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Originally Posted by Silver John
Many thanks for the reply Sirupate.
So this translation and interpretation comes from J P Cross and Buddhiman Gurung themselves? Wow, nice to have easy access to those two!
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When your friends with people access tends to be easy these days.
I am lucky to have a lot of contacts and friends in the Gurkhas and the Nepalese army.
I have often wondered why some people have always thought they know more than renowned experts, especially in this case (Lt. Col. JP Cross, or JPX to his friends) when the expert has served with the Gurkhas and been involved with them one way or another since 1944. Who's first visit to Nepal was in 1947, when only two Englishmen a year were allowed to Kathmandu. Who has walked some 10,000 miles in Nepal finding old scrolls and gathering local folklore, often with a Gurkha and latterly (some 5000 miles) with Buddhiman (Dhampu to his friends), a lecturer on the Nepalese language at Kathmandu University, and someone the then King of Nepal asked to write a history of Nepal, a man who is revered for his knowledge on Gurkhas and Nepal, and who speaks around 8 different languages!
Did you know that there are three differents forms of Newari language? and that the kami in local areas probably had a degraded form of Newari? That the kami used the Dhu sign in their form of Newari, because they probably didn't know the Devanagri version, and on top of that each 'Jat' had their own language. When JPX was a lecturer in the University in the 1980's most of the village people outside the valley (who spoke their own language)– and a good many therein also – did not understand the Nepali of Radio Nepal.