Translations of Historical Works from Middle Persian into Arabic

This article maps the mainly lost Sasanian historiographical literature through the Arabic translations of Middle Persian works and the information preserved in early Arabic sources. Although only two texts have been preserved in the original Middle Persian, the Arabic sources reveal a sizeable corpus in translation.

TWO ARMENIAN PERSONAL NAMES WITH ŠAH ‘KING’

There are a great number of Armenian compound personal names with the element šah ‘king’ of Iranian origin (Middle Persian and New Persian šāh ‘king’). It occurs: (1) in both masculine and feminine names; (2) with both native Armenian and foreign components; (3) either as the first or the second component; (4) often in doublet forms with a reversed order of the components. For instance: masculine Šah-amir and Amir-šah, Šah-paron and Paron-šah, Vahram-šah; feminine: Šah-xat‘un and Xat‘un-šah, Šah-tikin. Also note masc. Šah-aziz vs. fem. Aziz-šah, masc․ Sult‘an-šah vs. fem. Šah-sult‘an, masc. Melik‘-šah vs. fem. Šah-melē/ik‘ (the latter is sometimes masculine, cf. Middle Persian > Syriac Šāh-malīk, also masculine ). This paper aims to interpret two hapax legomena in which the component šah became synchronically unanalyzable due to phonological changes. In one of them, šah is the second member of the name (gen. Artamšin < *Artam-šah/y-in), whereas in the other it is the first one (Šaštʻi < *Šah-stʻi ‘Šah-Lady’).

Iranisches Personennamenbuch Band V/Faszikel 3: Iranische Namen in Nebenüberlieferungen Indogermanischer Sprachen

The Iranian element is the largest layer of the Armenian borrowed lexicon. It comprises a period of more than 2.500 years starting from pre-Achaemenid times up to the modern period. Also the number of Armenian personal names of Iranian origin is quite large, roughly estimated one quarter of all Armenian personal names. The Armenian evidence is of vital importance for completing the Iranian onomasticon. In many cases, Middle Persian and Parthian namesakes of Armenian personal names are not directly attested. Besides, Armenian helps to determine the exact shape of Iranian names. The present fascicle of the "Iranisches Personennamenbuch" aims to collect and etymologically interpret all the Iranian personal names, which are attested in Armenian texts up to 1300 CE. Occasionally, it also comprises names that are attested at a later stage but are likely to belong to earlier periods, as well as younger forms that are related with older names and are therefore relevant for the philological or etymological discussion of the latter. The volume comprises 872 entries and includes (1) names of Iranian people of various kinds (kings, queens, princes, generals, etc.) that occur in Armenian texts, and (2) names of Iranian origin that were/are borne by Armenian people. It includes a huge range of new etymologies or corrected versions of pre-existing etymologies, as well as new names and corrected forms of names discovered in critical texts and voluminous corpora of inscriptions and colophons of Armenian manuscripts that have not been available for earlier researchers of the Armenian onomastics.

Parthian moγ and Middle Persian moγ/mow in Light of Earlier Eastern and Western Iranian Sources

The present article analyses the historical importance assumed by Parthian and Middle Persian moγ/mow (and related words) in the framework of the religious and administrative language of Late Antiquity despite its seemingly absolute absence in the Avestan Sprachgut. Although moγ should be reasonably considered as a word of (prominent) Western Iranian derivation, i.e. from Median and Old Persian magu-, the progressive phonetic evolution toward a spelling, such as that of early Parthian and Middle Persian *moγ(u)- created a fitting resonance with a rare Avestan word (in its turn probably nonexistent in the older strata of the language, if not even a Western loanword itself), specifically moγu-°, which is attested only in the Y.Av. compound moγu.tb̰ iš-. The rising weight assumed by the priestly college of the Magi in secular activities already during the Achaemenian period promoted the preservation of this title also after the diffusion of the Avestan liturgy in Western Iran. This development also ensured that the designation of *moγ(u)- became extended to the whole family of the Zoroastrian priests following the Avestan tradition.

Explorative Journey Through Hadith Collections

The article offers insight into a fresh way to utilise hadith collections beyond criticising their material in terms of their authenticity or discussing their implications for Islamic law. It builds on a digital corpus of collections to represent the wealth of canonical Sunni, Shia and Ibadite traditions. In this first exploration of this corpus, the interconnectedness of early Islamic Arabia with other parts of world is highlighted through an analysis of travelling words, proper names, and concrete objects in a few case studies organised into five sections by geographical area. These include translation, a Wanderwort, and contact through commerce and trade. The methods applied to analyse the material are those of historical and comparative linguistics. The results indicate that exploring linguistic aspects of hadith collections—notwithstanding editorial revision and their canonisation—can inform studies of language change in Arabic and set the course to research the standardisation of Arabic. Key words: Hadith Studies, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, Middle Persian, Southern Arabia, Late Antiquity

Contributions to a relative chronology of Persian

Old Persian shows a change of postconsonantal y, w to iy, uw, respectively. However, if one applies (pre-)Middle Persian sound changes to the Old Persian forms, the result is at variance with certain Middle Persian forms. If one were to assume a syncope reversing the Old Persian change of y, w to iy, uw, this would also affect old cases of iy, uw and likewise yield incorrect results for Middle Persian. The Old Persian change can thus not have operated in the prehistory of Middle Persian, and there is a dialectal difference between attested Old Persian and the later stages of the language, which is to be added to those already noted. The paper also discusses some sound changes that are connected to the Old Persian change in one way or the other. Cases in point are the processes called Epenthesis and Umlaut in previous scholarship, which this article suggests to interpret as occurring in different contexts and in different periods. The former is limited to Vry, which yields Vir and feeds into a monophthongisation that, as shown by some late Old Persian word forms, occurred within Achaemenid times, giving ēr and īr from ary and əry. Epenthesis did not occur in the prehistory of Parthian, whereas the monophthongisation did. The Appendix presents a tentative sequence of the processes discussed in this article, which is intended as a contribution to the relative chronology of Persian historical phonology.

The ‘Other’ gumēzišn. About the Final ‘Merger’ of Limited Time with Eternity

The Middle Persian (MP) verb gumēxtan, gumēz- [gwmyhtn', gymyc-], despite its Indo-Iranian and Indo-European origins, does not offer attestations in Avestan and Old Persian. This is a very peculiar fact, because in particular a nominal derivative of this verbal stem, gumēzišn [gwmyck'], became one of the most sensible technical terms adopted in the framework of the Mazdean cosmology and theology. We can briefly recall that the gumēzišn concerns the ‘state of mixture’, the mélange produced by the irruption of Ahreman in the primordial good creation of Ohrmazd, when he pierced the heavens and entered the world.