The exciting recent developments in our understanding of the history of the Indo-Iranian languages and their speakers are surveyed and assessed by a group of internationally renowned linguists and archaeologists.
In the last few years the materials available for the study of the older Indo-Iranian languages have increased dramatically: there have been sensational discoveries of birch-bark scrolls bearing Buddhist texts in the Gandhari language of north-west India, and of leather documents in Bactrian, the ancient language of northern Afghanistan. Previously known data has been exploited in new ways using innovative techniques for compiling, manipulating and disseminating electronic text and digital images. And archaeological finds in India, Pakistan and Central Asia, including the ‘Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex’, have given rise to new hypotheses concerning the history and pre-history of the Indo-Iranian peoples.
The volume also pays tribute to the pioneer work of the great philologist Sir Harold Bailey (1899–1996). Readership: Scholars and students of Indo-Iranian languages and culture; archaeology and early history of India, Afghanistan and Central Asia; early Buddhism
The volume is edited by Nicholas Sims-Williams, Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and a Fellow of the British Academy.
The volume arises from a conference held in December 1999, to mark the centenary of the birth of Sir Harold Bailey FBA. | CONTENTS - Preface
- Ronald E Emmerick, Hunting the hapax: Sir Harold W. Bailey (1899-1996)
- J P Mallory, Archaeological models and Asian Indo-Europeans
- Asko Parpola, From the dialects of Old Indo-Aryan to Proto-Indo-Aryan and Proto-Iranian
- Almuth Degener, The Nuristani languages
- Richard Salomon, Gandhari and the other Indo-Aryan languages in the light of newly-discovered Kharosthi manuscripts
- K R Norman, Pali and the languages of early Buddhism
- O von Hinüber, The vocabulary of Buddhist Sanskrit: Problems and perspectives
- Jost Gippert, The Avestan language and its problems
- Alexander Lubotsky, Scythian elements in Old Iranian
- Frantz Grenet, Regional interaction in Central Asia and Northwest India in the Kidarite and Hephthalite periods
- Nicholas Sims-Williams, Ancient Afghanistan and its invaders: Linguistic evidence from the Bactrian documents and inscriptions
- Georges-Jean Pinault, Tocharian and Indo-Iranian: relations between two linguistic areas
- Ilya Gershevitch, Professor Sir Harold Bailey: An appreciation
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