Bactrian language
Bactrian is a Central Iranian language that was spoken by the Bactrians in Central Asia until the early Middle Ages . It belongs to the north-eastern branch of the Iranian languages , but also has similarities with languages of the western group and there especially with the geographically neighboring Parthian .
Distribution area
In the south of Sogdia and north of the Hindu Kush on both sides of the river Oxus (Amu-Daryā) was the ancient landscape of Bactria , whose capital Zariastes , known to the Greeks as Baktra (Βάκτρα), corresponds to the present-day city of Balch (northern Afghanistan ). The language of this country owes its survival in written sources mainly to the fact that in the kingdom of the Kushan kings it replaced Greek as the official administrative language, which had been officially used there since Alexander the great , while maintaining the Greek alphabet.
font
The use of Greek, which dates back to the Graeco-Bactrian rule , continues to have an effect in that Bactrian was almost without exception written in Greek (cursive) script : under the Kushan rulers in a very carefully written monumental style, and later, in the post-Kushan period , in a much more italic and not always unambiguous form. (The main difference between italic and lapidary or monumental script is that in practice the individual characters are either connected to one another or not.) This "Graeco-Bactrian" script includes the additional character Ϸ ϸ Scho , which is used for the [ ʃ ] -According is omitted reversed on Ξ ξ Xi and ψ ψ Psi and some peculiar realizations is operated (for example, when υ for h stands). Incidentally, this script was also known to the Chinese traveler Xuanzang (7th century AD), who reports that the language of this country is written in a script with 25 characters.
material
During the Kushan rule in the 1st to 3rd century AD, the Bactrian was carried far beyond Bactria to other parts of the empire or their successor states among the Sasanids , Hephthalites and Hun peoples and at least until the 9th century AD. used. It is therefore attested in a wide area by coins and seals, inscriptions and, from later times, probably from the 7th to 9th centuries, by fragments of manuscripts, especially the so-called "hephthalite fragments " from Tuyoq ( Turfanoase ). The latest dated inscriptions from around 860 AD come from the Tochi Valley ( Pakistan ), including a bilingual text each with a Sanskrit and an Arabic parallel text. But in terms of scope and meaning, all published texts, regardless of their type and origin, are overshadowed by the large, fully legible and largely understandable 25-line inscription by Surkh Kotal (near Baglan , northern Afghanistan). Its subject is the restoration of the local Kushan shrine under the rule of Huvischka. There are two shorter parallel versions of the font. The limestone inscription from Rabatak (north-west of Surkh Kotal), about the same size, but not quite as well-preserved, is also of importance, in which the events of the first year of Kanishka I's reign and above all the expansion of the Kushan rule over northern India are described . There are also other building inscriptions from the area of Balch and Termiz on the northern bank of the Oxus. Rich finds come from the Buddhist cave monastery of Kara-Tepe in Termez, as well as inscriptions on vessels and frescoes (graffiti), which are apparently due to visitors to the monastery.
We also know of similar “tourist inscriptions” from Afrasiab (today in Uzbekistan ) and from the upper Indus valley (northern Pakistan). All of this is surpassed by almost 100 documents written on leather, apparently from the provinces of Samangān and Bamiyān (northern Afghanistan), mostly letters, but also some texts with legal content.
A sheet of the "Berlin Turfantexte" written in Manichaean script occupies a position entirely for itself , which contains a fragment of a Manichaean homily text in Bactrian (or at least very close to Bactrian) language. It apparently comes from a Bactrian "colony" in the Turang region (in Chotscho ) and shows that the Manichaeans there, like some other languages, also wrote Bactrian in their own script, while the Buddhists used the script that was also used for profane purposes Writing served.
literature
- Rüdiger Schmitt : Language certificates of ancient and central Iranian languages from Afghanistan , in: Indogermanica et Caucasica. Festschrift for Karl Horst Schmidt , Berlin / New York 1994, 168–196.
- Nicholas Sims-Williams : Bactrian . In: Rüdiger Schmitt (Ed.): Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum . Wiesbaden 1989, pp. 230-235
- Nicholas Sims-Williams: New Light on Ancient Afghanistan. The Decipherment of Bactrian . London 1997.
- Saloumeh Gholami: Selected features of Bactrian grammar . Diss. Göttingen 2010.
Web links
- Bactrian text from the Hephthalite period
- Nicholas Sims-Williams: Bactrian Documents from Ancient Afghanistan
