The Middle Iranian Fragments in Sogdian Script from the Mannerheim Collection

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Iranian fragments from the Ōtani collection (Facsimile series of rare texts in the Library of Ryūkoku University, 17), 2 vols., Hōzōkan, Kyoto, 1997. [in Japanese]

An exemplary edition of the Middle Iranian fragments of the Ōtani collection. The main part of Vol. 1 consists of an edition by Sundermann and Yoshida. In addition to Western Middle Iranian and Sogdian texts in Sogdian and Manichean script, a few fragments of non-Iranian texts in Sogdian script are included: Sanskrit dhāraṇīs on pp. 85-6, a Chinese text on p. 153. Kudara’s introduction includes a study of the Chinese (and occasionally Turkish) texts on the other side of the fragments. Since t..

« Manichaean Sogdian and Uighur letters recently unearthed in Bezeklik, Turfan ». Studies on the Inner Asian languages 15 (2000), pp. 135-178 [in Japanese].

Partial Japanese version of n° 22, including Yoshida’s edition and translation of the three Sogdian letters A-C (without commentary, glossary or plates) and Moriyasu’s edition and translation of the Uighur letters D-H

Iranian fragments from the Ōtani collection (Facsimile series of rare texts in the Library of Ryūkoku University, 17), 2 vols., Hōzōkan, Kyoto, 1997. [in Japanese]

An exemplary edition of the Middle Iranian fragments of the Ōtani collection. The main part of Vol. 1 consists of an edition by Sundermann and Yoshida. In addition to Western Middle Iranian and Sogdian texts in Sogdian and Manichean script, a few fragments of non-Iranian texts in Sogdian script are included: Sanskrit dhāraṇīs on pp. 85-6, a Chinese text on p. 153. Kudara’s introduction includes a study of the Chinese (and occasionally Turkish) texts on the other side of the fragments. Since t..

Another Sogdian-Chinese bilingual epitaph

AbstractTwo stone tablets in the Wangye Museum, Shenzhen, contain a bilingual Sogdian and Chinese epitaph for a Sogdian merchant and his wife, who lived in the northern Chinese city of Ye 鄴 in the late sixth centuryce. The two texts are published here for the first time and accompanied by a detailed commentary on philological and historical points of interest.</jats:p

« Präteritum und Perfekt im Soghdischen ». Indogermanische Forschungen 102, (1997), pp. 199-205. [The preterite and perfect in Sogdian]

The author shows how the distribution of forms of the preterite (traditionally « imperfect ») and perfect (in my terminology « preterite » !) varies from one Sogdian text to another, the difference being attributed to a gradual replacement of the preterite by the perfect, first in the spoken and later in the written language.  On the form [Lʾ] nʾyrt « he did not plan » in the parable of the two snakes (p. 204 fn.) see Sims-Williams, MSS 56, 1996, p. 176 (probably a historic present)

« Iṣṭilāḥī falsafī dar adabīyāt-e suġdī-ye būdāyī ». Nāme-ye Farhangestān, 4, 1 (1377/1998) [1999], pp. 84-94. [A philosophical term in Buddhist Sogdian literature]

On the multiple meanings of Sogdian rm < Buddhist Sanskrit dharma

« A second text of the Sogdian Viśeṣacinti-brahma-paripṛcchā-sūtra », Studies on the Inner Asian Languages, 13 (1998), pp. 111-128, pl. XXII-XXIII.

Edition, with translation, notes, word-list and excellent photographs, of the fragments So 10650 (16) = T I D and So 10650 (17). Like another manuscript of this work previously published by the same authors (see Abs. Ir., 15-16, n° 131), the Sogdian text is translated from the Chinese version of Kumārajīva.  Pl. XXIII is wrongly titled: it should be So 10650 (16) /R/, not /V/

« Zur grammatisch-semantischen Bestimmung einiger Lemmata des sogdischen Lexicons ». Studia Manichaica. IV. Internationaler Kongreß zum Manichäismus, Berlin, 14-18 Juli 1997 (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berichte und Abhandlungen, Sonderband 4, ed. R. E. Emmerick, W. Sundermann & P. Zieme), Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 2000, pp. 639-647. [On the grammatical and semantic definition of some Sogdian words]

W. makes some valid observations on the grammatical functions of the Sogdian conjunction ʾty and copula xcy/ ʿycy. His remarks on their etymologies are less convincing. With regard to ʾty (and ṭwṭy) one misses a reference to Sims-Williams, BSOAS 48, 1, (1985), pp. 111-114. As for xcy and ʿycy, W. assumes that -cy is of pronominal origin but fails to identify a suitable pronoun. He dismisses the possibility that the spelling -yštʾy in the Sogdian version of the Ašǝm vohū prayer may represent t..