Van Bladel 2021 The Language of the Xūz and the Fate of Elamite (link) (original) (raw)
Related papers
On the later phase of Elamite-Iranian language contact
Loanwords and Substrata, Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft. Innsbruck: Universität Innsbruck, 2020
It is generally believed that Persian tribes migrated to the Iranian plateau in the late second millennium BCE, at a time when the region had long been under the sway of an Elamite population. Because of the location of Persian settlements in the Iranian plateau, contact between Iranians and the local Elamite people was inevitable. Persian and Elamite populations were in contact for up to 500 years before the emergence of the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the former eastern Elamite territories. The Elamite language was adopted and strongly reshaped by speakers of Old Iranian, who probably acquired Elamite as a second language for the purpose of writing and perhaps for communication with native Elamites. The latest documented phase of the Elamite language is known as (royal) Achaemenid Elamite. The nature of the impact of Old Iranian on it goes beyond the adoption of loanwords, and includes morphological restructuring. The main body of evidence for this evolution comes from a considerable collection of clay tablets written in Elamite that constitutes the Persepolis Fortification Archive dated the reign of Darius I. Based on these considerations, the present paper will discuss examples of language contact between Persians and Elamites. This paper analyzes the Old Persian and Elamite versions of multilingual royal inscriptions in the Achaemenid royal necropolis, Naqsh-e Rostam in order to further elucidate the nature of language contact between Old Iranian and Elamite.
Navigating Persian: the Travels and Tribulations of Middle Iranian Languages
Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World: Multilingualism and Language Change in the First Centuries of Islam, 2024
New Persian is commonly presented as an anomaly, particularly vis-a-vis Arabic. Nationalistic readings of Iranian history present it as a sign of national unity and "resistance" against Islam and the Arabic language. However, it has been also called the Second Language of Islam. The present article provides a glimpse of the transition from Middle Persian to New Persian in light of the political and social changes in the early Islamic period and proposes one reason for why the language appears first in Central Asia, not in south or southwest Iran, as one might have expected it.
Studia Mesopotamica, 2017
I) The sign NIM, used with a topographic value, is first attested without any doubt through Eanatum inscriptions (KUR NIMki), who ruled Lagaš around the third quarter of the 3rd millennium BC. It is proposed to consider as unsuitable the systematic translation of this sign by ‘Elam’, at least in 3rd millennium BC Mesopotamian texts. The different meanings and values of this sign are reviewed here, in a strictly chronological way, and more particularly the changing topographic reality this sign encompassed. II) Then the distribution area of the ‘Elamite’ language speakers will be examined, through an evaluation of the onomastic features (above all anthroponomy) available in the cuneiform texts. Finally, hypotheses about Susa will be proposed, distinguishing three different and independent spheres of data: the material assemblage (archaeology), records of political control and indications of linguistic / cultural identity.
This article approaches the nature of Classical Arabic from the ideological discourse about it. More specifically, it investigates the controversy about " pure " and " Arabized " Arabs which was raised during the Umayyad period. The paper claims that underlying this controversy was an attempt by northern and southern Arabians to appropriate the symbolic capital of the sacred language. The tribal genealogies developed during the same period are also claimed to reflect political alliances. A third claim made in this connection is that Basran and Kufan grammarians were probably also involved indirectly by selecting data on which they based their linguistic analyses.
JNSL 46/1, 2020
This contribution examines an interdisciplinary approach to the historical characterization of the Hebrew language during the Persian period – a pivotal stage in the Bible’s development. We rely on a variety of sources to outline the historical context of the linguistic milieu in this era, and bring linguistic evidence from epigraphy for the multiglotic situation in the southern and central parts of Palestine during this period. Furthermore, building on Marc Bloch’s historical method, we describe the ancient reality through the comparative perspective of modern Arabic Palestinian dialects from the same geographical expanse. These observations lead us to conceptualized LBH as literary embodiment of a multi-lingual historical reality.