Harry Shorto Papers Archive

Harry Leonard Shorto (1919–1995) was a British philologist and linguist who specialized on the Mon language and Mon-Khmer studies. He authored both a modern Mon dictionary and a dictionary of Mon epigraphy. He worked for most of his career at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, finally as Professor of Mon-Khmer Studies until his retirement in 1984. See also the Shorto Papers Archive maintained on the SEALANG site, that includes a collection of photos from Harry's collection taken in Burma in the 1950s, and the obituary for Harry Shorto by Nigel Phillips.

In the early 2000s Harry's daughter, Anna, contacted Paul Sidwell regarding her father's papers, and over several years these were eventually aggregated and given over to Paul for archiving and sharing for the general good of the field. One of the significant outcomes of this was the 2006 publication of Harry's Mon-Khmer Comparative Dictionary.

On this page readers will find Harry's published and unpublished works available for download, on condition that the provenance of the works be fully disclosed in their subsequent use and dissenmination. The page was created in January 2021, and one should expect it to be populated over coming months. Do not hesitate to contact me directly <paulsidwell@gmail.com> if you have specific quiries or requests.

1956. Notes on Mon epigraphy. Bulletin of the School for Oriental and African Studies 18.2:344-352

1956-1957. Quantification in Mon. In D. SINOR (ed.) Proceedings of the 23^rd International Congress of Orientalists, Cambridge, August 21-28, 1954. London, Royal Asiatic Society. pp. 278-279.

1958. The Kyaikmaraw inscriptions. Bulletin of the School for Oriental and African Studies 21.2:361-367.

1960. Word and syllable patterns in Palaung. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 23.3:544-57.

1961. A Mon Genealogy of Kings: Observations on the Nidana Arambhakatha. In D. G. E. Hall (ed.). Historians of South-East Asia, London: Oxford University Press, pp. 62–72.

1962. A Dictionary of Modern Spoken Mon. London: Oxford University Press.

1963. The Structural pattern of northern Mon-Khmer languages. In H.L. Shorto, (ed.) Linguistic Comparison in South-East Asia and the Pacific. pp 45-61.

1963. (with Judith M. Jacob, and E.H.S. Simmonds) (eds.) Bibliographies of Mon-Khmer and Tai linguistics (London Oriental bibliographies 12). London, Oxford University Press.

1963. (ed.) Linguistic Comparison in South-East Asia and the Pacific. London, University of London. School of Oriental and African Studies.

1963. The 32 Myos in the Medieval Mon Kingdom. Bulletin of the School for Oriental and African Studies 26: 572–591.

1965. The interpretation of archaic writing systems. In G. B. Milner and E. J. A. Henderson (eds.) Indo-Pacific Linguistic Studies 1. Amsterdam, North-Holland. Pp. 88-97.

1966. Mon vowel systems. in: C. E. BAZELL et al. eds., In memory of J. R. Firth, London, Longmans, 398-408.

1966. The Devatâ plaques of the Ananda basement. In BA SHIN et al., eds., Essays offered to G. H. Luce by his colleagues and friends in honur of his 75^th birthday. Ascona, Artibus Asiae, Vol. 2, 156-165.

1967. The Register Distinctions in Mon-Khmer Languages. Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig. 16: 245-248.

1969. Mon labial clusters. Bulletin of the School for Oriental and African Studies 32.104-113.

1971. A dictionary of the Mon inscriptions, from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries, incorporating materials collected by the late C.O. Blagden (London Oriental Series 24). London, Oxford University Press.

1972. The word for ‘two’ in Austroasiatic. In Jacqueline M.C. Thomas & Lucien Bernot (eds.) Langues et techniques, nature et société, Vol. 1, Approche linguistique. Paris, Klincksieck. pp.233-35.

1972. (ms.) Mon-Khmer Contact Words in Sino-Tibetan.

1973. Three Mon-Khmer Word Families. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 36: 374-81.

1975. Achinese and Mainland Austronesian. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 38.1:81-102.

N.D. Achinese and Mainland Austronesian: comparative historical vocabulary. ms.

1976. Gayo consonant correspondences. In Nguyen Dang Liem (ed.) South-East Asian linguistic studies. Canberra, Pacific Linguistics (C 42). pp199-217.

1976. In Defense of Austric. Computational analyses of Asian and African languages 6:95-104.

1976. The Vocalism of Proto-Mon-Khmer. In Philip N. Jenner, Laurence C. Thompson, and Stanley Starosta (eds.). Austroasiatic Studies. Honolulu: University of Hawaii (Oceanic Linguistics, Special Publication, No. 13). Part II, pp.1041-1067.

1979. The linguistic proto-history of mainland South East Asia. In R. B. Smith & W. Watson (eds.), Early South East Asia. New York, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press. pp.273-278.

1978. The Planets, the Days of the Week, and the Points of the Compass: Orientation Symbolism in Burma. Natural Symbols in South East Asia, 152-164.

1980. (circa) Draft Proto-Katuic reconstructions

2006. A Mon-Khmer Comparative Dictionary. Canberra, Pacific Linguistics.

Manuscript lexicons

Palaung lexicon based on materials collected at Namhsan 1957

Riang-Lang lexicon based on the materials of G. H. Luce

Wa Vocabulary (no information of how it was compiled, but it looks like Bible Wa)