Knowledge of Khwarezmian is limited to its Middle Iranian stage and, as with Sogdian, little is known of its ancient form. Based on the writings of Khwarezmian scholars Al-Biruni and Zamakhshari, the language was in use at least until the 13th century, when it was gradually replaced by Persian for the most part, as well as several dialects of Turkic.[7]
Sources of Khwarezmian include astronomical terms used by al-Biruni, Zamakhshari's Arabic–Persian–Khwarezmian dictionary and several legal texts that use Khwarezmian terms and quotations to explain certain legal concepts, most notably the Qunyat al-Munya of Mukhtār al-Zāhidī al-Ghazmīnī (d. 1259/60).[7][8]
The noted scholar W.B. Henning was preparing a dictionary of Khwarezmian when he died, leaving it unfinished. A fragment of this dictionary was published posthumously by D.N. MacKenzie in 1971.[9]
Before the advance of Islam in Transoxiana (early 8th century), Khwarezmian was written in a script close to that of Sogdian and Pahlavi with its roots in the Imperial Aramaic script. From the few surviving examples of this script on coins and artifacts, it has been observed that written Khwarezmian included Aramaic logograms or ideograms, that is Aramaic words written to represent native spoken ones e.g. 𐿃𐾾𐿄 (ŠNT) for سرذ, sarδ, "year", 𐾾𐿁𐿃𐾺 (NPŠY) for خداك, xudāk, "self" and 𐾽𐾼𐾻𐾰 (MLK') for اى شاه, ī šah, "the king".[10]
After the advance of Islam, Khwarezmian was written using an adapted version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet with a few extra signs to reflect specific Khwarezmian sounds, such as the letter څ which represents /ts/ and /dz/, as in the traditional Pashto orthography.[11]
↑ Andrew Dalby, Dictionary of Languages: the definitive reference to more than 400 languages, Columbia University Press, 2004, pg 278.
↑ MacKenzie, D. N. "Khwarazmian Language and Literature," in E. Yarshater ed. Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. III, Part 2, Cambridge 1983, pp. 1244–1249.
↑ THE KHWAREZMIAN GLOSSARY—I, D. N. MacKenzie Link
Literature
The Khwarezmian Glossary
MacKenzie, D. N. (1970). "The Khwarezmian Glossary--I". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 33 (3). University of London: 540–59. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00126552. JSTOR614521..
MacKenzie, D. N. (1971). "The Khwarezmian Glossary--II". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 34 (1). University of London: 74–90. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00141588. JSTOR614624..
MacKenzie, D. N. (1971). "The Khwarezmian Glossary--III". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 34 (2). University of London: 314–30. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00129568. JSTOR612694..
MacKenzie, D. N. (1971). "The Khwarezmian Glossary--IV". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 34 (3). University of London: 521–37. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00128526. JSTOR613900..
MacKenzie, D. N. (1972). "The Khwarezmian Glossary--V". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 35 (1). University of London: 56–73. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00107360. JSTOR612794..
Further reading
Livshits, Vladimir (2003). "Three Silver Bowls from the Isakovka Burial-Ground No. 1 with Khwarezmian and Parthian Inscriptions". Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia. 9 (1–2): 147–172. doi:10.1163/157005703322114874..
Lurje, Pavel B. (2018). "Some New Readings of Chorasmian Inscriptions on Silver Vessels and Their Relevance to the Chorasmian Era". Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia. 24 (1–2): 279–306. doi:10.1163/15700577-12341333..
The ancient Aramaic alphabet was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian tribes throughout the Fertile Crescent. It was also adopted by other peoples as their own alphabet when empires and their subjects underwent linguistic Aramaization during a language shift for governing purposes — a precursor to Arabization centuries later — including among the Assyrians and Babylonians who permanently replaced their Akkadian language and its cuneiform script with Aramaic and its script, and among Jews, but not Samaritans, who adopted the Aramaic language as their vernacular and started using the Aramaic alphabet, which they call "Square Script", even for writing Hebrew, displacing the former Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. The modern Hebrew alphabet derives from the Aramaic alphabet, in contrast to the modern Samaritan alphabet, which derives from Paleo-Hebrew.
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni, known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously "Father of Comparative Religion", "Father of modern geodesy", Founder of Indology and the first anthropologist.
Khwarazm or Chorasmia is a large oasis region on the Amu Darya river delta in western Central Asia, bordered on the north by the (former) Aral Sea, on the east by the Kyzylkum Desert, on the south by the Karakum Desert, and on the west by the Ustyurt Plateau. It was the center of the Iranian Khwarezmian civilization, and a series of kingdoms such as the Afrighid dynasty and the Anushtegin dynasty, whose capitals were Kath, Gurganj and—from the 16th century on—Khiva. Today Khwarazm belongs partly to Uzbekistan and partly to Turkmenistan.
The Anushtegin dynasty or Anushteginids, also known as the Khwarazmian dynasty was a Persianate Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkic mamluk origin from the Bekdili clan of the Oghuz Turks. The Anushteginid dynasty ruled the Khwarazmian Empire, consisting in large parts of present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran in the approximate period of 1077 to 1231, first as vassals of the Seljuks and the Qara Khitai, and later as independent rulers, up until the Mongol conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire in the 13th century.
The Sogdian alphabet was originally used for the Sogdian language, a language in the Iranian family used by the people of Sogdia. The alphabet is derived from Syriac, a descendant script of the Aramaic alphabet. The Sogdian alphabet is one of three scripts used to write the Sogdian language, the others being the Manichaean alphabet and the Syriac alphabet. It was used throughout Central Asia, from the edge of Iran in the west, to China in the east, from approximately 100–1200 A.D.
The Sogdian language was an Eastern Iranian language spoken mainly in the Central Asian region of Sogdia, located in modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan; 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.
Pahlavi is a particular, exclusively written form of various Middle Iranian languages. The essential characteristics of Pahlavi are:
The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages, having emerged during the Middle Iranian era. The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. As opposed to the Middle-era Western Iranian dialects, the Middle-era Eastern Iranian dialects preserve word-final syllables.
The Manichaean script is an abjad-based writing system rooted in the Semitic family of alphabets and associated with the spread of Manichaeism from southwest to central Asia and beyond, beginning in the third century CE. It bears a sibling relationship to early forms of the Pahlavi scripts, both systems having developed from the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, in which the Achaemenid court rendered its particular, official dialect of Aramaic. Unlike Pahlavi, the Manichaean script reveals influences from the Sogdian alphabet, which in turn descends from the Syriac branch of Aramaic. The Manichaean script is so named because Manichaean texts attribute its design to Mani himself. Middle Persian is written with this alphabet.
David Neil MacKenzie FBA was a scholar of Iranian languages.
Imperial Aramaic is a linguistic term, coined by modern scholars in order to designate a specific historical variety of Aramaic language. The term is polysemic, with two distinctive meanings, wider (sociolinguistic) and narrower (dialectological). Since most surviving examples of the language have been found in Egypt, the language is also referred to as Egyptian Aramaic.
Walter Bruno Henning was a German scholar of Middle Iranian languages and literature, especially of the corpus discovered by the Turpan expeditions of the early 20th century.
The name Khwarazmian may refer to:
The Afrighids were a native Khwarezmian Iranian dynasty who ruled over the ancient kingdom of Khwarazm. Over time, they were under the suzerainty of the Sasanian Empire, the Hephthalite Empire, the Göktürk Khaganate, the Umayyad Caliphate, Abbasid Caliphate and the Samanid Empire.
The Khwarazmian Empire, or simply Khwarazm, was a culturally Persianate, Sunni Muslim empire of Turkic mamluk origin. Khwarazmians ruled large parts of present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran from 1077 to 1231; first as vassals of the Seljuk Empire and the Qara Khitai, and from circa 1190 as independent rulers up until the Mongol conquest in 1219–1221.
Bratindra Nath Mukherjee was an Indian historian, numismatist, epigraphist and iconographist, known for his scholarship in central Asian languages such as Sogdian. He was a Carmichael Professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture at Calcutta University and is reported to have deciphered many ancient scripts. He was the author of 50 books and over 700 articles on ancient history, numismatics and epigraphy. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri in 1992.
Artav was a Khwarazmian king who ruled the Khwarazm region of Central Asia in the second half of the 2nd-century. He was the second king of an unnamed kingdom in Khwarazm, founded by his predecessor, whose name is unknown. Artav, during his reign, started the construction of the city of Toprak-Kala, which became his capital.
Shaykh Mustafa Takhtayi or Shaikh Mostafa Takhti was a Kurdish poet from Avroman Takht who lived before 1788. His works are among the earliest samples of written Gorani school of poetry. Takhtî was the father of poet Sheikh Ahmad Takhti who was born around 1640.
Toprak-Kala, in modern Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan, was an ancient palace city and the capital of in Chorasmia in the 2nd/3rd century CE, where wall paintings, coins and archives were discovered. Its history covers a period from the 1st to the 5th century CE. It is part of the "Fifty fortresses oasis" in modern-day Uzbekistan.
Akchakhan-Kala, or Akcha-khan Kala, also named after the locality Kazakly-Yatkan/ Kazakl'i-Yatkan, in modern Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan, was an ancient fortress in Chorasmia built in the 4th/ 3rd century BCE and occupied until it was despoiled in the 2nd century CE. It is part of the "Fifty fortresses oasis" in modern-day Uzbekistan. The abandonment of Akchakhan-Kala was apparently followed by the establishment of the new capital of Toprak-Kala, 14 km to the northeast.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
