This work contains the first systematic investigation of the linguistic contacts between Tocharian A and B and Khotanese and Tumshuqese, four languages once spoken in the Tarim Basin, in today’s... Show moreThis work contains the first systematic investigation of the linguistic contacts between Tocharian A and B and Khotanese and Tumshuqese, four languages once spoken in the Tarim Basin, in today’s Xīnjiāng Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. The main part of the book is devoted to determining a corpus of reliable Khotanese and Tumshuqese loanwords in Tocharian: new borrowing etymologies are proposed, and some old correspondences are rejected. The discussion of the individual loanwords often involves a fresh examination of the text passages where they occur, and, in some cases, it offers lexical insights regarding a variety of neighbouring languages (Chinese, Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian, Gāndhārī and Old Uyghur). A detailed phonological, morphological, and semantic analysis of the corpus follows, with a view to determine the phonological correspondences, the relative chronology of the loanwords and possible historical scenarios of cultural exchange. One of the results of this investigation is that the influence of Khotanese and Tumshuqese on Tocharian was much more extensive than previously thought and it spanned over almost two millennia, from the early Iron Age until the extinction of the four languages at the end of the first millennium CE. Show less
This book is a synchronic description of the syntax of Sarikoli, an Eastern Iranian and Pamir language spoken exclusively in China. It is the first modern linguistic description of Sarikoli... Show moreThis book is a synchronic description of the syntax of Sarikoli, an Eastern Iranian and Pamir language spoken exclusively in China. It is the first modern linguistic description of Sarikoli syntax in English. The approach is theory-neutral, presenting and describing language data with commonly-accepted linguistic terminology. It includes copious linguistic examples transcribed in IPA accompanied by morpheme glosses and free translations. The entire corpus of texts and all linguistic research were gathered and conducted in the field by the researcher in cooperation with native speakers of Sarikoli. The introductory chapter provides an overview of the Sarikoli people and language in their geographical, historical, and cultural context. The typological profile, sociolinguistic situation, and previous research conducted on the language are discussed, along with short summaries on phonology, morphology, and verbs. The following chapters focus on different topics in the syntax of Sarikoli: noun phrase, pronouns and demonstratives, possession, comparison, adverbial modifiers, mood, clause structure, negation, clause combinations, modality, and evidentiality and new information. The concluding chapter introduces routine phrases and expressions. The appendices include transcripts of oral texts covering a wide range of genre and topics, as well as an orthography proposed by a native Sarikoli scholar. Show less
With the end of the reign of the Manchus who governed the Chinese Empire for three centuries, and with the advent of the Republic (1911), the minority issue took on a dimension impossible to... Show moreWith the end of the reign of the Manchus who governed the Chinese Empire for three centuries, and with the advent of the Republic (1911), the minority issue took on a dimension impossible to imagine in 19th-century China. Aware of the fragility of national cohesion in this immense land of heterogeneous population groups, Sun Yatsen, founder of the Republic, still minimized the influence of minorities, affirming the supremacy of the Han, the majority ethnic group and founders of one of the first Chinese dynasties. The question of numbers quickly became a focus of debate. Proclaiming that, of a population total of 400 million inhabitants at the time, the minorities represented only slightly more than 10 million, Sun Yatsen implicitly called upon them to disappear into the Chinese melting pot. The statistics published at the time, however, contradicted the President's assertions by listing 26 million non-Han Chinese. Show less
