Re: CHAT: t-shirt

I wrote about Bala-i-Balan;

Padraic asked:
"What is the book title and author? (The one at Dumbarton Oaks, that
is.)"

    Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced my references!  All of my
bibliography on Bala-i-Balan was taken from Bausani's wonderful little book,
"Le lingue inventate;" in addition to being a linguist (Arabic and Malay are
his specialties) he is an Esperantist and has dabbled in a few other
constructed languages.  He also wrote an article or two on Bala-i-balan in
the Archivio glottologico italiano, IIRC.
    The one book I would really like to lay my hot little hands upon is the
"Kitab fasl al-maqasid wa fasl al-marasid," the Bible of Bala-i-balan.
Silvester de Sacy published an article on it in "Notices et extraits des
manuscrits de la Bibliotheque du roi 9;" unfortunately I don't have access
to the real thing, which is at the Bibliotheque Nationale.  I doubt that
Dumbarton Oaks has that book, so I can't recall which one I needed to get
at.
    So, a realistic bibliography would include the "dictionary" of
Bala-i-balan which de Sacy published and Bausani's expert commentary on the
language.  I have to admit, I haven't seen de Sacy's original article (even
though copies of it exist at Andover and at Widener) but I have read
Bausani's commentary on it.
-Chollie
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