Authorities.—The scientific study of Kashmiri is of very recent date. The only printed lexicographical work is a short vocabulary by W. J. Elmslie (London, 1872). K. F. Burkhard brought out a grammar of the Mussulman dialect in the Proceedings of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Science for 1887–1889, of which a translation by G. A. Grierson appeared in the Indian Antiquary of 1895 and the following years (reprinted as a separate publication, Bombay, 1897). T. R. Wade’s Grammar (London, 1888) is the merest sketch, and the only attempt at a complete work of the kind in English is G. A. Grierson’s Essays on Kāçmīrī Grammar (London and Calcutta, 1899). A valuable native grammar in Sanskrit, the Kaśmīraśabdāmrta of Īśvara Kaula, has been edited by the same writer (Calcutta, 1888). For an examination of the origin of Kashmiri grammatical forms and the Piśāca question generally, see G. A. Grierson’s “On Certain Suffixes in the Modern Indo-Aryan Vernaculars” in the Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der Indogermanischen Sprachen for 1903 and The Piśāca Languages of North-Western India (London, 1906).
The only important text which has been published is Burkhard’s edition, with a partial translation, of Mahmūd Gāmī’s “Yūsuf and Zulaikhā” in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft for 1895 and 1899. The text of the Siva Pariṇaya, edited by G. A. Grierson, is in course of publication by the Asiatic Society of Bengal. (G. A. Gr.)
KASHUBES (sing. Kaszub, plur. Kaszebe), a Slavonic people numbering about 200,000, and living on the borders of West Prussia and Pomerania, along the Baltic coast between Danzig and Lake Garden, and inland as far as Konitz. They have no literature and no history, as they consist of peasants and fishermen, the educated classes being mostly Germans or Poles. Their language has been held to be but a dialect of Polish, but it seems better to separate it, as in some points it is quite independent, in some it offers a resemblance to the language of the Polabs (q.v.). This is most seen in the western dialect of the so-called Slovinci (of whom there are about 250 left) and Kabatki, whereas the eastern Kashube is more like Polish, which is encroaching upon and assimilating it. Lorentz calls the western dialect a language, and distinguishes 38 vowels. The chief points of Kashube as against Polish are that all its vowels can be nasal instead of a and e only, that it has preserved quantity and a free accent, has developed several special vowels, e.g. ö, œ, ü, and has preserved the original order, e.g. gard as against grod. The consonants are very like Polish. (See also Slavs.)
Authorities.—F. Lorentz, Slovinzische Grammatik (St Petersburg, 1903) and “Die gegenseitigen Verhältnisse der sogen. Lechischen Sprachen,” in Arch. f. Slav. Phil. xxiv. (1902); J. Baudouin de Courtenay, “Kurzes Resumé der Kaschubischen Frage,” ibid. xxvi. (1904); G. Bronisch, Kaschubische Dialektstudien (Leipzig, 1896–1898); S. Ramult, Stownik j̢ezyka pomorskiego czyli kaszubskiego, i.e. “Dictionary of the Seacoast (Pomeranian) or Kashube Language” (Cracow, 1893). (E. H. M.)
KASIMOV, a town of Russia, in the government of Ryazañ, on the Oka river, in 54° 56′ N. and 41° 3′ E., 75 m. E.N.E. of Ryazañ. Pop. (1897), 13,545, of whom about 1000 were Tatars. It is famed for its tanneries and leather goods, sheepskins and post-horse bells. Founded in 1152, it was formerly known as Meshcherski Gorodets. In the 15th century it became the capital of a Tatar khanate, subject to Moscow, and so remained until 1667. The town possesses a cathedral, and a mosque supposed to have been built by Kasim, founder of the Tatar principality. Near the mosque stands a mausoleum built by Shah-Ali in 1555. Lying on the direct road from Astrakhan to Moscow and Nizhniy-Novgorod, Kasimov is a place of some trade, and has a large annual fair in July. The waiters in the best hotels of St Petersburg are mostly Kasimov Tatars.
See Veliaminov-Zernov, The Kasimov Tsars (St Petersburg, 1863–1866).
KASSA (Germ. Kaschau; Lat. Cassovia), the capital of the county of Abauj-Torna, in Hungary, 170 m. N.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900), 35,856. Kassa is one of the oldest and handsomest towns of Hungary, and is pleasantly situated on the right bank of the Hernád. It is surrounded on three sides by hills covered with forests and vineyards, and opens to the S.E. towards a pretty valley watered by the Hernád and the Tarcza. Kassa consists of the inner town, which was the former old town surrounded with walls, and of three suburbs separated from it by a broad glacis. The most remarkable building, considered the grandest masterpiece of architecture in Hungary, is the Gothic cathedral of St Elizabeth. Begun about 1270 by Stephen V., it was continued (1342–1382) by Queen Elizabeth, wife of Charles I., and her son Louis I., and finished about 1468, in the reign of Matthias I. (Corvinus). The interior was transformed in the 18th century to the Renaissance style, and the whole church thoroughly restored in 1877–1896. The church of St Michael and the Franciscan or garrison church date from the 13th century. The royal law academy, founded in 1659, and sanctioned by golden bull of King Leopold I. in 1660, has an extensive library; there are also a museum, a Roman Catholic upper gymnasium and seminary for priests, and other schools and benevolent institutions. Kassa is the see of a Roman Catholic bishopric. It is the chief political and commercial town of Upper Hungary, and the principal entrepôt for the commerce between Hungary and Galicia. Its most important manufactures are tobacco, machinery, iron, furniture, textiles and milling. About 3 m. N.W. of the town are the baths of Bankó, with alkaline and ferruginous springs, and about 12 m. N.E. lies Ránk-Herlein, with an intermittent chalybeate spring. About 20 m. W. of Kassa lies the famous Premonstratensian abbey of Jászó, founded in the 12th century. The abbey contains a rich library and valuable archives. In the neighbourhood is a fine stalactite grotto, which often served as a place of refuge to the inhabitants in war time.
Kassa was created a town and granted special privileges by Béla IV. in 1235, and was raised to the rank of a royal free town by Stephen V. in 1270. In 1290 it was surrounded with walls. The subsequent history presents a long record of revolts, sieges and disastrous conflagrations. In 1430 the plague carried off a great number of the inhabitants. In 1458 the right of minting money according to the pattern and value of the Buda coinage was granted to the municipality by King Matthias I. The bishopric was established in 1804. In the revolutionary war of 1848–49 the Hungarians were twice defeated before the walls of Kassa by the Austrians under General Schlick, and the town was held successively by the Austrians, Hungarians and Russians.
KASSALA, a town and mudiria of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The town, a military station of some importance, lies on the river Gash (Mareb) in 15° 28′ N., 36° 24′ E., 260 m. E.S.E. of Khartum and 240 m. W. of Massawa, the nearest seaport. Pop. about 20,000. It is built on a plain, 1700 ft. above the sea, at the foot of the Abyssinian highlands 15 m. W. of the frontier of the Italian colony of Eritrea. Two dome-shaped mountains about 2600 ft. high, jebels Mokram and Kassala, rise abruptly from the plain some 3 m. to the east and south-east. These mountains and the numerous gardens Kassala contains give to the place a picturesque appearance. The chief buildings are of brick, but most of the natives dwell in grass tukls. A short distance from the town is Khatmia, containing a tomb mosque with a high tower, the headquarters of the Morgani family. The sheikhs El Morgani are the chiefs of a religious brotherhood widely spread and of considerable influence in the eastern Sudan. The Morgani family are of Afghan descent. Long settled in Jidda, the head of the family removed to the Sudan about 1800 and founded the Morgani sect. Kassala was founded by the Egyptians in 1840 as a fortified post from which to control their newly conquered territory near the Abyssinian frontier. In a few years it grew into a place of some importance. In November 1883 it was besieged by the dervishes. The garrison held out till the 30th of July 1885 when owing to lack of food they capitulated. Kassala was
captured from the dervishes by an Italian force under Colonel Baratieri on the 17th of July 1894 and by the Italians was handed over on Christmas day 1897 to Egypt. The bulk of the inhabitants are Hallenga “Arabs.”
Kassala mudiria contains some of the most fertile land in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. It corresponds roughly with the district formerly known as Taka. It is a region of light rainfall, and cultivation depends chiefly on the Gash flood. The river is however absolutely dry from October to June. White durra of excellent quality is raised.
