Social:Sogdian language

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Short description: Extinct Eastern Iranian language of Central Asia
Sogdian
swγδyk
RegionCentral Asia, China
Era1st millennium BCE – 1000 CE[1]
developed into modern Yaghnobi
Indo-European
Language codes
ISO 639-1sog
ISO 639-3sog
Glottologsogd1245[4]

The Sogdian language (Sogdian: swγδyk)[5] was an Eastern Iranian language spoken mainly in the Central Asian region of Sogdia (capital: Samarkand; other chief cities: Panjakent, Fergana, Khujand, and Bukhara), located in modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan[6] and Kyrgyzstan;[7] it was also spoken by some Sogdian immigrant communities in ancient China. Sogdian is one of the most important Middle Iranian languages, along with Bactrian, Khotanese Saka, Middle Persian, and Parthian. It possesses a large literary corpus. Sogdian language was the most important lingua franca of Mongolia, China, Inner Asia and one of the official language of first Turkic khanate and also a lingua franca during Uyghur khanate.

The Sogdian language is usually assigned to a Northeastern group of the Iranian languages. No direct evidence of an earlier version of the language ("Old Sogdian") has been found although mention of the area in the Old Persian inscriptions means that a separate and recognisable Sogdia existed at least since the Achaemenid Empire (559–323 BCE).[8]

Like Khotanese, Sogdian may have possessed a more conservative grammar and morphology than Middle Persian. The modern Eastern Iranian language Yaghnobi is the descendant of a dialect of Sogdian spoken around the 8th century in Osrushana, south of Sogdia.

Sog + -di and the Turkic adjectival composite The construction Sog + -di, interpreted as a Turkic adjectival composite, suggests that Sogdian may, at its core, be a Turkic-based language—much like Khalaj, whose name evolved through forms such as Qïlïnč, Qïlïč, Xïlïč, and finally Khalaj. Other Turkic languages include Uyghur, Oghuz, Afshar, Kipchak, and others. 1. Correct formulation of the claim (a crucial methodological point) Problem formulation: “Sogdian is a quasi-Turkic language.” Scientifically defensible formulation: “Historical Sogdian is a language that preserves a deep Turkic layer at the lexical and functional level—particularly in the domain of material and biological concepts—while being stabilized in an Eastern Iranian written framework.” This subtle distinction shifts the claim from an ideological assertion to a research-based hypothesis. 2. Why is such a hypothesis even possible? 2.1. Sogdian as a recorded language, not necessarily an originated one What we call “Sogdian” today is: a language recorded in an Eastern Iranian written framework (by Khwarazmians of Turkic origin), not necessarily a language whose foundational vocabulary was entirely Persian, nor a language that developed in isolation. This is comparable to: English (Germanic in structure with heavy Latin–French lexical layers), New Persian (Dari) (Iranian with Turkic, Sogdian, Aramaic–Pahlavi, and Qur’anic Arabic layers). 3. The Turkic layer in Sogdian (where the Turkic-language claim stands) 3.1. Core biological–functional vocabulary This is precisely where Turkic historical presence and language exert their strongest influence: su (water, in a functional/material sense), čorok / čörek (bread), ape as a transformed form of aba (water + -a, a Turkic connective/agglutinative marker). These include terms related to food, construction, agriculture, and domestic life. These are not administrative loanwords, but rather everyday survival vocabulary—the linguistic layer least likely to be borrowed. 4. “Sog + -di” and the Turkic mixed adjective A linguistic analysis of Sogdian: Sog + -di (cf. joq-di, čoq-di, suq-di, soğ-di) It is defensible to argue that: -di functions as a marker of state, relation, or condition, similar to -li / -lı in Turkic, or -ī in Iranian languages. Thus: Sog-di = “Sog-like” / “in a Sog-state or condition” (with -di also functioning as a temporal predicate) This construction aligns closely with Turkic agglutinative linguistic logic, even if preserved in an Iranian scriptural form. 5. A highly effective comparison: Khalaj This comparison is, methodologically, one of the strongest points. 5.1. What does Khalaj demonstrate? The Khalaj language: is Turkic, yet exhibits phonological shifts, and underwent ethnonymic changes: Qïlïnč Qïlïč Xïlïč Khalaj However: Change of name ≠ change of linguistic ancestry Thus, the comparison suggests: Just as Khalaj remained Turkic despite changes in name and phonology, Sogdian may likewise represent a Turkic substrate language preserved under a different written and cultural framework. From a methodological standpoint, this comparison is valid. 6. Scholarly synthesis (without exaggeration or retreat) The following conclusions can be drawn: Sogdian, as a recorded language, was written within an Eastern Iranian framework. However, a layer of core biological, subsistence, and structural vocabulary: follows Turkic linguistic logic, and in some cases aligns directly with Turkic lexemes. This situation may be described as a: mixed language, or more precisely, a language with a Turkic substrate and a Persian–Arabic written framework. The Khalaj comparison demonstrates that: changes in name, script, or political–cultural pressure do not necessarily erase linguistic identity. 7. Proposed thesis statement for an academic article “Sogdian is neither a purely Iranian language nor merely a collection of loanwords; rather, it is a language that emerged within the Turkic ecological and cultural environment of Central Asia and was later stabilized in an Eastern Iranian written framework—just as the Khalaj language preserved its Turkic ancestry despite changes in name and phonological form.”

History

During the period of the Tang dynasty (ca. 7th century CE) of China, Sogdian was the lingua franca in Central Asia of the Silk Road,[9][10] along which it amassed a rich vocabulary of loanwords such as tym ("hotel") from the Middle Chinese /tem/ (Chinese: 店).[11]

The economic and political importance of Sogdian guaranteed its survival in the first few centuries after the Muslim conquest of Sogdia in the early eighth century.[12] A dialect of Sogdian spoken around the 8th century in Osrushana (capital: Bunjikat, near present-day Istaravshan, Tajikistan), a region to the south of Sogdia, developed into the Yaghnobi language and has survived into the 21st century.[13] It is spoken by the Yaghnobi people.

Discovery of Sogdian texts

The first discovered Sogdian text was the Karabalgasun inscription, but it was not understood until 1909 that it contained text in Sogdian.[1]

Sogdian Christian text written in Estrangelo, discovered at Turpan, 9th—11th century.

Aurel Stein discovered five letters written in Sogdian, known as the "Ancient Letters", in an abandoned watchtower near Dunhuang in 1907, dating to the end of the Western Jin dynasty.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] The finding of manuscript fragments of the Sogdian language in China's Xinjiang region sparked the study of the language. Robert Gauthiot (the first Buddhist Sogdian scholar) and Paul Pelliot (who explored in Dunhuang and retrieved Sogdian material there) began investigating the Sogdian material that Pelliot had discovered in 1908. Gauthiot published many articles based on his work with Pelliot's material but died during the First World War. One of Gauthiot's most impressive articles was a glossary to the Sogdian text, which he was in the process of completing when he died. This work was continued by Émile Benveniste after Gauthiot's death.[13]

Various Sogdian pieces have been found in the Turfan text corpus by the German Turfan expeditions. These expeditions were controlled by the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.[13] These pieces consist almost entirely of religious works by Manichaean and Christian writers, including translations of the Bible. Most of the Sogdian religious works are from the 9th and 10th centuries.[14]

Dunhuang and Turfan were the two most plentiful sites of Manichean, Buddhist, and Christian Sogdian texts. Sogdiana itself actually contained a much smaller collection of texts, discovered in the early 1930s near Mount Mug in Tajikistan. The texts, related to business, belonged to a minor Sogdian king, Divashtich. They dated back to the time of the Muslim conquest, about 700.[14][15]

Between 1996 and 2018, a number of inscribed fragments have been found at Kultobe in Kazakhstan. They date back to the Kangju culture, are significantly earlier than the 4th century AD and showcase an archaic state of Sogdian.[16]

In the years between 2003 and 2020, three new bilingual Chinese-Sogdian epitaphs have been discovered and published.[17]

Writing system

Like all other writing systems employed for Middle Iranian languages, the Sogdian alphabet ultimately derives from the Aramaic alphabet. Like its close relatives, the Pahlavi scripts, written Sogdian contains many logograms or ideograms, which were Aramaic words that were written to represent native spoken ones. The Sogdian script is the direct ancestor of the Old Uyghur alphabet, which is itself the forerunner of the Traditional Mongolian alphabet.

As in other writing systems descended from the Proto-Sinaitic script, there are no special signs for vowels. As in the parent Aramaic system, the consonantal signs ’ y w can be used as matres lectionis for the long vowels [a: i: u:] respectively. However, unlike it, the consonant signs would also sometimes serve to express the short vowels, which could also sometimes be left unexpressed and always are in the parent systems.[18] To distinguish long vowels from short ones, an additional aleph can be written before the sign that denotes the long vowel.[18]

Sogdian also used the Manichaean alphabet, which consists of 29 letters.[19]

In transcribing Sogdian script into Roman letters, Aramaic ideograms are often noted by means of capitals.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant inventory of Sogdian is as follows (parentheses mark allophones or marginal phonemes):[20]

Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal / Postalveolar Velar/Glottal
Plosive/Affricate p (b) t (d) (ts) t͡ʃ (d͡ʒ) k (g)
Fricative f β θ ð s z ʃ ʒ x ɣ
Nasal m n (ŋ)
Liquid/Glide w r (l) j (h)

Vowels

Sogdian has the following simple vowels:[21]

Front Central Back
Close iː i (ɨ) u uː
Mid eː e (ə) o oː
Open a aː

Sogdian also has three rhotacized vowels: ər, ir, ur.[20]

The diphthongs in Sogdian are āi, āu and those whose second element is a rhotacized vowel or a nasal element ṃ.[20]

Morphology

Sogdian has two different sets of endings for so-called 'light' and 'heavy' stems. A stem is heavy if it contains at least one heavy syllable (containing a long vowel or diphthong); stems containing only light vowels are light. In heavy stems, stress falls on the stem, and in light stems, it falls on the suffix or ending.[22]

Nouns

Light stems

Case masc. a-stems neut. a-stems fem. ā-stems masc. u-stems fem. ū-stems masc. ya-stems fem. yā-stems plural
nom. -i -u -a, -e -a -a -i -yā -ta, -īšt, -(y)a
voc. -u -u -a -i, -u -ū -iya -yā -te, -īšt(e), -(y)a
acc. -u -u -u, -a -u -u -(iy)ī -yā(yī) -tya, -īštī, -ān(u)
gen.-dat. -ē -yē -ya -(uy)ī -uya -(iy)ī -yā(yī) -tya, -īštī, -ān(u)
loc. -ya -ya -ya -(uy)ī -uya -(iy)ī -yā(yī) -tya, -īštī, -ān(u)
instr.-abl. -a -a -ya -(uy)ī -uya -(iy)ī -yā(yī) -tya, -īštī, -ān(u)

Heavy stems

Case masc. fem. plural
nom. -∅ -∅ -t
voc. -∅, -a -e -te
acc. -ī -ī -tī, -ān
gen.-dat. -ī -ī -tī, -ān
loc. -ī -ī -tī, -ān
instr.-abl. -ī -ī -tī, -ān

Contracted stems

Case masc. aka-stems neut. aka-stems fem. ākā-stems pl. masc. pl. fem.
nom. -ē (-ō), -ē -ā -ēt -ēt, -āt
voc. (-ā), -ē (-ō), -ē -ā (-āte), -ēte -ēte, -āte
acc. (-ō), -ē (-ō), -ē -ē -ētī, -ān -ētī, -ātī
gen.-dat. -ē -ē -ē -ētī, -ān -ētī, -ātī
loc. -ē -ē -ē -ētī, -ān -ētī, -ātī
instr.-abl. (-ā), -ē (-ā), -ē -ē -ētī, -ān -ētī, -ātī

Verbs

Present indicative

Person Light stems Heavy stems
1st. sg. -ām -am
2nd. sg. -ē, (-∅) -∅, -ē
3rd. sg. -ti -t
1st. pl. -ēm(an) -ēm(an)
2nd. pl. -θa, -ta -θ(a), -t(a)
3rd. pl. -and -and

Imperfect indicative

Person Light stems Heavy stems
1st. sg. -u -∅, -u
2nd. sg. -i -∅, -i
3rd. sg. -a -∅
1st. pl. -ēm(u), -ēm(an) -ēm(u), -ēm(an)
2nd. pl. -θa, -ta -θ(a), -t(a)
3rd. pl. -and -and

References

  1. ↑ Sims-Williams 2022, p. 484.
  2. ↑ Sims-Williams, N. (December 15, 1985). "ANCIENT LETTERS". Encyclopædia Iranica. II. pp. 7–9. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ancient-letters. 
  3. ↑ Keramidas, Kimon. "SOGDIAN ANCIENT LETTER II". Telling the Sogdian Story: A Freer/Sackler Digital Exhibition Project. https://kimon.hosting.nyu.edu/sogdians/items/show/851. 
  4. ↑ "The Sogdian Ancient Letters 1, 2, 3, and 5". https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/sogdlet.html. 
  5. ↑ Norman, Jeremy. "Aurel Stein Discovers the Sogdian "Ancient Letters" 313 CE to 314 CE". https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=5032. 
  6. ↑ Sogdian Ancient Letter No. 3. Reproduced from Susan Whitfield (ed.), The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith (2004) p. 248.
  7. ↑ "Ancient Letters". Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.. https://sogdians.si.edu/ancient-letters/. 
  8. ↑ Keramidas, Kimon. "SOGDIAN ANCIENT LETTER III: LETTER TO NANAIDHAT". Telling the Sogdian Story: A Freer/Sackler Digital Exhibition Project. https://kimon.hosting.nyu.edu/sogdians/items/show/869. 
  9. ↑ "Sogdian letters". History of International Relations. 5 March 2021. http://ringmar.net/irhistorynew/index.php/welcome/introduction-4/from-temujin-to-genghis-khan/5-2-a-nomadic-state/5-3-how-to-conquer-the-world/5-4-dividing-it-all-up/sogdian-letters/. 
  10. ↑ Vaissière, Étienne de la (2005). "CHAPTER TWO ABOUT THE ANCIENT LETTERS". Sogdian Traders: A History. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 8 Uralic & Central Asian Studies. 10. Brill. pp. 43–70. doi:10.1163/9789047406990_005. ISBN 978-90-47-40699-0. https://brill.com/downloadpdf/book/9789047406990/BP000005.xml. 
  11. ↑ Vaissière, Étienne de la (2005). "About the Ancient Letters". Sogdian Traders. Brill. pp. 43–70. doi:10.1163/9789047406990_005. ISBN 9789047406990. https://brill.com/display/book/9789047406990/BP000005.xml. 
  12. ↑ Livšic, Vladimir A. (2009). "SOGDIAN “ANCIENT LETTERS” (II, IV, V)". in Orlov, Andrei; Lourie, Basil. Symbola Caelestis: Le symbolisme liturgique et paraliturgique dans le monde chrétien. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. p. 344-352. ISBN 9781463222543. https://brill.com/downloadpdf/journals/scri/5/1/article-p344_21.xml. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Utz, David. (1978). Survey of Buddhist Sogdian studies. Tokyo: The Reiyukai Library.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Iranian Languages"(2009). Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved on 2009-04-09
  15. ↑ Sims-Williams 2022, p. 490.
  16. ↑ Sims-Williams 2022, p. 492.
  17. ↑ Bo, Bi; Sims-Williams, Nicholas (2020). "The Epitaph of a Buddhist Lady: A Newly Discovered Chinese-Sogdian Bilingual". Journal of the American Oriental Society 140 (4): 803–820. https://lockwoodonlinejournals.com/index.php/jaos/article/view/590/450. Retrieved 6 September 2024. 
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Clauson, Gerard. 2002. Studies in Turkic and Mongolic linguistics. P.103-104.
  19. ↑ Gershevitch, Ilya. (1954). A Grammar of Manichean Sogdian. p.1. Oxford: Blackwell.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 Yoshida 2010, p. 285.
  21. ↑ Yoshida 2010, p. 284.
  22. ↑ Yoshida 2010, p. 286.

Sources



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