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Tumshuqese
Saka, or Sakan, was a variety of Eastern Iranian languages, attested from the ancient Buddhist kingdoms of Khotan, Kashgar and Tumshuq in the Tarim Basin, in what is now southern Xinjiang, China. It is a Middle Iranian language. The two kingdoms differed in dialect, their speech known as Khotanese and Tumshuqese. The Saka rulers of the western regions of the Indian subcontinent, such as the Indo-Scythians and Western Satraps, spoke practically the same language. Documents on wood and paper were written in modified Brahmi script with the addition of extra characters over time and unusual conjuncts such as ''ys'' for ''z''. The documents date from the fourth to the eleventh century. Tumshuqese was more archaic than Khotanese, but it is much less understood because it appears in fewer manuscripts compared to Khotanese. The Khotanese dialect is believed to share features with the modern Wakhi and Pashto. Saka was known as "Hvatanai" in contemporary documents. Many Prakrit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scythian Languages
The Scythian languages ( or or ) are a group of Eastern Iranian languages of the classical antiquity, classical and late antiquity, late antique period (the Middle Iranian languages, Middle Iranian period), spoken in a vast region of Eurasia by the populations belonging to the Scythian cultures and their descendants. The dominant ethnic groups among the Scythian-speakers were nomadic pastoralists of Central Asia and the Pontic–Caspian steppe. Fragments of their speech known from inscriptions and words quoted in ancient authors as well as analysis of their names indicate that it was an Indo-European language, more specifically from the Iranian languages, Iranian group of Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian languages. Most of the Scythian languages eventually became extinct, except for modern Ossetian language, Ossetian (which descends from the Alanian dialect of Scytho-Sarmatian), Wakhi language, Wakhi (which descends from the Kingdom of Khotan, Khotanese and Tumxuk, Tumshuqe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saka
The Saka ( Old Persian: ; Kharoṣṭhī: ; Ancient Egyptian: , ; , old , mod. , ), Shaka (Sanskrit ( Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): , ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples who historically inhabited the northern and eastern Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin. "Modern scholars have mostly used the name Saka to refer specifically to Iranians of the Eastern Steppe and Tarim Basin" "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan to distinguish them from the related Massagetae of the Aral region and the Scythians of the Pontic steppes. These tribes spoke Iranian languages, and their chief occupation was nomadic pastoralism." The Sakas were closely related to the European Scythians, and both groups formed part of the wider Scythian cultures and ultimately derived from the earlier Andronovo culture, and the Saka language formed part of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of Khotan
The Kingdom of Khotan was an ancient Buddhist Saka kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang, China). The ancient capital was originally sited to the west of modern-day Hotan ( zh, c=和田) at Yotkan (Chinese: 约特干; pinyin: Yuētègàn). From the Han dynasty until at least the Tang dynasty it was known in Chinese as Yutian ( zh, t=于闐, , or ). This largely Buddhist kingdom existed for over a thousand years until it was conquered by the Muslim Kara-Khanid Khanate in 1006, during the Islamicisation and Turkicisation of Xinjiang. Built on an oasis, Khotan's mulberry groves allowed the production and export of silk and carpets, in addition to the city's other major products such as its famous nephrite jade and pottery. Despite being a significant city on the silk road as well as a notable source of jade for ancient China, Khotan itself is relatively small – the circumference ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastern Iranian Languages
The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times (from c. the 4th century BC). The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. As opposed to the Middle Western Iranian dialects, the Middle Eastern Iranian preserves word-final syllables. The largest living Eastern Iranian language is Pashto, with some 40-60 million speakers between the Oxus River in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan. The second-largest language is Ossetic language, Ossetic with roughly 600,000 speakers. All other languages have fewer than 200,000 speakers combined. Most living Eastern Iranian languages are spoken in a contiguous area, in southern and eastern Afghanistan as well as the adjacent parts of western Pakistan, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province of eastern Tajikistan, and the far west of Xinjiang Autonomous regions of China, region of China. There are also two living members in widely separated areas: the Yaghnobi langua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguistics), variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. Under this definition, the dialects or varieties of a particular language are closely related and, despite their differences, are most often largely Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, especially if close to one another on the dialect continuum. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class or ethnicity. A dialect that is associated with a particular social class can be termed a sociolect, a dialect that is associated with a particular ethnic group can be termed an ethnolect, and a geographical/regional dialect may be termed a regiolectWolfram, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indian Subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka."Indian subcontinent". ''Oxford Dictionary of English, New Oxford Dictionary of English'' () New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; p. 929: "the part of Asia south of the Himalayas which forms a peninsula extending into the Indian Ocean, between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Historically forming the whole territory of Greater India, the region is now divided into three countries named Bangladesh, India and Pakistan." The terms ''Indian subcontinent'' and ''South Asia'' are often used interchangeably to denote the region, although the geopolitical term of South Asia frequently includes Afghanist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Satraps
The Western Satraps, or Western Kshatrapas (Brahmi:, ''Mahakṣatrapa'', "Great Satraps") were Indo-Scythian (Saka) rulers of the western and central part of India ( Saurashtra and Malwa: modern Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh states), between 35 to 415 CE. The Western Satraps were contemporaneous with the Kushans who ruled the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, and were possibly vassals of the Kushans. They were also contemporaneous with the Satavahana (Andhra) who ruled in Central India. They are called "Western Satraps" in modern historiography in order to differentiate them from the "Northern Satraps", who ruled in Punjab and Mathura until the 2nd century CE. The power of the Western Satraps started to decline in the 2nd century CE after the Saka rulers were defeated by the Emperor Gautamiputra Satakarni of the Satavahana dynasty. After this, the Saka kingdom revived, but was ultimately destroyed by Chandragupta II of the Gupta Empire in the 4th cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wakhi Language
Wakhi (Wakhi: /В̌aхi, ) is an Indo-European language in the Eastern Iranian branch of the language family spoken today in Wakhan District, Northern Afghanistan and also in Tajikistan, Northern Pakistan and China. Classification and distribution Wakhi is one of several languages that belong to the areal Pamir language group. It is believed to be a descendant of the Scytho-Khotanese language that was once spoken in the Kingdom of Khotan. The Wakhi people are occasionally called Pamiris and Guhjali. It is spoken by the inhabitants of the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan, parts of Gilgit-Baltistan (the former NAs) of Pakistan, Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan and Xinjiang in Western China. The Wakhi use the self-appellation 'X̌ik' (ethnic) and suffix it with 'wor'/'war' to denote their language as 'X̌ik-wor' themselves. The noun 'X̌ik' comes from ''*waxša-ī̆ka-'' (an inhabitant of ''*Waxša-'' 'Oxus', for Wakhan, in Wakhi 'Wux̌'. There are other equivalents for the n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pashto
Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan alongside Dari,Constitution of Afghanistan ''Chapter 1 The State, Article 16 (Languages) and Article 20 (Anthem)''/ref> and it is the second-largest provincial language of Pakistan, spoken mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the northern districts of Balochistan. Likewise, it is the primary language of the Pashtun diaspora around the world. The total number of Pashto-speakers is at least 40 million, (40 million) although some estimates place it as high as 60 million. Pashto is "one of the primary markers of ethnic identity" amongst Pashtuns. Geographic distribution A national language of Afghanistan, Pashto is primarily spoken in the east, south, and southwest, but also in some northern and western parts of the country. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prakrit
The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usually applied to the middle period of Middle Indo-Aryan languages, excluding earlier inscriptions and the later Pali. ''Prākṛta'' literally means "natural", as opposed to ''saṃskṛta'', which literally means "constructed" or "refined". Prakrits were considered the regional spoken (informal) languages of people, and Sanskrit was considered the standardized (formal) language used for literary, official and religious purposes across Indian kingdoms of the subcontinent. Literary registers of Prakrits were also used contemporaneously (predominantly by śramaṇa traditions) alongside Classical Sanskrit of higher social classes. Etymology The dictionary of Monier Monier-Williams (1819–1899), and other modern authors however, interpret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest of the country at the crossroads of Central Asia and East Asia. Being the largest province-level division of China by area and the 8th-largest country subdivision in the world, Xinjiang spans over and has about 25 million inhabitants. Xinjiang borders the countries of Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The rugged Karakoram, Kunlun and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of Xinjiang's borders, as well as its western and southern regions. The Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract regions, both administered by China, are claimed by India. Xinjiang also borders the Tibet Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai. The most well-known route of the historic Silk Ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tocharian Languages
The Tocharian (sometimes ''Tokharian'') languages ( or ), also known as ''Arśi-Kuči'', Agnean-Kuchean or Kuchean-Agnean, are an extinct branch of the Indo-European language family spoken by inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, the Tocharians. The languages are known from manuscripts dating from the 5th to the 8th century AD, which were found in oasis cities on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (now part of Xinjiang in Northwest China) and the Lop Desert. The discovery of these languages in the early 20th century contradicted the formerly prevalent idea of an east–west division of the Indo-European language family as centum and satem languages, and prompted reinvigorated study of the Indo-European family. Scholars studying these manuscripts in the early 20th century identified their authors with the ''Tokharoi'', a name used in ancient sources for people of Bactria (Tokharistan). Although this identification is now believed to be mistaken, "Tocharian" remains the usual term for t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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