Sogdian alphabet
Encyclopedia
The Sogdian alphabet was originally used for the Sogdian language
, a language in the Iranian family used by the people of Sogdiana
. The alphabet is derived from Syriac
, the descendant script of the Aramaic alphabet
. The Sogdian alphabet is one of three scripts used to write the Sogdian language, the others being the Manichaean alphabet and the Syriac alphabet
. It was used throughout Central Asia
, from the edge of Iran
in the west, to China
in the east, from approximately 100-1200 C.E.
, but it also displays tendencies towards an alphabet
. The script consists of 17 consonants, many of which have alternate forms for initial, middle, and final position. As in Aramaic, long vowels were commonly written with the consonants aleph
, yodh and waw
. However, unlike Aramaic and most abjads, these consonant signs would also sometimes serve to express the short vowels (which could also sometimes be left unexpressed as in the parent systems). To disambiguate long vowels from short ones, an additional aleph could be written before the sign denoting the long vowel. The alphabet also includes several diacritics, which were used inconsistently. It is written from right to left, but by the time it had evolved into its child system, the Old Uyghur alphabet
, it had been rotated 90 degrees, written vertically in columns from left to right. Voiced and voiceless fricatives are consistently not distinguished in the script.
Aramaic
logogram
s also appear in the script, remnants of adapting the Aramaic writing system to the Sogdian language. These logograms are used mainly for functional words such as pronouns, articles, prepositions, and conjunctions.
there was found inscribed Sogdian alphabet, so we can suppose alphabetisation rules - they are the same as in Aramaic alphabet
, but the letter Lāmadh
is repeated at the end of the alphabet for values δ, θ.
* those letters are not used in Sogdian words.
scriptures; and the so-called "Uyghur" cursive script (not to be confused with the Old Uyghur alphabet
). Early Sogdian dates to the early fourth century C.E., and is characterized by distinct, separated graphemes. The sutra script appears around 500 C.E., while the cursive script develops approximately a century later. The cursive script is thus named because its letters are connected with a base line. Since many letters in the cursive script are extremely similar in form, to the point of being indistinguishable, it is the most difficult to read of the three varieties. As the Sogdian alphabet became more cursive and more stylized, some letters became more difficult to distinguish, or were distinguished only in final position, e.g. n and z.
, Manichaeism
, and Christianity
, as well as from secular sources such as letters, coins, and legal documents. The oldest known Sogdian documents are the Ancient Letters, found in 1920 by Sir Aurel Stein in a watchtower near Dunhuang
, China. These letters date to approximately 312-313 C.E. and are written in Early Sogdian.
The Sogdian Buddhist texts, written in the sutra script, are younger, dating to approximately the sixth to eighth or ninth century. They were found during the first two decades of the twentieth century in one of the caves of the Thousand Buddhas in the Chinese province of Gansu
. The bulk of these manuscripts reside in the British Museum
, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France
, and the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences
.
Another important discovery was of the Mug Documents in 1933 by Soviet scholars. These documents were found in the remains of a fortress on Mount Mug in northern Tajikistan
. The documents, numbering over 76, were written on many different types of materials, such as paper, silk, wood, and skin. According to the dates on the documents, they date to the eighth century C.E. The majority of them were written using the Sogdian cursive script.
, which was used to write the Uyghur language
. This child script was, however, rotated 90 degrees, written in a vertical direction from top to bottom, but with the first vertical line starting from the left side, not from the right as in Chinese, most probably because the right-to-left
direction was used in horizontal writing. The Mongolian alphabet
proper, being an adaptation of the Old Uyghur alphabet, still uses this kind of vertical writing, as does its remoter descendant Manchu
.
The Old Turkic script (also called Turkic runes) was also an offshoot of the Sogdian alphabet, with additional signs added for Turkic sounds not used in Sogdian.
Sogdian language
The Sogdian language is a Middle Iranian language that was spoken in Sogdiana , located in modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan ....
, a language in the Iranian family used by the people of Sogdiana
Sogdiana
Sogdiana or Sogdia was the ancient civilization of an Iranian people and a province of the Achaemenid Empire, eighteenth in the list on the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great . Sogdiana is "listed" as the second of the "good lands and countries" that Ahura Mazda created...
. The alphabet is derived from Syriac
Syriac alphabet
The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC . It is one of the Semitic abjads directly descending from the Aramaic alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, and the traditional Mongolian alphabets.-...
, the descendant script of the Aramaic alphabet
Aramaic alphabet
The Aramaic alphabet is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet and became distinctive from it by the 8th century BC. The letters all represent consonants, some of which are matres lectionis, which also indicate long vowels....
. The Sogdian alphabet is one of three scripts used to write the Sogdian language, the others being the Manichaean alphabet and the Syriac alphabet
Syriac alphabet
The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC . It is one of the Semitic abjads directly descending from the Aramaic alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, and the traditional Mongolian alphabets.-...
. It was used throughout Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
, from the edge of Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
in the west, to China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
in the east, from approximately 100-1200 C.E.
Structure
Like the writing systems from which it is descended, the Sogdian writing system can be described as an AbjadAbjad
An abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol always or usually stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel....
, but it also displays tendencies towards an alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
. The script consists of 17 consonants, many of which have alternate forms for initial, middle, and final position. As in Aramaic, long vowels were commonly written with the consonants aleph
Aleph
* Aleph or Alef is the first letter of the Semitic abjads descended from Proto-Canaanite, Arabic alphabet, Phoenician alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Syriac alphabet-People:*Aleph , an Italo disco artist and alias of Dave Rodgers...
, yodh and waw
Waw (letter)
Waw is the sixth letter of the Northwest Semitic family of scripts, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic ....
. However, unlike Aramaic and most abjads, these consonant signs would also sometimes serve to express the short vowels (which could also sometimes be left unexpressed as in the parent systems). To disambiguate long vowels from short ones, an additional aleph could be written before the sign denoting the long vowel. The alphabet also includes several diacritics, which were used inconsistently. It is written from right to left, but by the time it had evolved into its child system, the Old Uyghur alphabet
Old Uyghur alphabet
The Old Uyghur alphabet was used for writing the Old Uyghur language, a variety of Old Turkic spoken in the Tarim basin, which is an ancestor of the modern Uyghur language. It was descendant of the Sogdian alphabet, used for texts with Buddhist, Manichaean and Christian content for 700–800 years in...
, it had been rotated 90 degrees, written vertically in columns from left to right. Voiced and voiceless fricatives are consistently not distinguished in the script.
Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
logogram
Logogram
A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories.Logograms are often commonly known also as "ideograms"...
s also appear in the script, remnants of adapting the Aramaic writing system to the Sogdian language. These logograms are used mainly for functional words such as pronouns, articles, prepositions, and conjunctions.
Alphabetisation
In PanjakentPanjakent
Panjakent , also spelled Panjikent, Panjekent or Penjikent, is a city in the Sughd province of Tajikistan on the Zeravshan River, with a population of 33,000 . It was once an ancient town in Sogdiana...
there was found inscribed Sogdian alphabet, so we can suppose alphabetisation rules - they are the same as in Aramaic alphabet
Aramaic alphabet
The Aramaic alphabet is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet and became distinctive from it by the 8th century BC. The letters all represent consonants, some of which are matres lectionis, which also indicate long vowels....
, but the letter Lāmadh
Lamedh
Lamed or Lamedh is the twelfth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Lamed and Arabic alphabet . Its sound value is .The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Lambda , Latin L, and Cyrillic Л.-Origins:...
is repeated at the end of the alphabet for values δ, θ.
| Transcription | 'ˀ | β | γ | d | h | w | z | x | ṭ | y | k | l | m | n | s | 'ˁ | p | c | q | r | š | t | δ |
| Value | ā̆, ə, ɨ | β, f | γ, x | * | Ø, ā̆ | w, ʷ, ū̆, ō̆, ü, ȫ | z, ž, ẓ̌/δʳ | x | * | y, ī̆, ē̆, ɨ, ə, ǟ | k, g | l | m, ṁ | n, ṁ | s | * | p, b, f | č, ǰ, ʦ | * | r, ʳ, l | š, ṣ̌/θʳ | t, d | δ, θ |
| Aramaic values | ʔ | B | G | D | H | W | Z | Ḥ | Ṭ | Y | K | L | M | N | S | ʕ | P | Ṣ | Q | R | Š | T | (L) |
* those letters are not used in Sogdian words.
Varieties
Three main varieties of the Sogdian alphabet developed over time: Early Sogdian, an archaic non-cursive type; the sutra script, a calligraphic script used in Sogdian BuddhistBuddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
scriptures; and the so-called "Uyghur" cursive script (not to be confused with the Old Uyghur alphabet
Old Uyghur alphabet
The Old Uyghur alphabet was used for writing the Old Uyghur language, a variety of Old Turkic spoken in the Tarim basin, which is an ancestor of the modern Uyghur language. It was descendant of the Sogdian alphabet, used for texts with Buddhist, Manichaean and Christian content for 700–800 years in...
). Early Sogdian dates to the early fourth century C.E., and is characterized by distinct, separated graphemes. The sutra script appears around 500 C.E., while the cursive script develops approximately a century later. The cursive script is thus named because its letters are connected with a base line. Since many letters in the cursive script are extremely similar in form, to the point of being indistinguishable, it is the most difficult to read of the three varieties. As the Sogdian alphabet became more cursive and more stylized, some letters became more difficult to distinguish, or were distinguished only in final position, e.g. n and z.
Source Materials
The Sogdian script is known from religious texts of BuddhismBuddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, Manichaeism
Manichaeism
Manichaeism in Modern Persian Āyin e Māni; ) was one of the major Iranian Gnostic religions, originating in Sassanid Persia.Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived...
, and Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, as well as from secular sources such as letters, coins, and legal documents. The oldest known Sogdian documents are the Ancient Letters, found in 1920 by Sir Aurel Stein in a watchtower near Dunhuang
Dunhuang
Dunhuang is a city in northwestern Gansu province, Western China. It was a major stop on the ancient Silk Road. It was also known at times as Shāzhōu , or 'City of Sands', a name still used today...
, China. These letters date to approximately 312-313 C.E. and are written in Early Sogdian.
The Sogdian Buddhist texts, written in the sutra script, are younger, dating to approximately the sixth to eighth or ninth century. They were found during the first two decades of the twentieth century in one of the caves of the Thousand Buddhas in the Chinese province of Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
. The bulk of these manuscripts reside in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France
Bibliothèque nationale de France
The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...
, and the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
.
Another important discovery was of the Mug Documents in 1933 by Soviet scholars. These documents were found in the remains of a fortress on Mount Mug in northern Tajikistan
Tajikistan
Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....
. The documents, numbering over 76, were written on many different types of materials, such as paper, silk, wood, and skin. According to the dates on the documents, they date to the eighth century C.E. The majority of them were written using the Sogdian cursive script.
Child Writing Systems
The "Uyghur" cursive script eventually developed into the Old Uyghur alphabetOld Uyghur alphabet
The Old Uyghur alphabet was used for writing the Old Uyghur language, a variety of Old Turkic spoken in the Tarim basin, which is an ancestor of the modern Uyghur language. It was descendant of the Sogdian alphabet, used for texts with Buddhist, Manichaean and Christian content for 700–800 years in...
, which was used to write the Uyghur language
Uyghur language
Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...
. This child script was, however, rotated 90 degrees, written in a vertical direction from top to bottom, but with the first vertical line starting from the left side, not from the right as in Chinese, most probably because the right-to-left
Right-to-left
A language is described as right-to-left if writing starts from the right of the page, and continues to the left. Right to left scripts are:* Arabic alphabet - used for Arabic, Persian, Urdu and many other languages....
direction was used in horizontal writing. The Mongolian alphabet
Mongolian alphabet
Many alphabets have been devised for the Mongolian language over the centuries, and from a variety of scripts. The oldest, called simply the Mongolian script, has been the predominant script during most of Mongolian history, and is still in active use today in the Inner Mongolia region of China...
proper, being an adaptation of the Old Uyghur alphabet, still uses this kind of vertical writing, as does its remoter descendant Manchu
Manchu alphabet
The Manchu alphabet was used for recording the now near-extinct Manchu language; a similar script is used today by the Xibe people, who speak a language descended from Manchu...
.
The Old Turkic script (also called Turkic runes) was also an offshoot of the Sogdian alphabet, with additional signs added for Turkic sounds not used in Sogdian.