A Dictionary: Christian Sogdian, Syriac and English
- Submitting institution
-
School of Oriental and African Studies
- Unit of assessment
- 31 - Theology and Religious Studies
- Output identifier
- 24234
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
-
-
- Publisher
- Reichert Verlag
- ISBN
- 9783954901753
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- May
- Year of publication
- 2016
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
-
-
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- This dictionary results from 45 years of research work. In order to write it the author has read every surviving Christian fragment in the little-known Sogdian language, wherever possible identifying the Syriac text from which it was translated. Many of the Sogdian texts (and even some of the underlying Syriac texts) have never been edited, so that it was necessary to edit them from the manuscripts, while previously edited texts have been systematically checked and corrected. Finally the author has analysed the whole material, using it as evidence for the meaning of the Sogdian words and the translation strategies involved.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This dictionary is the summation of a life’s work on the fragmentary Christian literature in the imperfectly known Sogdian language. Since most of this literature consists of texts translated from Syriac, the dictionary systematically records not only the Sogdian words but also their attested Syriac equivalents, which in many cases provide the principal evidence for the meaning of the Sogdian. The material is presented both under Sogdian lemmata (with Syriac equivalents) and under Syriac lemmata (with Sogdian equivalents), so as to make possible a full analysis of the meanings of the Sogdian words and of the techniques of the translators. Work on the dictionary, which has gone hand in hand with editing and revising the texts, has involved reading and transcribing all the manuscript fragments in Berlin, where possible identifying their Syriac sources and (digitally) joining fragments belonging to the same page, editing the underlying Syriac texts from all available manuscripts, and analysing the meanings and grammatical forms of the Sogdian words using the Syriac as a guide. Although the dictionary format means that much of this research is not immediately visible, almost every entry records some essential piece of research such as the correction of a false reading or interpretation in an earlier edition, the identification of the Syriac source of a text, the joining of two fragments, or the meaning of a Sogdian word newly established on the basis of a Syriac equivalent. Since the editions underlying the entries are fully documented and all corrections to previous editions are specifically noted, the dictionary effectively provides for every reader access to an up-to-date, corrected edition of all known Christian Sogdian literature.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -