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The Sogdian language is an extinct Middle Iranian language that was spoken in Sogdiana (Zarafshan River Valley), located in modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (chief cities: Samarkand, Panjakent, Fergana).

Sogdian is one of the most important Middle Iranian languages with a large literary corpus, standing next to Middle Persian and Parthian. It was the language of trade in all of Central Asia (Transoxiana) and was the lingua franca of Chinese and Iranian traders. The language belongs to the Northeastern branch of Iranian languages. No evidence of an earlier version of the language (*Old Sogdian) have been found, although the mention of the area in Old Persian inscriptions means that a separate and recognisable Sogdiana existed since at least the Achaemenid era (ca. 550-323 BCE). Sogdian possesses a more conservative grammar and morphology than Middle Persian.

The economic and political importance of the language guaranteed its survival in the first few centuries after the conquest of Sogdiana by the Muslims in the early eighth century CE. The fact that the earliest texts of Modern Persian have been written in the territory of Sogdiana under the patronage of Samanid Kings means that many Sogdian words have entered Modern Persian as well. Only a dialect of Sogdian, called Yaghnobi language, has survived into the 21st century and is spoken by the mountain dwellers of the Yaghnob valley.

Like all the writing systems employed for Middle Iranian languages, Sogdian script ultimately derives from Aramaic. Like its close relative the Pahlavi writing system, written Sogdian also contains many logograms or ideograms, which were Aramaic words written to represent native spoken ones. Various Sogdian pieces, almost entirely religious works of Manichaean and Christian writers, have also been found in the Turfan text corpus. Sogdian script is the direct ancestor of Uyghur script, itself the forerunner of the Mongolian script.

Sample Sogdian text (transliteration): MN sγwδy-k MLK’ δy-w’šty-c ’t x’xsrc xwβw ’pšwnw δrwth γ-rβ nm’cyw

Word-by-word translation: From Sogdiana's King Dewashtic to Khakhsar's Khuv Afshun, (good) health (and) many salutation...

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More spoken articles

   

• Iranian Language Family
• Introduction to Sogdian by P. Oktor Skjærvø
• Sogdian
• Sogdian Dictionary