Agnes Korn

Notes on the nominal system of Bashkardi

This article studies the nominal system and noun phrase of Bashkardi, a language of the Iranian family spoken in Southern Iran in the region of Bashakerd. Bashkardi is a very little studied language, and is in particular need of being documented because it is a minority language endangered by heavy influence from Persian. The article is based on recordings made by Ilya Gershevitch in 1956. In discussing the Bashkardi nominal system, I compare it to that of geographically or historically neighbouring languages such as Balochi, spoken nearby in the province (and also in the form of the Koroshi dialect spoken in Fars province to the west). From a historical perspective, Middle Persian and Parthian, the only two Western Iranian languages attested from Middle Iranian times, are adduced to elucidate the development of the Bashkardi nominal system. I argue that the nominal system of Bashkardi agrees with Persian and other Western Ir. languages in having lost the distinction between direct and oblique case (preserved in Kurmanji, Balochi etc.), but that a trace of the oblique case might be present in the possessive marker -ī. Like Middle Persian, Bashkardi employs adpositions to mark syntactic relations, but none of these is used in a systematic way as of yet.

A New Locative Case in Turkmenistan Balochi

The Balochi dialect spoken in Turkmenistan possesses a case which is not seen in most other Balochi dialects. It has local/directive function, and its marker is a suffix that shows the oblique case marker suffixed to the genitive ending. The “locative” is also found in the Balochi dialect of Afghanistan, but here, the local deixis appears to always refer to a person. I argue that the locative may be interpreted within a typological framework implying that local deixis referring to persons is blocked in some languages. Instead, these languages use periphrastic constructions of the type “at a persons [place]”, as do English (e.g. at the bakers) and Old Georgian, among others. In Turkmenistan Balochi, areal influence from Russian and Turkmen, which have a separate locative case, may have played a role in the generalisation of the locative to include inanimates as well.

A partial tree of Central Iranian: A new look at Iranian subphyla

Abstract Relations within the Iranian branch of Indo-European have traditionally been modelled by a tree that is essentially composed of binary splits into sub- and sub-subbranches. The first part of this article will argue against this tree and show that it is rendered outdated by new data that have come to light from contemporary and ancient languages. The tree was also methodologically problematic from the outset, both for reasons of the isoglosses on which it is based, and for not taking into account distinctions such as shared innovations vs. shared archaisms. The second part of the paper will present an attempt at an alternative tree for Iranian by proposing a subbranch which I will call “Central Iranian”. Such a branch seems to be suggested by a set of non-trivial morphological innovations shared by Bactrian, Parthian and some neighbouring languages. The reconstruction of the nominal system of Central Iranian which will then be proposed aims to show the result one arrives at when trying to reconstruct a subbranch as strictly bottom-up as possible, i. e. using only the data from the languages under study, and avoiding profitting from Old Iranian data and from our knowledge about the proto-languages.

Arménien karmir , sogdien krmʾyr et hébreu karmīl « rouge »

L’armenien karmir « rouge » est generalement considere comme un des mots qui demontrent l’existence d’une relation entre l’armenien et le sogdien, langue moyen-iranienne orientale parlee a une distance considerable de l’armenien. Pour l’origine de l’hebreu karmīl on a cependant evoque un mot moyen perse « karmīr ». En tout cas, l’etymologie de ces termes serait l’indo-europeen *kwṛmi- « ver » (soit directement, soit par emprunt au sanskrit), et la designation de la couleur en serait derivee d’une facon parallele au francais « vermeil », renvoyant donc a un colorant produit par des cochenilles. Je propose que le mot karmīr n’est pas un mot regulier pour le « rouge » en moyen perse, que le sogdien n’est probablement pas la source des mots armenien et hebreu, et qu’une origine indienne n’est pas probable non plus a cause de la specificite du colorant rouge utilise en Inde. En revanche, le vermeil d’Armenie etait celebre dans l’Antiquite. Pour l’origine de karmir, les donnees historiques en combinaison avec celles de la linguistique suggerent donc une langue iranienne parlee dans la region qui etait l’Armenie dans l’Antiquite.

Footnotes on a Parthian sound change

The treatment of Proto-Iranian *θw (PIE *tu is one of the isoglosses distinguishing Middle Persian from Parthian and thus important for Western Iranian dialectology. The re-discussion of the Parthian development of this consonant cluster by Nicholas Sims-Williams presents a welcome opportunity for some notes on the matter. I will argue that there is some additional evidence in favour of his suggestion that the Parthian result is not -f- as previously assumed, but a consonant cluster. I will also suggest a modification of the steps that the development takes. The Middle Persian development of *θw as well as some related issues of historical phonology and Pth. orthography and Western Ir. are likewise discussed.

Parthian seen from a Balochi perspective

This paper argues that the interpretation of Parthian material can profit from the comparison with contemporary North Western Iranian languages. As an example, it contrasts the phonology and etymology of some Parthian words with evidence from Balochi, which leads to transcriptions and sound changes not previously assumed for Parthian.

Parthian Month Names and Calendars.

Although the Parthians were speakers of an Iranian language, administrative and official documents from the time of their reign (the Arsacid period) are in the vast majority in other languages, e.g. in Greek and Babylonian, and accordingly use the Macedonian and Babylonian calendars. A certain number of texts in the Parthian language are also preserved. Calendrical terms found in these documents are taken from the so-called ‘Zoroastrian calendar’. Many varieties of this calendar, which names the months and days after deities of the Zoroastrian religion, have been used throughout the millenia and in various Iranian languages, ranging from Old Persian of the Achaemenid period to the Persian calendar of present-day Iran. The systems according to which dates of the Zoroastrian calendar are calculated has varied considerably, depending on the cultural context. For instance, the Zoroastrian calendar patterned on the Babylonian lunisolar year in the Achaemenid period at least for administrative purposes, while in Sasanian times, it referred to a year of 365 days. The origin of the ‘Zoroastrian calendar’ and its use in Sasanian and later times (involving a number of complex calendar reforms) has received a considerable amount of attention while it is not quite clear yet how it was used in the « ill-documented Seleucid and Parthian periods » (Boyce 1983, 792). The aim of this paper is to investigate the use of the Zoroastrian calendar in Arsacid times, and to try to fi nd out whether it patterned on one of the other calendars used at that time, or followed a diff erent system. It will specifi cally discuss the hypothesis that, at least for administrative purposes, the Parthian Zoroastrian calendar might have patterned on the Macedonian one, which was used by the same administration for the same purposes, including dates on the Arsacid coins. The discussion will limit itself to a discussion of the relevant Parthian texts, and to exploring which conclusions they permit, or do not permit, about the calendar involved.