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35 - KHWARAZMIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

from PART 8 - LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

D. N. Mackenzie
Affiliation:
University of Göttingen
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Summary

Chorasmia, one of the provinces of the Achaemenian Empire (Huwārazmiš), which provided a “dark blue stone” (turquoise?) to adorn the palace of Darius at Susa, yet receives only a late mention by name in the Zoroastrian scriptures (Yasht x. 14, Xvāirizm). Many scholars, for various reasons, have explained this apparent eclipse of a flourishing country by declaring that Chorasmia was a part of the very heartland of the early Iranians, the airyanm vaējō “Aryan range” of the Avesta, later Ērānwēz of the Pahlavī books. Be that as it may, no word identified as Old Chorasmian has been preserved for us, apart from the name itself. Even the meaning of this is still disputed, though meaning it clearly has if we accept that the final element -zmī contains the word for “land”, Persian zamīn. One explanation which has not yet been seriously advanced is that the beginning of the name, Hwāra-, may have been the ancestor of Persian khvār “abject”, Kurdish khwār “down, low”, that in effect Chorasmia meant “Netherland”. Such a name would well fit the lands lying around and between the lower reaches of the rivers Oxus and Jaxartes, today the oasis of Khiva and the Qizil Qum desert, and ending on Shelley's

lone Chorasmian shore… a wide and melancholy waste of putrid marshes.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Iran
Seleucid Parthian
, pp. 1244 - 1249
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1983

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References

Benveniste, E., “L'Erān-vēž et l'origine légendaire des Iraniens”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental StudiesUniversity of London VII (1934).Google Scholar
Benzing, J. Das chwaresmische Sprachmaterial einer Handschrift der “Muqaddimat al-Adab” von Zamaxšarī 1. Text. Wiesbaden, 1968; with full bibliography to date.Google Scholar
Frejman, A. A. Xorezmijskij jazyk. Materialy iissledovanija. Moscow–Leningrad 1951.Google Scholar
Henning, , “The structure of the Khwarezmian verb”, Asia Major V (1956).Google Scholar
Henning, W. B.The Choresmian Documents”, Asia Major XI (1965).Google Scholar
Henning, W. B. A fragment of a Khwarezmian dictionary, ed. by MacKenzie, D. N.. London, 1971 (Tehran University Publications 1317); listing previous articles.Google Scholar
Livshits, V. A.The Khwarezmian calendar and the eras of Ancient Chorasmia”, Acta antiqua academiae scuntiarum Hungaricae (Budapest) XVI (1968).Google Scholar
MacKenzie, D. N.The Khwarezmian glossary I–V”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental (and African) Studies (University of London) XXXIII (1970), XXXIV (1971), XXXV (1972).Google Scholar
Togan, Zeki Velidi. Documents on Khorezmian Culture, Part 1. Muqaddimat al-Adab, with the translation in Khorezmian. Istanbul, 1951.Google Scholar
Tolstov, F. P. and Livshits, V. A.Decipherment and interpretation of the Khwarezmian inscriptions from Tok Kala”, Acta antiqua academiae scuntiarum Hungaricae (Budapest) XII (1964).Google Scholar

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