Early Indo-Europeans in Central Asia and China. Cultural relations as reflected in language
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Monograph |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The book presents new results of research of relations and development of languages in Central Asia and Northwestern China. In the most important part Tocharian loanwords in Chinese and vice versa are etymologically analysed with less certain cases or borrowings to/from another languages. In the next part new etymologies of Tocharian and Iranian metal-names (of copper, lead, silver, gold, iron) were proposed. Further the traces of Indo-European toponyms in „Altaicised“ Central Asia and also Sinicised Tarim Basin are analysed (Aral, Balchaš, Amudarja/Oxus, Zaravšan, Syrdarja/Iaxartes, Ili, Tarim, Lop Nur, Bagrash/Bostan, Barköl, Qilian/Kunlun, Pamir) and depicted on maps. In the largest part of the book research about the classification of Tocharian and Iranian languages within the Indo-European family as well as their inner relations (especially a new model of genetic classification of Iranian languages) was undertaken in the models of divergence, lexicostatistical analyses of Tocharian and Iranian languages and detailed study of inner development of Iranian. The conclusions confirm the relative chronology of disintegration of the Indo-European language family, where Anatolian and Tocharian were the first and second separated branches according to both lexicostatistically- and grammatically-based classification. Etymological study of toponyms bears witness to their Iranian or Tocharian origin, preceding their later Turkic or Chinese names. The eastermost border of both Tocharian and Iranian toponyms is the Chinese province Gansu. The study of mutual loanwords also brings new results, illustrating more intensive Tocharian-Chinese borrowing in both directions, than has been previously proposed. The Iranian influence on both Tocharian and Chinese was also stronger than has been previously proposed. Appendices: tables with lexical data for glottochronological analyses; developmental stages of Chinese, Sinitic, Sino-Tibetan, Uralic and Turkic languages; bibliography. |
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