Dear “Varorud” reader! At last, the time came to tell about the group of Aryan languages in this “Sughdology” miniature; the Sughdian language will be dwelt on in particulars being a key theme of common Indo-European kinship of a considerable part of the population which inhabited the ancientest and ancient Eurasia. And here, first of all, we shall note the question concerned with common Eurasian, Indo-European consanguineous-genetic (“Molecular Archeology” studied by modern biologists-geneticists”) and ethno-cultural relationship being in charge of the entire modern science - that of “cultural anthropology”.
Indo-Europeans whose absolutely proved protoland is Aryan Central Asia of the New Stone and Neolithic Ages (VIII-III millennia B.C., see “Varorud” bulletin #5, 2001) in the next historic epoch of paleometal (bronze and iron) rendered habitable the vast territory of Eurasia - from Indostan subcontinent and the depths of Central Asia (Altay and the steppes of the East) up to South, Central and Western Europe. This is the Protoland and the Historic motherland of Aryans with a unified linguistic-dialectical system which includes Eurasian steppes and forest-steppes - the Tien-Shan, Pamirs-Alay, Himalayan, Hindukush, Zagross, Caucasian, Karpatian, Bolkanian mountainous and foothill systems comprising the highly developed ancient Eurasian civilization hotbeds of the reservoirs of India and the Ganges, the Amu-Darya and the Syr-Darya, the Euphrates and the Tigris, the Dnieper, the Danube, the Adriatics and the Rhine. The population of this Old World belt on the Eurasia with its Indo-European languages and dialects in the new time spread practically all over our Planet up to American (in the west), Australian (in the south-east), African (in the south) continents, over the coasts and islands of the Pacific, the Indian and the Atlantic oceans carrying linguistic and ethno-cultural kinship of English, Germanic, Romanic, French, Spanish, Slavonic, Indian and Iranian languages. In the first Aryan cohort of this modern linguistic and ethno-cultural world there stood Sughdians, their language, civilization, their fruitful and unforgettable service and great Kulturtrager activity. I already laid an emphasis upon these facts in previous “Sughdology” miniatures.
Thus, the linguistic protoground of Aryans framed in Middle Asian Aryana whose archeologically ancientest parts were Marghiana, Sughdiana, Bactria, Fars, steppes and mountains of Aryanam Vige (Eranvedge) being the motherland of the first Aryan linguistic Avestian pyramid including the most important Marghian, Sughdian, Bactrian, Persian, Skythian-Sakian languages-dialects (“Varorud” #5). Here the ancient and modern Indo-European linguistic pyramid which embraced first so broadly and powerfully almost half of Eurasia followed by the abovementioned world spaces turns up speed being its first radical potency. It accounts deeply for quests and interpretations of historic-linguistic and ethno-cultural communities of modern Indo-Europeism of the Aryan root.
Sughd and Sughdians - are one of these Aryan root stems (“Varorud’ ##2,3,4,6, 2001). The Sughdian languages of the ancientest and ancient, mediaeval and the newest (Yaghnob relic) stages of the development of history pertains to the Iranian - root Aryan branch of Indo-European languages of the Zarafshon, the Kashka-Darya, the Syr-Darya rivers and Haftrood (Seven Rivers Land) geographically aboriginal population; here refer also tens of oases, towns and settlements in Eastern Central Asia, South Siberia and the Far East. The sources of the permanent process of Sughdian ethnos and language formation which had started in IV-II millennia B.C. in the I millennia B.C. became the primary language of the population of Metropolitan Sughd (“Varorud” #2, 2001) and also of international intercourse, trade and cultural exchange already on protocommunications and on the very Great Silk road (“Varorud” #6, 2001).
Linguistically (grammar, phonetics, morphology, vocabulary) the Sughdian language included into the Eastern branch of the Middle-Iranian group of languages in the early and developed Middle Ages composed one of the basic ethno-territorial components of the forming Tajik nation and its Tajik language being in the linguistic group of the new Iranian languages of Central Asia and Middle East. The survived remnants of the Sughdian language can be found today among the population of the Yaghnob Valley, the Upper Zarafshon and Sughd viloyat and a number of valleys and gorges of the Hissar range in Central Tajikistan.
Linguistic Itanistics is one of the mostly developed branches of world science. The scientists from many countries of the world were employed in it especially fruitfully in XIX and XX centuries. The totals of researches were already generalized in two huge multi-volumed, in 185-1901 in German “Grundrisse der iranischen Philologie” (Strasburg) and in Russian in the five-volumes-work “Основы иранского языкознания” (foundations of Iranistics) (Moscow, 1979, 1981, 1987). In the second work the basic definitions on the Sughdian language are written by leading linguists-Sughdologists - I. M. Oransky, V. A. Livshits and A. L. Khromov. Several generations of Iranists from different countries also effectuated monographic researches. However, we shall move aside linguistic characteristics of the Sughdian language hardly understandable for a wide circle of readers; in this “Sughdology” miniature we shall adduce the data of extralinguistic slant: territory of spreading, script and extant monuments.
Sughdian oykumena in Central Asia from Bukhara, Shahrisabz, Samarkand and Khujand up to the Great Chinese Wall was embraced with reviving Sughdian language, culture and script. Preoccupations, culture, beliefs of Sughdians on this vast territory are fixed in Chinese, Khotan and Turkic sources and Sughdian written monuments themselves discovered at the end of XIX- the beginning of XX centuries in the oases of Central Asia in 1932-1933, in the castle on the Moog mountain, the Upper Zarafshon of Sughd viloyat of Tajikistan; in 1956, in Central Mongolia (Bugut stellal and throughout unfolded excavations of Sughd towns and settlements int eh middle and the second half of XX c.
Let us begin with notes of two Chinese travelers - Syan Tsan (692-630) and Hoy Chao (728). The first of them called the vast territory from Suyab (Seven Rivers Land) up to Kesh (the valley of the Kashka-Darya) including the Zarafshon Valley, Ustrushana, the valley of the Kashka-Darya and Chach as Sughd (Suli - in Chinese). The second one unites six domains according to the community of language - Bukhara oasis (An), Ustrushana (Tsao), Kesh (Shi), Chach with Ilak (Shi-lo), Maymarg (Mi) and Samarkand Sughd (Kan). The findings of the written monuments of the Sughdian language confirm these data completely. Thus, at the end of VII - the beginning of VIII c.c. appanage governors of Kesh issued coins with Sughdian inscriptions. Arabic- and Persian-Tajik-speaking geographers of IX-X c.c. also include Kesh and Nasaf into the structure of Sughd. And on all the abovementioned territory of Sughd many towns and settlements preserved in their place-names derivative prefixes “kand-”, “kad-” in the meaning “town”, “settlement” and “house”. Many tens and hundreds of populated settlements preserved their primary names up to nowadays.
Sughdians played an important role in dissemination of Buddhism in Central Asia (Toharistan, Ferghana, Seven Rivers Land and further to the Orient), Maniheyism in the Turkic states of Eastern Turkistan and China, Christianity in Central Asia. In this realm Sughdian missioners were especially renowned through their translatory activity into Sughdian; the literature of the abovementioned religions was translated. The Sughdian communities of Eastern Turkistan (Turfan, Dunhuana) left a big heritage of religious and secular translated literature fo VIII-IX c.c. These manuscripts of Sughdian-Buddhian, Maniheyan and Christian texts discovered through digs in Dunhuana and Turfan and kept in the collections of P. Pelyo, A. Stein and others, and also preserved by Paris National library, British library, Berlin Academy of Sciences, Institute of Oriental studies under Russian AS turned into the primal original base for studying the Sughdian language and linguistic Sughdology (V. K. Myuller, F. K. Andreas, K. G. Zaleman, R. Gotyo, G. Raihelt, A. A. Freiman, V. B. Henning, Ya. Kharmat, E. Benvenist, A. L. Chromov, Sims-Williams, V. Zunderman and others).
It is common convention that linguistic Sughdology incepts with the correspondence between Myuller and Andreas in 1904 when the first of them discovered among the manuscripts of Turfan oasis the texts of unknown Pehlevian dialect; the second one having correlated the calendar terms of Turfan texts with the names of Sughdian months in Aburaihon Biruni’s “Chronology” (XI c.) revealed Sughdian appurtenance of the texts (See Основы иранского языкознания. Среднеиранские языки. Москва, 1981. p. p 350-351). (Foundatoins of Iranistics. Middle Iranian Languages).
The second group of Sughdian written monuments was discovered in 1906 by A. Stein in the ruins of one of watch-towers of the Great Chinese Wall to the west of Dunhuana. There are nine private letters of Sughdians residing in the oases of Eastern Turkistan; they were assigned for being sent to Samarkand. In science they got the nomination “Old Letters”, they are written in the earlier variety of Sughdian alphabet and are dated now by II c. A. D. (R. Gotyo and G. Reihelt), now by 196 A. D. (Ya. Kharmat). Further on there follows chronologically the third big discovery - 74 Sughdian papers in the castle on the Moog mountain (“Согдийские документы с замка на горе Муг” Москва, 1962-1963. Sughdian Papers from the Castle on the Moog Mountain’ three volumes of texts and researches and a volume of an album with documents).
Karabalgasun stella with the inscription in three versions - ancient Turkic, Runic, Sughdian and Chinese with the name of Uigur khakan Alp-Bilghe (808-821 A. D.) - discovered in the ruins of the capital of Uigur khakanat on the left bank of the Orhon river refers to one of the important revelations of Sughdology. Another marble stella with the remnants of Sughdian and ancient Turkic inscriptions with the name of the third Uigur Begui-Khanak (762) was found in the extreme south of Gobi desert. Ten Sughdian inscriptions were discovered in 1970 on Taihirgulun rock in north-western Mongolia (preliminary dating - VIII-IX c.c.) Bugut stella of Central Mongolia discovered in 1956 and studied by Klyashtorny and V. A. Livshits was mentioned above. The Mongolian series of Sughdian inscription of the epoch of the Mongolian-Uigur khakanat evidence to a lot: the presence of Sughdian colonists in the oases of Mongolia, acquaintance with Sughdian speech on the part of Uigurs and Mongols, their usage of international Sughdian script alongside with local Turkic Runic letters. Among the script monuments of Dunhuana we shall mention a fragment of Sughdian tale about Rustam, passages of folklore plots translated from ancient Indian “Panchatantra”, Sanscrit “Vessantara Jataka”. We can enjoy the extant excerpts of the Sughdian version of Mani’s “Evangel” and his “Book of Giants”; in Sughdian version they mention “Aryan Vedgan” - legendary protoland of Iranians (Aryans), poetic hymns of Maniheyans continuing the tradition of Yashts’ “Avesta” there are medical texts, extracts of Sughdian texts translated from the Christian New Testament, compositions of Syrian hagiology. We must stress that Sughdian texts translated from those of Christian, Buddhian and Maniheyan ones and from secular folklore satisfied the needs of both Sughdians - colonists and the local kindred Turkic population of Sakotoharians who knew Sughdian. Here we see the great missionary - enlightening and general civilizatory activity of our ancestors.
A multitude of Sughdian inscriptions were discovered during the excavations on archeological monuments of Sughd and Central Asia: over 20 on Panjakent ancient settlement site, in Chilhujra Panjakent, Chilhujra Shahristan, Gardani Hisor, Afrasoyab, Varahsh, Bukhara, Roov, Koov, Hissar, Merv area (Suvaikatu-s-Sughd - small Sughdian market), Seven Rivers Land and Kulunsay (900, 943 and 1025); on Saryg vessel, Taraz slate slab, on khum (jug) out of ancient settlement site near Pokrovka village; there are Sughdian inscriptions on Gemmas and paper, silver vessels, coins. The latters were important sources of information on history and culture, in particular, on onomastics, paleography.
“Sughdians used three varieties of script: proper Sughdian, Maniheyan and Syrian. Sughdians themselves in VII - the beginning of VIII c.c. considered that their alphabet (we mean proper Sughdian script) contained 23 letters: 22 letters traced back to Aramaic prototype and placed according to Aramaic scheme of alphabet and one additional twenty third letter; it was looked upon as a repetition of the twelfth letter of Aramaic prototype. Transliteration of Sughdian alphabet was first proposed by R. Gotyo and used in the editions of the texts written in proper Sughdian script”. This alphabet looks as follows:
Since the epoch of the Turkic khakanat (VI-VII c.c. A. D.) the Sughdian language was in close contacts with Turkic vernaculars of Eastern, Central and Deep Asia. Cognate Sughdian and Sakian speech sounded in Metropolitan Sughd (the Syr-Darya reservoir), Seven Rivers Land, Khotan and Kashgaz oases and the Tarim reservoir up to the end of the I-II millennia A.D. these ancientest and ancient Iranian-speaking areas were zones of contact with the Turkic world. Quoting the scientist-ethnologist of the second half of XI c. Mahmud Kashgari, in Balasagun, to the west from Issyk-kool lake there lived the people - an ulus of Sughdians. - “Sogdaks are outcomers from the land between Bukhara and Samarkand. They domesticated the clothes and morals of Turks, “they speak Turkic and Sughdian and the language of the population of all the cities from Balasagun up to Ispijab (modern Shymkent) is mixed”. (Al-Kashgari. Divan lugat-it-turk terkumesi. I, 30, 471). Sughdian and Sakian speech was replaced by Tajik and Turkic tongues.
In Middle Ages the Tajik speech was widely spread in the Syr-Darya basin, the Ferghana Valley, the valley of Chirchik - district of Tashkent, Zarafshon, Kashka-Darya, Surkhan-Darya. All the official documents of Khorezm shakh tekesh (1172-1200) for the population of the towns located along the lower reaches of the Syr-Darya were written in Tajik. The Tajik language prevails up to nowadays over the entire territory of the Historic Sughd - Bukhara, Samarkand, Karshi, Shahrisabz, Kitab, Chust, Pap, Khujand, Isfara, Konibodom, Ura-Tyube (“Основы иранского языкознания”, Москва. 1979, p.p. 45-49 “Foundations of Iranistics”).