| Sogdian | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Sogdiana | |
| Language extinction: | largely extinct by the 9th century, remnants evolved into Yaghnobi | |
| Language family: | Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Eastern Iranian Northeastern Sogdian | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | sog | |
| ISO 639-3: | sog | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. History Hellenistic period The Sogdian Rock or Rock of Ariamazes a fortress in Sogdiana was captured in 327 BC by the forces of Alexander the Great According to some definitions an extinct language is a Language which no longer has any speakers, whereas a dead language is a language which is no longer spoken The 9th century is the period from 801 to 900 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. The Yaghnobi language is a living Northeastern Iranian language (the only other living member being Ossetic) List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family and its subfamily Indo-Iranian. The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times (from ca The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times (from ca ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's | ||
The Sogdian language is a Middle Iranian language that was spoken in Sogdiana (Zarafshan River Valley), located in modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (chief cities: Samarkand, Panjakent, Fergana). History Hellenistic period The Sogdian Rock or Rock of Ariamazes a fortress in Sogdiana was captured in 327 BC by the forces of Alexander the Great Zeravshan River (also Zarafshan or Zarafshon, Дарёи Зарафшон Zarafshon from the Persian word زر افشان zar afshān, meaning Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( Uzbek: O‘zbekiston Respublikasi or Ўзбекистон Республикаси is a doubly Tajikistan (təˈdʒɪkɨstæn or /təˈdʒiːkɨstæn/ Тоҷикистон tɔʤikɪsˈtɔn or, Persian تاجیکستان taajikestaan officially the Republic of Samarkand (Samarqand Самарқанд سمرقند UniPers: "Samarqand" is the second-largest city in Uzbekistan and the capital of Panjakent (Панҷакент/پنجکنت also spelled Panjikent or Panjekent Пенджикент in Russian is a city in the Sughd province of Tajikistan Fergana or Farghana ( Uzbek: Farg'ona, Persian فرغانه, UniPers "Farqāna", Russian: Фергана
Sogdian is one of the most important Middle Iranian languages, along with Middle Persian and Parthian. Middle Persian is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times (224-654 CE became a Prestige dialect Parthia ( Middle Persian: اشکانیان Ashkâniân) was an Iranian civilization situated in the northeastern part of modern Iran It possesses a large literary corpus. The language is usually assigned to the Northeastern branch of the Iranian languages. The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times (from ca The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family and its subfamily Indo-Iranian. 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 Sogdiana existed at least since the Achaemenid era (559-323 BCE). The Old Persian language is one of the two attested Old Iranian languages (besides Avestan) Epigraphy (ἐπιγραφολογία from Greek ἐπιγραφή — "inscription" is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs engraved The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenid Persian Empire ( haχɒmaneʃijɒn (558–330 BC was the first of the Persian Empires to rule over significant portions of Sogdian possesses a more conservative grammar and morphology than Middle Persian. Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words
The economic and political importance of the language guaranteed its survival in the first few centuries after the Islamic conquest of Sogdiana in the early eighth century CE. For other meanings including people named 'Islam' see Islam (disambiguation. The earliest Modern Persian texts were written in Sogdiana under the patronage of Samanid kings, with the result that many Sogdian words entered Modern Persian. The Samanids (819–999 ( Sāmāniyān) were a Persian dynasty in Central Asia and Greater Khorasan, named after its founder Saman
Various Sogdian pieces have been found in the Turfan text corpus. Turfan or Tulufan (تۇرپان|Turpan|Turpan Modern Chinese: 吐魯番, Pinyin: Tǔlǔfān is an Oasis city in the They consist almost entirely of religious works by Manichaean and Christian writers. Manichaeism (in Modern Persian fa-Arab آیین مانی Āyin e Māni; Chinese zh 摩尼教 was one of the major Gnostic Religions originating A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth
A dialect of Sogdian, called Yaghnobi, has survived into the 21st century. The Yaghnobi language is a living Northeastern Iranian language (the only other living member being Ossetic) It is spoken by mountain dwellers in the Yaghnob valley. Yaghnobi people (or Yagnobian people, Tajik яғнобиҳо /yaġnobiho/ یغنابیها is the name of a people who live in mountainous Tajikistan
Writing system
Like all the writing systems employed for Middle Iranian languages, the Sogdian script ultimately derives from the Aramaic script. The Sogdian alphabet was originally used for the Sogdian language, which belongs to the Iranian family The Aramaic alphabet is an Abjad, a Consonantal Alphabet, used for writing Aramaic. Like its close relative the Pahlavi writing system, written Sogdian contains many logograms or ideograms, which were Aramaic words written to represent native spoken ones. A logogram, or logograph, is a Grapheme which represents a word or a Morpheme (a meaningful unit of language An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek idea "idea" + grafo "to write" is a Graphic symbol that represents an Idea The Sogdian script is the direct ancestor of the Uyghur script, itself the forerunner of the Mongolian script. Uyghur (/ ug-Latn Uyƣurqə/ug-Cyrl Уйғурчә, or / ug-Latn Uyƣur tili/ug-Cyrl Уйғур The classic vertical Mongolian script (ɣɣul bičig, cyrillic: Монгол бичиг Mongol bichig) was the first of many writing systems created
As in other writing systems descended from the Semitic script, there are no signs for short vowels. The history of the Alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the History of writing. The consonantal signs ’ y w can stand for the long vowels [a: i: u:] respectively.
In transcribing Sogdian script into Roman letters, Aramaic ideograms are often noted by means of capitals.
Sample Sogdian text (transliteration): MN sγwδy-k MLK’ δy-w’šty-c ’t x’xsrc xwβw ’pšwnw δrwth γ-rβ nm’cyw
Word-by-word translation: From Sogdiana's King Dewashtic to Khakhsar's Khuv Afshun, (good) health (and) many salutation. . .
External links
- Iranian Language Family
- Introduction to Sogdian by P. Oktor Skjærvø
- Sogdian
- Sogdian Dictionary
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