Sells of phrasebooks are falling fast.The phrasebook had looked so helpful.When Eric Newby, a writer, set out to walk in the Hindu Kush in 1956, he knew he would be visiting places no Englishman had been since 1891.Nonetheless, he was hopeful of communicating.In his bag he carried “Notes on the Bashgali Language”, a phrasebook published in Calcutta in 1902.Opening it one afternoon in the high Himalayas, his hopes faded.Whereas most guidebooks explain how to order a small glass of red wine or a coffee, this offered phrases of more opaque utility.“Ini ash ptul p’mich e manchi mrisht waria’m” ran one which, it explained, meant: “I saw a corpse in a field this morning.”That was followed by “Tu tott baglo piltia” (“Thy father fell into the river”); “I non angur ai; tu ta duts angur ai” (“I have nine fingers; you have ten”); and “Ia chitt bitto tu jarlom” (“I have an intention to kill you”).Some struck a more conversational tone, such as “Tu chi se biss gur biti?”(“How long have you had a goitre?”).But on the whole the book left him with “a disturbing impression” of Bashgali life.
外语常用语手册的销量正在迅速下降。常用语手册曾经似乎很有用。1956年，作家埃里克・纽比前往了兴都库什山，他知道他将造访的是自1891年以来英国人从未去过的地方。尽管如此，他仍对交流抱有希望。他的包里有一本1902年在加尔各答出版的常用语手册《巴什加利语言笔记》。一天下午，他在高耸的喜马拉雅山上打开了这本手册，然后，他的希望破灭了。大多数的旅游指南都会介绍如何点一小杯红酒或咖啡，但这本书中提到的短语却看不出有什么实用性。其中一句写道：“Ini ash ptul p’mich e manchi mrisht waria’m”，意思是：“今天早上我在田野里看到一具身体。”紧随其后的是“Tu tott baglo piltia”(“你父亲掉进了河里”)、“I non angur ai; tu ta duts angur ai”(“我有九根手指，你有十根手指”)和“Ia chitt bitto tu jarlom”(“我打算杀了你”)。也有些像是用于对话的句子，比如“Tu chi se biss gur biti?”(“你的甲状腺肿有多久了？”)。但总体而言，这本书让他对巴什加利生活产生了“不安的印象”。
