Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

Tag: Middle Persian

  • Calque and Loanword in Early ʿAbbāsid Time (750–800 CE)

    Calque and Loanword in Early ʿAbbāsid Time (750–800 CE)

    Abedi, Milad & Johannes Thomann. 2024. The emergence of Arabic scientific terminology at the eastern contact zone: Calque and loanword in early ʿAbbāsid time (750–800 CE). Asiatische Studien – Études Asiatiques 78(4). 705-717.

    Superstratum languages often become substratum languages after military defeats. This was the case with Middle Persian in the Islamic Empire. There were different phases of interference between Middle Persian and Arabic. For example, Middle Persian terms, especially in administration and technology, were borrowed into Arabic. Later, in the first decades of Abbasid rule, a new scientific terminology was developed in Arabic based on translations of Sanskrit and Middle Persian texts in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. Besides that, some scientific concepts of Chinese origin were received too. Most of these early Arabic scientific texts are lost, having been replaced later in the 3rd/9th century by translations of Greek scientific works. However, many fragments of them are preserved in secondary tradition, and such materials have been only partially studied. This paper will discuss cases of Arabic borrowings, including calques and loanwords from Sanskrit and Middle Persian.

  • A Military Origin for New Persian?

    Vaissière, Étienne de La. 2025. A military origin for New Persian? Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. Akadémiai Kiadó 78(3). 471–489.

    The question of the transition from Middle Persian to New Persian has been hotly debated. This article attempts to answer two questions: who spoke New Persian before it was put into writing in the middle of the 9th c.? This social group is identified with the soldiers of the armies of Abū Muslim, i.e. peasants from Marw
    and their descendants. They came during one century to the forefront of Abbasid political and administrative life and imposed their specific dialect as a political language, in the shadow of Arabic. The second question is: what could have been the origins of the spoken language in the Marw oasis of the first half of the 8th c.? The article tries to demonstrate, on a much more tentative basis, that the demographic history of an oasis twice manned by soldiers from the South, first Middle Persian-speaking ones and then Arabic ones, both groups added to the local, Parthian-speaking population, is well reflected in the unique combination of
    Middle Persian, Arabic and Parthian characteristic of Early New Persian. Early New Persian is the language of 8th c. Marw, or more generally Outer Khurāsān. This Marw hypothesis, based on the presence of Parthian vocabulary, is however very cautious, as nothing is known of the grammar of spoken late Middle Persian and many of the linguistic differences between Middle and New Persian might have evolved separately in different historical processes.

    Abstract

  • Studia Iranica (52/2)

    The new issue of Studia Iranica is out (volume 52, issue 2). Here is the table of contents:

    • En hommage à notre collègue et ami, cofondateur et premier codirecteur de Studia Iranica, membre du comité de rédaction, Philippe Gignoux 1er mars 1931, Solaize – 21 septembre 2023, Montmorillon
    • FATTORI, Marco: Avestan haēma and Middle Persian xēm ‘Character, Disposition’ On a Forgotten Line in the Iranian Xwaršēd Niyāyišn
    • GYSELEN, Rika: Aštād yazd-ayār, général du roi sassanide Husraw II Une trace sigillographique
    • NOURZAEI, Maryam: On Nominal and Pronominal Morphosyntax in Kholosi
    • DZITSTSOITY, Yuriy, FALILEYEV, Alexander: Ossetic qæbys / γæbes ‘Embrace’ and sæt / sætæ ‘Saliva’ Etymological Notes
    • RICHARD, Francis: Un témoignage inédit de la posterité de l’œuvre du peintre Behzād Collaboration ou émulation entre les peintres Qāsem-‘Ali et Behzād dans le Ketābḫāneh de Hérat
    • RYBÁR, Lukáš: Habsburg Intelligence on Safavid Persia. The Case of Michael Černović
    • GYSELEN, Rika: Philippe Gignoux (1931-2023)
    • Comptes rendus
  • The Frontier Pushes Back

    The Frontier Pushes Back

    Garosi, Eugenio. 2025. The frontier pushes back: From local languages to imperial substrate(s) in scribal practices in 8th-century Central Asia. Iranian Studies FirstView. 1–15.

    This article draws on documentary texts from multilingual archives of early Islamic Central Asia to illustrate connections between the Arabic and Middle Iranian scribal world. Here, I contend that some lesser-known evidence from Sogdia contributes new elements to current debates on the contact between Arabic and Middle Iranian scribal traditions and provides a measure of “intensity” of Arab rule in the region more generally. In particular, ostraca from various Transoxanian administrative centers provide documentary confirmation that a class of biliterate Arabic-Sogdian scribes was active in the local bureaucracy as early as the mid-8th century. When viewed in dialogue with archives from coeval Iran and Iraq, the Transoxanian evidence helps lead to a more nuanced understanding of the so-called “Pahlavi diplomatic substrate” model.

    Abstract
  • Studia Iranica (52/1)

    Studia Iranica (52/1)

    The new issue of Studia Iranica is out (volume 52, issue 1). Here is the table of contents:

    • Maryam NOURZAEI, Thomas JÜGEL: On the Function of -ag in Middle Persian. Evaluative Marker or Derivational Suffix?
    • Parviz MOHEBBI: Sweet Orange and Mandarin in Iran and India (14th-19th Centuries) with a Glimpse at Europe
    • Piero DONNINI: Khayyām Literacy among Turkman Copyists
    • Willem FLOOR: Trois Rapports inédits de fonctionnaires belges concernant l’occupation ottomane (1907) et russe (1911) du territoire iranien
    • Comptes rendus

  • New Readings in Seven Middle Persian Documents

    New Readings in Seven Middle Persian Documents

    Asefi, Nima. 2025. New readings in seven Middle Persian documents from the archive of Hastijan with an edition of Berk. 19. Berkeley Working Papers in Middle Iranian Philology 3(5). 1-19.

    This article proposes new readings and interpretations for parts of seven Middle Persian documents first published by Dieter Weber, namely: Berk. 80, Berk. 95, Berk. 43B, Tehran B, LA1, Berk. 149, and Berlin 28. It also provides the editio princeps of Berk. 19.

    Abstract

  • Middle Persian Documents

    Benfey, Thomas. 2025. Middle Persian documents and the making of the Islamic fiscal system: Problems and prospects. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 87(3). 395–420.

    This article charts a new course for the study of the Middle Persian documents from early Islamic Iran, which takes their early Islamic context into account more fully than has hitherto been done. This approach and its potential fruits for the study of early Islamic history are illustrated through an in-depth treatment of four seventh-century documents from the Qom region (previously edited and discussed by Dieter Weber), each of which contains a fiscal term that is apparently otherwise unattested in the documentary corpus. I show that the existing interpretations of these documents anachronistically project the fiscal terminology and structures of a later time into early Islamic Iran, and that these documents, considered in aggregate, suggest a certain course of development for the Islamic fiscal system in the post-Sasanian territories in the decades following the initial conquests: from broad and relatively unspecific impositions to more targeted exactions, based on increasingly detailed assessments.

    Abstract

  • Zarathustra in Pahlavi Literature

    Vassalli, Massimiliano. 2024. Zarathustra nella letteratura pahlavi: Il libro VII del Denkard (Testi del Vicino Oriente antico/Letteratura iranica, 3.1). Torino: Paideia.

    In this work, readers are introduced to the first Italian translation of the main Pahlavi source of the legend of Zarathustra, Chapter VII of the Dēnkard. This fundamental text of Zoroastrian literature, dating back to the early Islamic period (7th–10th century CE), narrates the biography of the Iranian “prophet” within the framework of the universal history of creation. The guiding thread of this account is the miracles performed by the divine word throughout the centuries, up until the end of time. The work, edited by Massimiliano Vassalli, contextualizes the Iranian text and its protagonist within the historical and cultural background of the period in which it was written and provides an Italian version accompanied by philological, historical, and literary explanatory notes.

  • Mani’s Living Gospel and the Ewangelyōnīg Hymns

    Shokri-Foumeshi, Mohammad (ed.). 2025. Mani’s Living Gospel and the Ewangelyōnīg hymns. Edition, reconstruction and commentary with a codicological and textual approach based on Manichaean Turfan fragments in the Berlin Collection (Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum. Series Iranica 3). Turnhout: Brepols.

    This work deals with the manuscript fragments of Maniʼs Living Gospel and the Ewangeliōnīg Hymns of his followers in the eastern Manichaean churches. The author identifies new fragments and improves the previous reconstructions. In this context, he analyzes all the Manichaean and non-Manichaean documents. This book is designed to enlarge our understanding of the Turfan texts by presenting new texts and interpretations.

    Summary

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Acknowledgements
     
    CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
    1.1 Aim, Plan, and Strategy
    1.2 Material and Content of the Living Gospel and Ewangelyōnīg Hymns
    1.3 Outline of This Study
    1.4 History of Prior Research

    (more…)

  • On Middle Persian Documents

    The 2nd Berkeley Workshop on Middle Persian Documents and Sealings

    This is the second workshop in a series that began in Spring 2023 with the idea of bringing together scholars around the world who were actively working on, or interested in working on Middle Persian documents and sealings. The workshop is organised by Adam Benkato (UC Berkeley) and Arash Zeini (University of Oxford).

    To attend the workshop, which takes place on Zoom, register here. The programme is below.

    Berkeley Workshop 2024Download