In this article we provide a new edition of the Byzantine treatise on Greek dialects known under the name Grammaticus Leidensis, in its earliest recoverable form, together with a discussion of the... Show moreIn this article we provide a new edition of the Byzantine treatise on Greek dialects known under the name Grammaticus Leidensis, in its earliest recoverable form, together with a discussion of the most unusual and intriguing features of this concise treatise. Show less
It is generally accepted that the etymology of the Gāndhārī and Sanskrit official title guśura(ka)- has to be sought within the Iranian sphere, but the details remain debatable. In this article, I... Show moreIt is generally accepted that the etymology of the Gāndhārī and Sanskrit official title guśura(ka)- has to be sought within the Iranian sphere, but the details remain debatable. In this article, I first give an overview of recently discovered evidence for an early sound change of *w- > *γw- in some Iranian dialects from the Indo-Iranian borderlands. On this basis, I then propose to derive guśura(ka)- from a dialect form such as *γwazurg / *γwuzurg / *γuzurg < *wazr̥ka- ‘strong’. Two by-products of this article are a new Bactrian etymology for the Gāndhārī personal name G̱aṇavhryaka and some notes on the etymology of the Gāndhārī title sturaka-*. Show less
The hitherto obscure Gāndhārī word kṣabura- should be compared with the famous Middle Persian title/name /šā(h)buhr/ ‘son of the king’ and has been borrowed from one of the Iranian-speaking groups... Show moreThe hitherto obscure Gāndhārī word kṣabura- should be compared with the famous Middle Persian title/name /šā(h)buhr/ ‘son of the king’ and has been borrowed from one of the Iranian-speaking groups that have invaded Gāndhāra, such as the Indo-Scythians or the Indo-Parthians. The Gāndhārī kṣabura- still preserves the initial *xš- in the Iranian word, which is in accord with its ultimate etymology from *xšāyaθiya-puθra-. Show less
Late Sanskrit lardayati ‘to load’ is probably not inherited from a PIE root *lerd-, as has recently been argued by Kaczyńska (2020), but can be explained as a denominative of *larda- ‘load, cargo’.... Show moreLate Sanskrit lardayati ‘to load’ is probably not inherited from a PIE root *lerd-, as has recently been argued by Kaczyńska (2020), but can be explained as a denominative of *larda- ‘load, cargo’. This noun *larda- could be a borrowing from Bactrian *λιρτο /lirtə/ ‘load, cargo’ < Old Iranian *dr̥šta-. This etymology fits well with the fact that lardayati is phrased together with sthora- ‘pack-animal’, likely another instantiation of the Iranian collocation of *staura- ‘animal’ and *√darz- ‘to load’, for which I discuss evidence from Niya Prakrit, Parthian and Khotanese. In addition, further support is drawn from the independent historical evidence for the domination of the main trade routes of Central and South Asia by the Kuṣāṇa dynasty in the first centuries of our era. Show less
When compared to Old Indo-Aryan (OIA) and other Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) languages, the marking of the second person in Niya Prakrit differs in two crucial respects. On the one hand, Niya Prakrit... Show moreWhen compared to Old Indo-Aryan (OIA) and other Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) languages, the marking of the second person in Niya Prakrit differs in two crucial respects. On the one hand, Niya Prakrit makes use of a pronoun tusya/ tus̱a ‘you’ that is not found in the other languages. On the other hand, Niya Prakrit has a verbal ending -tu (-du) as a second person marker on top of the old 2SG ending -si (-s̱i) and the 2PL ending -tha. This paper argues that these two peculiarities are related to one another and that both the pronoun and the verbal ending have not been properly described in earlier scholarship. First, it will be claimed that tusya (tus̱a) is not a genitive singular (GEN.SG), as previously thought, but a direct plural (DIR.PL). As a consequence, a new etymology for this pronoun will be offered too. Second, this article presents various arguments that -tu (-du) is not a 2SG ending, but a 2PL. Show less
The interpretation of the Niya Prakrit grapheme is an unsolved problem of the Kharoṣṭhī script. This article will argue that, at least in most cases, it represents Bactrian /šk/. After a brief note... Show moreThe interpretation of the Niya Prakrit grapheme is an unsolved problem of the Kharoṣṭhī script. This article will argue that, at least in most cases, it represents Bactrian /šk/. After a brief note on the palaeography of the akṣara and its attestations in other forms of Gāndhārī, Bactrian etymologies will be proposed for some Niya Prakrit words containing this grapheme. As some of these words have been considered before key witnesses to the Tocharian C hypothesis (Burrow 1935b; 1937: vii-ix), this renewed understanding of has broader consequences for the issue of the linguistic substrate in Niya Prakrit. Show less
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... 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
