À la grecque comme à la grecque - The Greek Kandahar Inscriptions as a case study in Indo-Greek language contact during the Hellenistic Period

Schoubben, N.

This paper deals with the cultural and linguistic contacts that once existed between Greece and India, after the conquests of Alexander the Great in the regions of Bactria and the Indus Valley. I focus on the Kandahar Inscriptions, which are the Greek translations of some of the Aśoka-inscriptions, thus being a case study of the contacts between these two fundamental linguistic and cultural traditions. I will reconsider several features of these (bilingual) inscriptions, using, in particular, the recent achievements and rich apparatus of the academic fields of contact linguistics and sociolinguistics. Doing so, this paper will also contribute to the study of Indo-Greek cultural contact in general. I will argue that Indo-Greek contact during the Hellenistic Period, for the most time, needs to be interpreted as an adstratum relationship. Based on my analysis of the Middle Indo-Aryan borrowings in the Greek texts and some grammatical phenomena I will investigate, I will argue that...Show moreThis paper deals with the cultural and linguistic contacts that once existed between Greece and India, after the conquests of Alexander the Great in the regions of Bactria and the Indus Valley. I focus on the Kandahar Inscriptions, which are the Greek translations of some of the Aśoka-inscriptions, thus being a case study of the contacts between these two fundamental linguistic and cultural traditions. I will reconsider several features of these (bilingual) inscriptions, using, in particular, the recent achievements and rich apparatus of the academic fields of contact linguistics and sociolinguistics. Doing so, this paper will also contribute to the study of Indo-Greek cultural contact in general. I will argue that Indo-Greek contact during the Hellenistic Period, for the most time, needs to be interpreted as an adstratum relationship. Based on my analysis of the Middle Indo-Aryan borrowings in the Greek texts and some grammatical phenomena I will investigate, I will argue that the inscriptions are a good example of the sociolinguistic adstratum relationship between Greek and Middle Indo-Aryan.Show less

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À la grecque comme à la grecque - The Greek Kandahar Inscriptions as a case study in Indo-Greek language contact during the Hellenistic Period