| Sogdian | |
|---|---|
| *s{əγ}ʷδī́k ᵊzβā́k, *s{əγ}ʷδyā́u̯, 𐼑𐼇𐼄𐼌𐼊𐼋 [*𐼀𐼈𐼂𐼀𐼋]swγδyk [*ʾzβʾk] 𐼼𐼴𐼶𐼹𐼷𐼸 (𐼰𐼵𐼱𐼰𐼸)swγδyk (ʾzβʾk) 𐼼𐼲𐼴𐼹𐼷𐼰𐼴sγwδyʾw 𐫘𐫇𐫄𐫔𐫏𐫀𐫇swγδyʾw | |
| Native to | Sogdia |
| Region | Central Asia,China |
| Era | 1st millennium BCE – 1000 CE[1] developed into modernYaghnobi |
Indo-European
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | sog |
| ISO 639-3 | sog |
| Glottolog | sogd1245 |
TheSogdian language was anEastern Iranian language spoken mainly in theCentral Asian region ofSogdia (capital:Samarkand; other chief cities:Panjakent,Fergana,Khujand, andBukhara), located in modern-dayUzbekistan,Tajikistan,Kazakhstan[4] andKyrgyzstan;[5] it was also spoken by some Sogdian immigrant communities in ancient China. Sogdian is one of the most importantMiddle Iranian languages, along withBactrian,Khotanese Saka,Middle Persian, andParthian. It possesses a large literary corpus.
The Sogdian language is usually assigned to a Northeastern group of theIranian languages. No direct evidence of an earlier version of the language ("Old Sogdian") has been found although mention of the area in theOld Persian inscriptions means that a separate and recognisable Sogdia existed at least since theAchaemenid Empire (559–323 BCE).[6]
Like Khotanese, Sogdian may have possessed a more conservativegrammar andmorphology than Middle Persian. The modern Eastern Iranian languageYaghnobi is the descendant of a dialect of Sogdian spoken around the 8th century inOsrushana, south of Sogdia.
During the period of theTang dynasty (ca. 7th century CE) of China, Sogdian was thelingua franca in Central Asia of theSilk Road,[7][8] along which it amassed a rich vocabulary ofloanwords such astym ("hotel") from theMiddle Chinese /tem/ (Chinese:店).[9]
The economic and political importance of Sogdian guaranteed its survival in the first few centuries after theMuslim conquest of Sogdia in the early eighth century.[10] A dialect of Sogdian spoken around the 8th century inOsrushana (capital: Bunjikat, near present-dayIstaravshan, Tajikistan), a region to the south of Sogdia, developed into theYaghnobi language and has survived into the 21st century.[11] It is spoken by theYaghnobi people.
![Seal with two facing busts and Sogdian inscription "Indamic, Queen of Zacanta", Kushano-Sasanian period, 300-350 CE. British Museum 119999.[12]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aBritish_Museum_stamp-seal_(Registration_number_1870%2c1210.3).jpg)
The first discovered Sogdian text was theKarabalgasun inscription, but it was not understood until 1909 that it contained text in Sogdian.[13]
Aurel Stein discovered five letters written in Sogdian, known as the "Ancient Letters", in an abandoned watchtower nearDunhuang in 1907, dating to the end of the Western Jin dynasty.[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] The finding of manuscript fragments of the Sogdian language in China'sXinjiang region sparked the study of the language.Robert Gauthiot (the first Buddhist Sogdian scholar) andPaul 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 theFirst 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 byÉmile Benveniste after Gauthiot's death.[25]
Various Sogdian pieces have been found in theTurfan text corpus by theGerman Turfan expeditions. These expeditions were controlled by theEthnological Museum of Berlin.[25] These pieces consist almost entirely of religious works by Manichaean and Christian writers, includingtranslations of the Bible. Most of the Sogdian religious works are from the 9th and 10th centuries.[26]
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 inTajikistan. The texts, related to business, belonged to a minor Sogdian king,Divashtich. They dated back to the time of the Muslim conquest, about 700.[26][27]
Between 1996 and 2018, a number of inscribed fragments have been found at Kultobe inKazakhstan. They date back to theKangju culture, are significantly earlier than the 4th century AD and showcase an archaic state of Sogdian.[28]
In the years between 2003 and 2020, three new bilingual Chinese-Sogdian epitaphs have been discovered and published.[29]
Like all other writing systems employed for Middle Iranian languages, theSogdian alphabet ultimately derives from theAramaic alphabet. Like its close relatives, thePahlavi scripts, written Sogdian contains manylogograms orideograms, which were Aramaic words that were written to represent native spoken ones. The Sogdian script is the direct ancestor of theOld Uyghur alphabet, which is itself the forerunner of theTraditional Mongolian alphabet.
As in other writing systems descended from theProto-Sinaitic script, there are no special signs for vowels. As in the parent Aramaic system, the consonantal signs ’ y w can be used asmatres 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.[30] To distinguish long vowels from short ones, an additional aleph can be written before the sign that denotes the long vowel.[30]
Sogdian also used theManichaean alphabet, which consists of 29 letters.[31]
In transcribing Sogdian script into Roman letters, Aramaic ideograms are often noted by means of capitals.
The consonant inventory of Sogdian is as follows (parentheses mark allophones or marginal phonemes):[32]
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal /Postalveolar | Velar/Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive/Affricate | p (b) | t (d) | (ts) | t͡ʃ (d͡ʒ) | k (g) |
| Fricative | fβ | θð | sz | ʃʒ | xɣ |
| Nasal | m | n | (ŋ) | ||
| Liquid/Glide | w | r (l) | j | (h) |
Sogdian has the following simple vowels:[33]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | iːi | (ɨ) | uuː |
| Mid | eːe | (ə) | ooː |
| Open | a | aː |
Sogdian also has three rhotacized vowels: ər, ir, ur.[32]
The diphthongs in Sogdian are āi, āu and those whose second element is a rhotacized vowel or a nasal element ṃ.[32]
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.[34]
| 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) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
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