy/Romani čhuri "knife" --- and, interestingly, also Sindhi churī "knife with a hooked blade": apparently denoting an object rather like a khukuri!... [Update [16.10.09]: Berkley at IKRHS provides some images of Sindhi knives, some of which are a bit khukuri-shaped, commenting "...All of which leaves the general impression of a large, curved knife, used for chopping and slicing, with a smaller side knife. Sound familiar?"] In any event, Sanskrit kṣurī looks like the most plausible source for Nepali khukuri.

The change from kṣ to kh (in kṣurī > khukuri) reflects a general sound change in Indo-Aryan (cp. Sanskrit kṣétra "field" > Hindi khet), and indeed in Pali we find khura- "razor" (also Pali churikā "knife") and in Prakrit khura- "razor, knife". Modern Indo-Aryan kh- forms [1] include Nepali khuro "head of a spear; ferrule of a stick; pin at the top or bottom of a door", Sindhi khuryo "grass-scraper; tip of silver at the bottom of a scabbard", Assamese & Bengali khur "razor", Oriya khura "razor", Hindi khurā "iron nail used to fix ploughshares", and Sinhala karaya "razor".

Therefore we can derive a hypothetical pre-Nepali form *khurī. At some point this form must have undergone (partial) reduplication of the first syllable, thus *khukhurī. The loss of aspiration of the second kh appears to reflect some dissimilatory process similar to Graßmann's Law, thus khukurī (and this is indeed the Nepali spelling of the word [खुकुरी], however it is pronounced as khukuri, reflecting the more general loss of long:short distinctions for high vowels in spoken Nepali).

Back to the inscriptions on the Atlanta Cutlery [AC] hoard khukuris:

When I (and my fellows on Bladeforums) first saw these khukuris, we noted that the inscriptions had a recurrent pattern, consisting of three parts: (1) the formula श्री ३ चन्द्र [śrī 3 candra], (2) a three digit number [in the form x/xx], and (3) another word or words in Nepali. [Note: these three parts don't always occur in the same order.]

I initially translated the formula śrī 3 candra literally. Now Sanskrit śrī derives from the verb √śri "to burn, to flame, to give off light", but śrī itself (as a noun) usually denotes "good luck, fortune, prosperity, auspiciousness", and Śrī is another name for the Goddess Lakshmi, who is the goddess of prosperity. However, śrī is also used as an honorific title; candra means "moon" in Sanskrit. On this basis, I originally translated the formula as "thrice-honoured moon":

[Note that the spelling candra varies quite a bit: from cadra (with no nasal) to caṁdra to candra to caṁndra (hyperform)]

However, perusing Matthews [4]:239, I found that śrī 3 was the title taken by the Rāṇā Prime Ministers of Nepal (and śrī 5 was the title taken taken by the King of Nepal). It then became clear that śrī 3 candra referred to (Śrī 3) Chandra Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana, who was Prime Minister of Nepal from 27 June 1901 to 26 November 1929, who had his name inscribed thus (śrī 3 candra) on many weapons produced (and/or used?) during this period.

The next piece of the puzzle fell into place during a conversation I had with Jonathan R.S./Spiral(twista) on IKRHS (see here), when the (3) part of one of the inscriptions matched with name in list of Nepalese battalion names (the Bhawānī Dāl battalion):

While some of the inscriptions have the battalion names in full (like the above Bhawānī Dāl), others use only a part of the battalion name (singh for the Singh Nath battalion), or two letter abbreviations (like na.go. for Naya Gorakh battalion, as shown below)--which is why the identification of this part of the inscription was initially difficult.

Benjamin Judkins/Finnarm unraveled the final bit of the mystery of the Nepalese inscriptions (see here for his original post). He discovered in an appendix to Guns of the Gurkhas by John Walter [5] an analysis of the various types of inscriptions found on Nepalese military rifles. Judkins remarks:

The method of marking military material in Nepal was apparently very similar to the system used in the UK. After 1856 the British army went to a system in which first a unit designation was given, followed by a weapon number. Previously a soldier’s identification number had been used. So for instance, Walter states that "13 L D 153" should be read 13th Light Dragoons, 153rd weapon.

The same approach seems to have been adopted in Nepal and many rifles have been positively identified using these principals. It has been used on the kukris as well. The appendix lists the names of about 150 Nepalese battalions, and it gives two letter abbreviations for some of these names that have been employed on rifles.

So the (2) part of the khukuri inscription denotes the sub-unit and weapon number [i.e x/yz = subunit x / weapon no. yz].

Thus these AC khukuri inscriptions follow the pattern:

(1) śrī 3 candra [= Prime Minister Chandra Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana (r.1901-1929)];

(2) Battalion Name or Abbreviation;

(3) Sub-Unit No./Weapon No. [x/yz].

(Many thanks to my fellow forumites at Bladeforums, IRKHS, and elsewhere for many conversations on these inscriptions over the years; particularly Jonathan R.S./Spiral(twista), Berkley, Rod Allen, & Benjamin Judkins/Finnarm.)

[Update: I've started a (multi-author) repository for khukuri inscriptions here: Khukuri Lipi ]

References:

[1]Turner, Sir Ralph Lilley. 1966-1985. A comparative dictionary of the Indo-Aryan languages. 4 vols. London: Oxford University Press. [reprinted, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999.]

[2]Pokorny, Julius. 1958. Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Bern and München: Francke Verlag.

[3]Watkins, Calvert. 2000. The American Heritage dictionary of Indo-European roots. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2nd edn.

[4]Matthews, David. 1998. A course in Nepali. London: Curzon.

[5]Walter, John. 2005. Guns of the Gurkhas. Norwich, Norfolk: Tharston Press.