1st millennium BCE – 1000 CE[1] developed into modern Yaghnobi
Language family
Indo-European
Indo-Iranian
Iranian
Eastern?[2]
Northern
Sogdian
Writing system
Sogdian alphabet
Syriac alphabet[3]
Manichaean alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-2
sog
ISO 639-3
sog
Glottolog
sogd1245
This article contains Sogdian text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Sogdian characters.
The Sogdian language 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[4] and Kyrgyzstan;[5][6] 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.
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).
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, a region to the south of Sogdia.
^Sogdian at MultiTree on the Linguist List
^Jacques Gernet (31 May 1996). A History of Chinese Civilization. Cambridge University Press. pp. 282–. ISBN 978-0-521-49781-7.
^Sigfried J. de Laet; Joachim Herrmann (1 January 1996). History of Humanity: From the seventh century B.C. to the seventh century A.D. UNESCO. pp. 467–. ISBN 978-92-3-102812-0.
^"Sogdian Language and Its Scripts | The Sogdians".
^Barthold, W. "Balāsāg̲h̲ūn or Balāsaḳūn." Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2008. Brill Online. Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden. 11 March 2008 <http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_SIM-1131>
contains Sogdian text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Sogdian characters. The Sogdian language...
Transoxiana. The Sogdian city-states, although never politically united, were centered on the city of Samarkand. Sogdian, an Eastern Iranian language, is no longer...
characters. The Sogdian alphabet was originally used for the Sogdianlanguage, a language in the Iranian family used by the people of Sogdia. The alphabet...
Sogdian may refer to: anything pertaining to Sogdia / Sogdiana SogdianlanguageSogdian alphabet Sogdian people Sogdian (Unicode block) Old Sogdian (Unicode...
people. It is considered to be a direct descendant of Sogdian and has sometimes been called Neo-Sogdian in academic literature. There are some 12,500 Yaghnobi...
Portions of the Bible were translated into the Sogdianlanguage in the 9th and 10th centuries. All surviving manuscripts are incomplete Christian liturgical...
The Sogdianlanguage is one of the Iranian languages, along with Bactrian language, Khotanese Saka, Persian language, Tajik language, Pashto language, the...
*h₁ers-). This name can be compared to several Indo-Iranic terms, such as: Sogdian rʾk (𐽀𐼰𐼸) 'vein, blood vessel' (from Old Iranian *rahaka), Persian...
article contains Sogdian text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Sogdian characters. Samarkand...
changed substantially over time. Major regional languages like Elamite, Sogdian, Koine Greek, or Nahuatl in ancient, post-classical and early modern times...
Chorasmian, Khorezmian) is an extinct East Iranian language closely related to Sogdian. The language was spoken in the area of Khwarezm (Chorasmia), centered...
that the cultural alignment of the city led to Turpan's name in the Sogdianlanguage becoming known as "Chinatown" or "Town of the Chinese". As late as...
Heritage Site. Balasagun was founded by the Sogdians, a people of Iranian origin and the Sogdianlanguage was still in use in this town until the 11th...
dating from third to seventh centuries in the Sogdianlanguage, nine in the extinct Bactrian language, and two in Middle Persian and Parthian each. Many...
Santa Barbara, Denver, Oxford: Praeger, p. 3. Mark J. Dresden (2003). "SogdianLanguage and Literature", in Ehsan Yarshater, The Cambridge History of Iran...
ancestor(s) of the Sogdian and Yaghnobi languages, although data required to test this hypothesis is presently lacking. The Scythian languages shared some features...
Parthian, and Sogdian were also used as literary languages by the Manichaeans, whose texts also survive in various non-Iranian languages, from Latin to...
p. 124. "Hermitage Museum". Hermitage Museum. "It is possible that the Sogdian aristocratic culture of that time preserved some memory of the glorious...
indicating that the term Xiongnu was used for the people referred to in Sogdian and Sanskrit texts as the Xwn and Huṇa respectively, terms used for peoples...
(Golden Mountains) in 569. The Sogdianlanguage of the inscriptions reflects the prominence of Sogdians on the Silk Road. Sogdians were East Iranians from Sogdia...
widely separated areas: the Yaghnobi language of northwestern Tajikistan (descended from Sogdian); and the Ossetic language of the Caucasus (descended from...
their numbers. They speak the Yaghnobi language, which is the only direct descendant of the Sogdianlanguage. Tajikistan artisans created the Dushanbe...
foreign words, including from eastern northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian was already...
the demise of Māori language as a lingua franca. Sogdian was used to facilitate trade between those who spoke different languages along the Silk Road...
Ikhshid (Persian: اخشید; from Sogdian: xšyδ, xšēδ) was the princely title of the Iranian rulers of Soghdia and the Ferghana Valley in Transoxiana during...
Sogdian art Sogdian art refers to art produced by the Sogdians, an Iranian people living mainly in ancient Sogdia, present-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan,...
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