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"Emerging from their heartland in the vicinity of Uraiyur along the banks of the river Kaveri in the mid-9th century, they soon controlled the entire Tamil-speaking area."
[1]
[1]: (Mahalakshmi 2016: 1), Mahalakshmi, Rakesh. 2016. ‘Chola (Cola) Empire’. In The Encyclopedia of Empire, edited by John M. MacKenzie, 1st ed., 1–7. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe366. Zotero ID: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ET6Z69AC. |
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“in the Carolingian Empire (largely patterned after Byzantium), a dying Latin was revived for the administration of Church and State”
[1]
[1]: (Kahane 1986, 495-496) Kahane, H. 1986. A Typology of the Prestige Language. Language 62(3): 495-508. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/39X3SZZP/library |
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probably very similar to Archaic Egyptian
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Information of the spoken and written language of Bronze Age Cretans during the Neopalatial period is scant due to the limited number of written documents. The few preserved documents were written in Linear A script which is still undeciphered.
[1]
[2]
What language was recorded in Linear A documents is an issue of vivid debate. Some consider it part of the eastern family of Indo-European languages and have attempted to connected it to Luwian or Hittite while others connected to Semitic, Phoenecian, Indo-Iranian, or Tyrrenian.
[3]
[4]
[5]
It is possible however that Linear A express a pre-Hellenic Aegean linguistic substrate "which was enriched over time throughout possible migrations to the island, as well as various extra-Cretan contacts with other linguists elements, including Greek world. Thus, we could speaking of an age-old indigenous ’Minoan’ language that survived in some parts of Crete until the first millennium B.C. and appears as "Eteocretan" on inscriptions such as those from Praisos and Dreros."
[6]
[1]: Tomas, H. 2010. " Cretan hieroglyphic and Linear A," in Cline, E.H. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (ca. 3000-1000 BC), Oxford, 340-55 [2]: Boulotis, C. 2008. "The art of Cretan writing," in Andreadaki-Vlazaki, M., Rethemiotakis, G., and Dimopoulou-Rethemiotaki, N. (eds), From the Land of the Labyrinth. Minoan Crete, 3000-1100 B.C., New York, 67-78. [3]: Nagy, G. 1963. "Greek-like elements in Linear A," Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 4, 181-211 [4]: Owens, G. 1999. "The structure of the Minoan language," Journal of Indo-European Studies 27, 15-56 [5]: Owens, G. 2007. Η Δομή της Μινωικής Γλώσσας, Heraklion [6]: Boulotis, C. 2008. "The art of Cretan writing," in Andreadaki-Vlazaki, M., Rethemiotakis, G., and Dimopoulou-Rethemiotaki, N. (eds), From the Land of the Labyrinth. Minoan Crete, 3000-1100 B.C., New York, 70. |
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"Cahokia was made up of different ethnic groups, perhaps even different linguistic groups."
[1]
However Cahokia did not exist in this period: "The people that were a part of Cahokia made a conscious decision not to continue after ca. A.D. 1250."
[2]
"We know that by the mid-300s Cahokia was basically abandoned."
[3]
[1]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 13) [2]: (Peregrine/Kelly 2014, 24) [3]: (Iseminger 2010, 148) |
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“in the Carolingian Empire (largely patterned after Byzantium), a dying Latin was revived for the administration of Church and State”
[1]
[1]: (Kahane 1986, 495-496) Kahane, H. 1986. A Typology of the Prestige Language. Language 62(3): 495-508. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/39X3SZZP/library |
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“‘Gothic’ was probably the military pidgin cant of the Mediterranean armies, a mix of Greek, Latin, and Germanic elements, the product of the intermingling of soldiers of diverse backgrounds in the 5th and 6th centuries. It should not be thought of as widely known or as the primary language of the people our sources call Goths. Latin held that distinction, a language known by all inhabitants of Italy regardless of origin.113 This can be inferred because the sources never indicate that communication was a problem. Liberius is not known to have spoken Gothic, but had no trouble leading troops. Many of Cassiodorus’ letters are addressed to people with Germanic names and they were written in Latin.”
[1]
[1]: (Swain 2016: 223) Swain, B. 2016. Goths and Gothic Identity in the Ostrogothic Kingdom. In Arnold, Bjornlie and Sessa (eds) A Companion to Ostrogothic Italy pp. 203-233. Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/87H7UDXS/item-list |
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There are no written records from this phase, but later evidence shows that people in the valley spoke Zapotec, possibly from the succeeding San José Mogote phase, and the Otomanguean language families may have split before the start of this period.
[1]
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York, p4-7 |
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There are no written records from this phase, but later evidence shows that people in the valley spoke Zapotec, possibly from the succeeding San José Mogote phase, and the Otomanguean language families may have split before the start of this period.
[1]
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York, p4-7 |
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“Today, there is a consensus that ASA [Ancient South Arabian] constitutes a group of related Central Semitic languages, namely Sabaic, Qatabanic, Minaic, and Hadramitic, so called by modern scholars after the names of the ancient kingdoms in which they were spoken. Although a case has been made for the existence of a fifth language, spoken in the kingdom of Himyar and corresponding to the ‘Himyar’ language referred to by medieval Arabic authors like al-Hamdani, who in fact claims that Himyari was still spoken in parts of Yemen in his own day, it is more likely that the Himyarites spoke a southern dialect of Sabaic in pre-Islamic times, and that what was known during the early Islamic period as Himyari represents the final stages of Sabaic.”
[1]
[1]: (Hatke 2019: 2) Hatke, G. 2019. The Other South Arabians: The Ancient South Arabian Kingdoms and Their MSA (Modern South Arabian) Neighbors, ca. 300 BCE-550 CE. In Hatke, G. and Ruzicka, R. (eds.) Ancient South Arabia through History: Kingdoms, Tribes, and Traders pp. 1-62. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XKMAIRCX/library |
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Latin was the dominant language for administration and official documents in Norman England. [Clanchy 1993], [webpage_Home | Domesday Book]
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“Today, there is a consensus that ASA [Ancient South Arabian] constitutes a group of related Central Semitic languages, namely Sabaic, Qatabanic, Minaic, and Hadramitic, so called by modern scholars after the names of the ancient kingdoms in which they were spoken. Although a case has been made for the existence of a fifth language, spoken in the kingdom of Himyar and corresponding to the ‘Himyar’ language referred to by medieval Arabic authors like al-Hamdani, who in fact claims that Himyari was still spoken in parts of Yemen in his own day, it is more likely that the Himyarites spoke a southern dialect of Sabaic in pre-Islamic times, and that what was known during the early Islamic period as Himyari represents the final stages of Sabaic.”
[1]
[1]: (Hatke 2019: 2) Hatke, G. 2019. The Other South Arabians: The Ancient South Arabian Kingdoms and Their MSA (Modern South Arabian) Neighbors, ca. 300 BCE-550 CE. In Hatke, G. and Ruzicka, R. (eds.) Ancient South Arabia through History: Kingdoms, Tribes, and Traders pp. 1-62. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XKMAIRCX/library |
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After the Norman Conquest, Anglo-Norman French became the language of the ruling class, including the nobility, royal court, and military leadership. [Clanchy 1993]
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The Indus script has not yet been deciphered by linguists: "The nature and content of the Indus script has been extensively debated in the literature. More than a hundred attempts have been made to assign meanings to various signs and sign combinations, relating it to proto-Dravidian language (see Parpola 2009, 1994, Mahadevan 1998) on the one hand and to Sanskrit (Rao 1982) on the other. It has even been suggested that the script is entirely numeric (Subbarayappa 1997). However, no consistent and generally agreed interpretation exists and most interpretations are at variance with each other and, at times, internally inconsistent (Possehl 1996)."
[1]
There were almost certainly a wide range of languages spoken, perhaps including one (or several) from an ancient language family known as ’Proto-Dravidian’.
[2]
[3]
"Para-Munda, spoken in the Punjab at the time when the Rigvedic Aryans arrived and seemingly also by the Late Harappan settlers who were moving eastward into the Ganges region, must have been in the subcontinent for a considerable period. If the area where it was spoken in the Pre-Harappan period included the Indo-Iranian borderlands, then it is likely that Para-Munda was the main Harappan language, at least in the Punjab and probably throughout the civilization, and that Dravidian was a language spoken by the indigenous inhabitants of the west, possibly as far northwest as Saurashtra. In this case the language of the PostHarappans in Gujarat may have developed into the North Dravidian branch.//Alternatively Para-Munda may have been the language spoken by the hunter-gatherer-fisher communities that inhabited the Indus region before the people of the borderlands settled in the plains. If the newcomers to the region in the fifth millennium were Dravidian speakers, then it is possible that a Dravidian language was spoken by at least some of the farmers and pastoralists of the borderlands who settled in the plains and therefore by some Harappans but that Para-Munda remained the main language of many Harappan inhabitants of the Punjab.Studies of the Harappan script indicate that it was used to write a single language. It seems plausible that the overarching cultural unity of the Harappans would be matched by the existence of an official language, used in writing and spoken as a lingua franca throughout the Harappan realms. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that one or several other languages were also spoken in the Harappan state, specific to different regions or occupational groups, reflecting the different communities that had come together in its formation. Prolonged bilingualism is known to have occurred in other areas, for example in Mesopotamia where Sumerian and Akkadian coexisted for many centuries: though they belonged originally to the south and north parts of southern Mesopotamia (Sumer and Akkad), educated people from both regions spoke both languages."
[4]
[1]: (Yadav and Vahia 2011, 3) Nisha Yadav and M.N. Vahia. 2011. Indus Script: A Study of its Sign Design. SCRIPTA 3: 1-36. [2]: Possehl, Gregory L., ‘The Transformation of the Indus Civilization’, Journal of World Prehistory, 11 (1997): 462 [3]: Gregory L. Possehl. The Indus Civilization. A Contemporary Perspective. Walnut Creek, Altamira, 2002, p.248 [4]: (McIntosh 2008 page 2355-356) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Valley. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. |
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Khmer or Cambodian
[1]
’The Khmer language, which is distantly related to Vietnamese and many minority languages spoken in mainland Southeast Asia, belongs to the Mon-Khmer subset of the Austroasiatic family of languages. Over fifty distinct Austroasiatic languages are spoken across a wide swath of the Asian main- land, stretching from eastern India westward to Vietnam. Of these languages, only Khmer and Mon possess alphabets of their own.The Mons and the Khmers are also the only speakers of Austroasiatic languages to practice settled agri- culture. The earliest evidence of written Khmer comes from an inscription incised in southern Cambodia of the seventh century C.E., using an alphabet derived from southern India, which, in modified form, remains in use in contemporary Cambodia. The Thais adapted the alphabet for their own use in the thirteenth century C.E.’
[2]
’Linguistically and genetically an Austro-Asiatic group, the Mon belong to the Mon-Khmer ethnological unit. Archaeological remains have shown that they inhabited the area of the Mekong Delta and Tonle Sap regions of present- day Cambodia, northeast Thailand, and around the Gulf of Thailand from at least the beginning of the Common Era (C.E.). Perhaps they date even earlier, as evidence of an Austro-Asiatic group has been found in western Thailand in Kanchanaburi Province near the village of Ban Kao, dating from Neolithic times (10,000 B.C.E.). Archaeological remains indicate that a Mon civilization based on Theravada Buddhism was present in northeast Thailand up to around the early ninth century, when it was overtaken by the Khmers of Angkor expanding from cen- tral Cambodia at the beginning of the reign of Jayavarman II (770/790/802?-834 C.E.).’
[3]
’In northeast Thailand, for example, most Hinayana Buddhist stupas yielded to the standardized prasat structures of Angkorian Hinduism or Mahayana Buddhism.58 In 1200 people who spoke Khmer as their primary tongue probably formed a majority in the Cambodian plain, the Mekong basin as far north as That Phanom, much of the Chi and Mun river valleys, and the area im- mediately north and east of present-day Bangkok.59 But the lowlands also contained very substantial non-Khmer populations. Those parts of the Chaophraya basin subject to Angkor, for example, were dominated by Mon- and later by Tai-speakers, both of whom tended to be more attached to Hinayana Buddhism than to Hinduism. The basin also in- cluded people who in later times might be labeled Malay, Cham, or Karen.60 Angkor itself by 1297, according to Zhou Daguan, had Siamese (Tai) settlers as well as a large population of enslaved hill peoples, who were treated as a race apart. Each city and village in Cambodia, he added, had its own Khmer dialect.61’
[4]
’Here are the most salient traits of the Post-Classic: [...] Theravada Buddhism as the state religion, with Pali rather than Sanskrit as its language.’
[5]
’Here are the most salient traits of the Post-Classic: [...] Middle Khmer replaces Old Khmer as the language of the people and of the court.’
[5]
’Secondly, during the period in question and even long afterwards, the Cambodian and Thai courts were inextricably linked. Khmer intellectuals were steeped in Thai language and literature, and had come to think that the Ayutthaya chronicles were something to imitate; thus, they forced the Cambodian chronicles into a Thai model.’
[6]
[1]: (http://www.ethnologue.com/language/khm) [2]: (Chandler 2004, p. 729) [3]: (James 2004, p. 904) [4]: (Lieberman 2003, p. 231) [5]: (Coe 2003, p. 195) [6]: (Coe 2003, p. 199) |
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probably very similar to Archaic Egyptian
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Old English remained the language of the majority population, especially for the peasantry and local communities. [Carpenter 2003]
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Describing the Shiwei: "Their language is variously described as similar to Kitan and Qai (Chinese, Xi), that is, Mongolic, or as similar to Mohe (Malgal or Mukri), that is, Manchu-Tungusic."
[1]
"According to the Wei Shu, Sui Shu and Jiu Tangshu, it seems that the Shiwei were of Khitan origin, since the Shiwei and Khitan shared the similar ethnic stock and the same language as recorded in the above three dynastic histories." [2] [1]: (Atwood 2004, 502) [2]: (Xu 2005, 176) |
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probably very similar to Archaic Egyptian
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Demotic was introduced in the early Saite period, and spread throughout Egypt. A very important phenomenon.
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Sinitic language family.
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There is no data about language used by Badarian culture, especially because a writing system was yet to be invented.
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"The Achaemenid sources of the 6th century BCE are the first to mention Sogdiana and its inhabitants, the Sogdians. The individu- alization of this people in the texts demonstrates the existence of an ethnic identity before a linguistic reality, for if in this work we define the Sogdians as those who spoke Sogdian as their native language, we must note that the separation of Sogdian from the other Iranian languages probably took place only very progressively in the course of the Achaemenid period."
[1]
[1]: (De la Vaissière 2005, 16) |
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"The people whose material culture is studied here did not yet, as far as we know, use the Eastern Zhou term Zhongguo, or “middle kingdoms,” nor is there any evidence that they considered themselves to have a common collective identity. Indeed, it is likely that many, if not most, of those within the area of what is now the People’s Republic of China did not speak any language ancestral to modern Chinese. In addition to archaic Chinese, there would have been speakers of other Sino-Tibetan languages, as well as Altaic, Austroasiatic, Hmong-Mien, Tai-Kadai, Austronesian, and perhaps even Indo-European languages."
[1]
[1]: (Campbell 2014, 13) |
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"five major languages attested—Sabaʾic, Maʿīnic, Qatabānic, Ḥaḍramawtic, and Old Arabic"
[1]
[1]: (Robin 2015: 94) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www-oxfordscholarship-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001/acprof-9780199654529-chapter-3. |
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Most population spoke Minoan while early Greek was mostly used in administration.
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Most population spoke Minoan while early Greek was mostly used in administration.
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Strictly speaking, "Canaanite" could refer to a number of closely related Northwest Semitic dialects spoken during the period that are distinct from Aramaic dialects (by the use of the h- prefix for the definite article). They include early Phoenician, early Hebrew, and several other local dialects.
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Prakrit and Sanskrit were official, court languages, while Kannada was probably the "colloquial" language
[1]
EXTERNAL_INLINE_LINK: http://seshat.info/File:Kadambamaps.nelson.png
[1]: Suryanatha Kamath, A Concise History of Karnataka (1980), p. 40 |
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Coded as Hoysalas.
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Coded as Hoysalas.
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Unknown?
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Information of the spoken and written language of Bronze Age Cretans during the Prepalatial period do not exist.
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"The Qaraquyunlu and Aqquyunlu tribal entities which succeeded the Timurids on the region’s political scene pursued a similarly inclusive ’project’: Islam was their religion, their tribal military levies were Turks, their administrators were Tajiks and their cultural discourse was Persian."
[1]
[1]: (Newman 2009) Newman, Andrew J. 2009. Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire. I.B. Tauris. New York. |
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The original Ilkhans were Mongols and therefore spoke Mongolian. Manuscripts were written in Persian and Arabic.
[1]
[1]: Stefano Carboni, ’IL-KHANIDS iii. Book Illustration’ http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/il-khanids-iii-book-illustration |
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"The Elamite written language was used as the official language in the bureaucracy for a long time, rivaling the Sumerian and Akkadian languages even over a thousand years later, during the Old Persian Empire of the Achaemenids."
[1]
[1]: (Farazmand 2009, 22) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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"five major languages attested—Sabaʾic, Maʿīnic, Qatabānic, Ḥaḍramawtic, and Old Arabic"
[1]
[1]: (Robin 2015: 94) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZMFH42PE. |
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Sumerian in neighbouring Mesopotamia: "Until Sargon, records from Akkad had been written in Sumerian."
[1]
Proto-Elamite descendent fro Uruk IV writing and developed different signs to the Sumerian of Jemdet Nasr. Susiana was a centre of Proto-Elamite culture along with Tall-i Malyan at Fars.
[2]
Susa III texts c3000 BCE not related to Old Elamite inscriptions c2300 BCE. "simply indefensible to claim that Malyan was the site at which the Susa III writing system originated." It was a system derived from proto-cuneiform Susa II / Uruk IV.
[3]
[1]: (Middleton 2015) Middleton, John. 2015. World Monarchies and Dynasties. Routledge. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 91) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [3]: (Potts 2016, 71) Potts, D T. 2016. The Archaeology of Elam Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State. 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. |
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JFR: Latin was the language of administration, but by this period various dialects of Italian (Romanesco in the city of Rome; Romagnola in Emilia-Romagna; and so forth) were emerging as written languages, besides being the languages of everyday speech.
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"In Africa, Punic was widely spoken as well as Latin, and in a famous passage of The City of God Augustine reminds the reader that the imperious Roman capital had not only placed the yoke of dominion on defeated peoples; it had also imposed Latin as the official language (Augustine, The City of God, 19, 7)."
[1]
[1]: (Triana 2011, 86) Giusto Triana. 2011. 428 AD: An Ordinary Year at the End of the Roman Empire. Princeton University Press. |
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Middle Japanese 12th-16th century.
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Khmer or Cambodian
[1]
’The Khmer language, which is distantly related to Vietnamese and many minority languages spoken in mainland Southeast Asia, belongs to the Mon-Khmer subset of the Austroasiatic family of languages. Over fifty distinct Austroasiatic languages are spoken across a wide swath of the Asian main- land, stretching from eastern India westward to Vietnam. Of these languages, only Khmer and Mon possess alphabets of their own.The Mons and the Khmers are also the only speakers of Austroasiatic languages to practice settled agri- culture. The earliest evidence of written Khmer comes from an inscription incised in southern Cambodia of the seventh century C.E., using an alphabet derived from southern India, which, in modified form, remains in use in contemporary Cambodia. The Thais adapted the alphabet for their own use in the thirteenth century C.E.’
[2]
’Linguistically and genetically an Austro-Asiatic group, the Mon belong to the Mon-Khmer ethnological unit. Archaeological remains have shown that they inhabited the area of the Mekong Delta and Tonle Sap regions of present- day Cambodia, northeast Thailand, and around the Gulf of Thailand from at least the beginning of the Common Era (C.E.). Perhaps they date even earlier, as evidence of an Austro-Asiatic group has been found in western Thailand in Kanchanaburi Province near the village of Ban Kao, dating from Neolithic times (10,000 B.C.E.). Archaeological remains indicate that a Mon civilization based on Theravada Buddhism was present in northeast Thailand up to around the early ninth century, when it was overtaken by the Khmers of Angkor expanding from cen- tral Cambodia at the beginning of the reign of Jayavarman II (770/790/802?-834 C.E.).’
[3]
’In northeast Thailand, for example, most Hinayana Buddhist stupas yielded to the standardized prasat structures of Angkorian Hinduism or Mahayana Buddhism.58 In 1200 people who spoke Khmer as their primary tongue probably formed a majority in the Cambodian plain, the Mekong basin as far north as That Phanom, much of the Chi and Mun river valleys, and the area im- mediately north and east of present-day Bangkok.59 But the lowlands also contained very substantial non-Khmer populations. Those parts of the Chaophraya basin subject to Angkor, for example, were dominated by Mon- and later by Tai-speakers, both of whom tended to be more attached to Hinayana Buddhism than to Hinduism. The basin also included people who in later times might be labeled Malay, Cham, or Karen.60 Angkor itself by 1297, according to Zhou Daguan, had Siamese (Tai) settlers as well as a large population of enslaved hill peoples, who were treated as a race apart. Each city and village in Cambodia, he added, had its own Khmer dialect.61’
[4]
[1]: (http://www.ethnologue.com/language/khm) [2]: (Chandler 2004, p. 729) [3]: (James 2004, p. 904) [4]: (Lieberman 2003, p. 231) |
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Khmer or Cambodian
[1]
’The Khmer language, which is distantly related to Vietnamese and many minority languages spoken in mainland Southeast Asia, belongs to the Mon-Khmer subset of the Austroasiatic family of languages. Over fifty distinct Austroasiatic languages are spoken across a wide swath of the Asian main- land, stretching from eastern India westward to Vietnam. Of these languages, only Khmer and Mon possess alphabets of their own.The Mons and the Khmers are also the only speakers of Austroasiatic languages to practice settled agri- culture. The earliest evidence of written Khmer comes from an inscription incised in southern Cambodia of the seventh century C.E., using an alphabet derived from southern India, which, in modified form, remains in use in contemporary Cambodia. The Thais adapted the alphabet for their own use in the thirteenth century C.E.’
[2]
’Linguistically and genetically an Austro-Asiatic group, the Mon belong to the Mon-Khmer ethnological unit. Archaeological remains have shown that they inhabited the area of the Mekong Delta and Tonle Sap regions of present- day Cambodia, northeast Thailand, and around the Gulf of Thailand from at least the beginning of the Common Era (C.E.). Perhaps they date even earlier, as evidence of an Austro-Asiatic group has been found in western Thailand in Kanchanaburi Province near the village of Ban Kao, dating from Neolithic times (10,000 B.C.E.). Archaeological remains indicate that a Mon civilization based on Theravada Buddhism was present in northeast Thailand up to around the early ninth century, when it was overtaken by the Khmers of Angkor expanding from cen- tral Cambodia at the beginning of the reign of Jayavarman II (770/790/802?-834 C.E.).’
[3]
’In northeast Thailand, for example, most Hinayana Buddhist stupas yielded to the standardized prasat structures of Angkorian Hinduism or Mahayana Buddhism.58 In 1200 people who spoke Khmer as their primary tongue probably formed a majority in the Cambodian plain, the Mekong basin as far north as That Phanom, much of the Chi and Mun river valleys, and the area im- mediately north and east of present-day Bangkok.59 But the lowlands also contained very substantial non-Khmer populations. Those parts of the Chaophraya basin subject to Angkor, for example, were dominated by Mon- and later by Tai-speakers, both of whom tended to be more attached to Hinayana Buddhism than to Hinduism. The basin also included people who in later times might be labeled Malay, Cham, or Karen.60 Angkor itself by 1297, according to Zhou Daguan, had Siamese (Tai) settlers as well as a large population of enslaved hill peoples, who were treated as a race apart. Each city and village in Cambodia, he added, had its own Khmer dialect.61’
[4]
[1]: (http://www.ethnologue.com/language/khm) [2]: (Chandler 2004, p. 729) [3]: (James 2004, p. 904) [4]: (Lieberman 2003, p. 231) |
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Khmer or Cambodian
[1]
’The Khmer language, which is distantly related to Vietnamese and many minority languages spoken in mainland Southeast Asia, belongs to the Mon-Khmer subset of the Austroasiatic family of languages. Over fifty distinct Austroasiatic languages are spoken across a wide swath of the Asian main- land, stretching from eastern India westward to Vietnam. Of these languages, only Khmer and Mon possess alphabets of their own.The Mons and the Khmers are also the only speakers of Austroasiatic languages to practice settled agri- culture. The earliest evidence of written Khmer comes from an inscription incised in southern Cambodia of the seventh century C.E., using an alphabet derived from southern India, which, in modified form, remains in use in contemporary Cambodia. The Thais adapted the alphabet for their own use in the thirteenth century C.E.’
[2]
’Linguistically and genetically an Austro-Asiatic group, the Mon belong to the Mon-Khmer ethnological unit. Archaeological remains have shown that they inhabited the area of the Mekong Delta and Tonle Sap regions of present- day Cambodia, northeast Thailand, and around the Gulf of Thailand from at least the beginning of the Common Era (C.E.). Perhaps they date even earlier, as evidence of an Austro-Asiatic group has been found in western Thailand in Kanchanaburi Province near the village of Ban Kao, dating from Neolithic times (10,000 B.C.E.). Archaeological remains indicate that a Mon civilization based on Theravada Buddhism was present in northeast Thailand up to around the early ninth century, when it was overtaken by the Khmers of Angkor expanding from cen- tral Cambodia at the beginning of the reign of Jayavarman II (770/790/802?-834 C.E.).’
[3]
’In northeast Thailand, for example, most Hinayana Buddhist stupas yielded to the standardized prasat structures of Angkorian Hinduism or Mahayana Buddhism.58 In 1200 people who spoke Khmer as their primary tongue probably formed a majority in the Cambodian plain, the Mekong basin as far north as That Phanom, much of the Chi and Mun river valleys, and the area im- mediately north and east of present-day Bangkok.59 But the lowlands also contained very substantial non-Khmer populations. Those parts of the Chaophraya basin subject to Angkor, for example, were dominated by Mon- and later by Tai-speakers, both of whom tended to be more attached to Hinayana Buddhism than to Hinduism. The basin also included people who in later times might be labeled Malay, Cham, or Karen.60 Angkor itself by 1297, according to Zhou Daguan, had Siamese (Tai) settlers as well as a large population of enslaved hill peoples, who were treated as a race apart. Each city and village in Cambodia, he added, had its own Khmer dialect.61’
[4]
[1]: (http://www.ethnologue.com/language/khm) [2]: (Chandler 2004, p. 729) [3]: (James 2004, p. 904) [4]: (Lieberman 2003, p. 231) |
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"“A more likely explanation, advanced by L.P. Briggs, is that the increasing interaction between Khmer- and Mon-speaking residents of the Thai central plain, with the Mons being devotees of Theravada Buddhism, led gradually, over a half century orso, to the conversion of Khmer speakers farther east."
[1]
[1]: (Chandler 2008, 81) |
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Khmer or Cambodian
[1]
’The Khmer language, which is distantly related to Vietnamese and many minority languages spoken in mainland Southeast Asia, belongs to the Mon-Khmer subset of the Austroasiatic family of languages. Over fifty distinct Austroasiatic languages are spoken across a wide swath of the Asian main- land, stretching from eastern India westward to Vietnam. Of these languages, only Khmer and Mon possess alphabets of their own.The Mons and the Khmers are also the only speakers of Austroasiatic languages to practice settled agri- culture. The earliest evidence of written Khmer comes from an inscription incised in southern Cambodia of the seventh century C.E., using an alphabet derived from southern India, which, in modified form, remains in use in contemporary Cambodia. The Thais adapted the alphabet for their own use in the thirteenth century C.E.’
[2]
’Linguistically and genetically an Austro-Asiatic group, the Mon belong to the Mon-Khmer ethnological unit. Archaeological remains have shown that they inhabited the area of the Mekong Delta and Tonle Sap regions of present- day Cambodia, northeast Thailand, and around the Gulf of Thailand from at least the beginning of the Common Era (C.E.). Perhaps they date even earlier, as evidence of an Austro-Asiatic group has been found in western Thailand in Kanchanaburi Province near the village of Ban Kao, dating from Neolithic times (10,000 B.C.E.). Archaeological remains indicate that a Mon civilization based on Theravada Buddhism was present in northeast Thailand up to around the early ninth century, when it was overtaken by the Khmers of Angkor expanding from cen- tral Cambodia at the beginning of the reign of Jayavarman II (770/790/802?-834 C.E.).’
[3]
’In northeast Thailand, for example, most Hinayana Buddhist stupas yielded to the standardized prasat structures of Angkorian Hinduism or Mahayana Buddhism.58 In 1200 people who spoke Khmer as their primary tongue probably formed a majority in the Cambodian plain, the Mekong basin as far north as That Phanom, much of the Chi and Mun river valleys, and the area im- mediately north and east of present-day Bangkok.59 But the lowlands also contained very substantial non-Khmer populations. Those parts of the Chaophraya basin subject to Angkor, for example, were dominated by Mon- and later by Tai-speakers, both of whom tended to be more attached to Hinayana Buddhism than to Hinduism. The basin also in- cluded people who in later times might be labeled Malay, Cham, or Karen.60 Angkor itself by 1297, according to Zhou Daguan, had Siamese (Tai) settlers as well as a large population of enslaved hill peoples, who were treated as a race apart. Each city and village in Cambodia, he added, had its own Khmer dialect.61’
[4]
’Here are the most salient traits of the Post-Classic: [...] Theravada Buddhism as the state religion, with Pali rather than Sanskrit as its language.’
[5]
’Here are the most salient traits of the Post-Classic: [...] Middle Khmer replaces Old Khmer as the language of the people and of the court.’
[5]
’Secondly, during the period in question and even long afterwards, the Cambodian and Thai courts were inextricably linked. Khmer intellectuals were steeped in Thai language and literature, and had come to think that the Ayutthaya chronicles were something to imitate; thus, they forced the Cambodian chronicles into a Thai model.’
[6]
[1]: (http://www.ethnologue.com/language/khm) [2]: (Chandler 2004, p. 729) [3]: (James 2004, p. 904) [4]: (Lieberman 2003, p. 231) [5]: (Coe 2003, p. 195) [6]: (Coe 2003, p. 199) |
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mid-14th century onwards? "Arabic became important both for the diffusion of religion and for communications and trade."
[1]
mid-14th century onwards? Arabic "was used for official correspondence in the Ghana Empire before the end of the twelfth century and in Mali in the mid-fourteenth century."
[1]
[1]: (Lapidus 2012, 592) |
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Coins were minted with Greek, Prakrit and Brāhmī script on them.
[1]
[1]: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/indo-greek-dynasty |
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Coins were minted with Greek, Prakrit and Brāhmī script on them.
[1]
[1]: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/indo-greek-dynasty |
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There are no written records from this phase, but later evidence shows that people in the valley spoke Zapotec, possibly from the succeeding San José Mogote phase, and the Otomanguean language families may have split before the start of this period.
[1]
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York, p4-7 |
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The Indus script has not yet been deciphered by linguists: "The nature and content of the Indus script has been extensively debated in the literature. More than a hundred attempts have been made to assign meanings to various signs and sign combinations, relating it to proto-Dravidian language (see Parpola 2009, 1994, Mahadevan 1998) on the one hand and to Sanskrit (Rao 1982) on the other. It has even been suggested that the script is entirely numeric (Subbarayappa 1997). However, no consistent and generally agreed interpretation exists and most interpretations are at variance with each other and, at times, internally inconsistent (Possehl 1996)."
[1]
There were almost certainly a wide range of languages spoken, perhaps including one (or several) from an ancient language family known as ’Proto-Dravidian’.
[2]
[3]
"Para-Munda, spoken in the Punjab at the time when the Rigvedic Aryans arrived and seemingly also by the Late Harappan settlers who were moving eastward into the Ganges region, must have been in the subcontinent for a considerable period. If the area where it was spoken in the Pre-Harappan period included the Indo-Iranian borderlands, then it is likely that Para-Munda was the main Harappan language, at least in the Punjab and probably throughout the civilization, and that Dravidian was a language spoken by the indigenous inhabitants of the west, possibly as far northwest as Saurashtra. In this case the language of the PostHarappans in Gujarat may have developed into the North Dravidian branch.//Alternatively Para-Munda may have been the language spoken by the hunter-gatherer-fisher communities that inhabited the Indus region before the people of the borderlands settled in the plains. If the newcomers to the region in the fifth millennium were Dravidian speakers, then it is possible that a Dravidian language was spoken by at least some of the farmers and pastoralists of the borderlands who settled in the plains and therefore by some Harappans but that Para-Munda remained the main language of many Harappan inhabitants of the Punjab.Studies of the Harappan script indicate that it was used to write a single language. It seems plausible that the overarching cultural unity of the Harappans would be matched by the existence of an official language, used in writing and spoken as a lingua franca throughout the Harappan realms. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that one or several other languages were also spoken in the Harappan state, specific to different regions or occupational groups, reflecting the different communities that had come together in its formation. Prolonged bilingualism is known to have occurred in other areas, for example in Mesopotamia where Sumerian and Akkadian coexisted for many centuries: though they belonged originally to the south and north parts of southern Mesopotamia (Sumer and Akkad), educated people from both regions spoke both languages."
[4]
[1]: (Yadav and Vahia 2011, 3) Nisha Yadav and M.N. Vahia. 2011. Indus Script: A Study of its Sign Design. SCRIPTA 3: 1-36. [2]: Possehl, Gregory L., ‘The Transformation of the Indus Civilization’, Journal of World Prehistory, 11 (1997): 462 [3]: Gregory L. Possehl. The Indus Civilization. A Contemporary Perspective. Walnut Creek, Altamira, 2002, p.248 [4]: (McIntosh 2008 page 2355-356) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Valley. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. |
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Lysimachus was Macedonian.
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"Chagatai Turkish evolved as the language of the court and literature."
[1]
"Persian was the language of the bureaucratic administration and chancery correspondence"
[2]
The military administration, however, was "staffed by Turkic secretaries".
[2]
[1]: (Khan 2003, 35) Khan, A. 2003. A Historical Atlas of Uzbekistan. The Rosen Publishing Group. [2]: (Subtelny 2007, 69) Subtelny, Maria. 2007. Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran. BRILL. |
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"five major languages attested—Sabaʾic, Maʿīnic, Qatabānic, Ḥaḍramawtic, and Old Arabic"
[1]
[1]: (Robin 2015: 94) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZMFH42PE. |
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inferred from geographic region
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Persian literature.
[1]
Claims of Ghurid poetry in Pashto unsubstantiated.
[1]
[1]: (Bosworth 2012) Bosworth, Edmund C. 2012. GHURIDS. Encyclopaedia Iranica. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ghurids |
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{Greek; Bactrian} The Seleucids brought the use of Greek into the region when they turned Bactria into a satrap; Bactrian was in use in this period (indeed until the 8th century BCE).
[1]
[1]: West, Barbara. Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania.( Infobase Publishing, 2009) pp. 75; 245-247. |
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{Greek; Bactrian} The Seleucids brought the use of Greek into the region when they turned Bactria into a satrap; Bactrian was in use in this period (indeed until the 8th century BCE).
[1]
[1]: West, Barbara. Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania.( Infobase Publishing, 2009) pp. 75; 245-247. |
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Bactrian; Iranian; Turkic According to the Chinese records from the period, the language of the Hephthalites was distinct from that of those Iranian-speaking people of Central Asia who were called Hu by the Chinese. However, there is no consensus among scholars.
[1]
Recent work has reappraised Chinese manuscript sources to postulate that the Hephtalites had ceased to retain their original Altaic language and adopted Bactrian by the end of the fourth century.
[2]
"Probably dominated by an Eastern Iranian language, but their mixed ancestry also lead to multilingualism."
[3]
[1]: Litvinsky B.A.,Guang-da Zhang , and Shabani Samghabadi R. (eds)History of Civilizations of Central Asia, p. 139 [2]: De la Vaissière, É. "Is there a Nationality of the Hephthalites." Bulletin of the Asia Institute 17 (2008): p. 122 [3]: (West 2009, 275) West, B A. 2009. Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania. Infobase Publishing. |
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"Despite the evident ethnic and linguistic diversity, according to Bischof (1983, 1971) and 16th century sources (Indiferente General 1528 in Langebaek 2007: 44) a language called atanque was spoken by a majority of the indigenous population. Whether it was a lingua franca in use between the distinct ethnic groups in the surrounding area and these polities, or the most widespread language is still debated."
[1]
"Even the sacred language of the Kogi mamas - called "Tairona" or teijua - includes Spanish or Latin words and is interpreted by Jackson (1995:68) as a relatively recent derivation of a little-known, more ancient tongue. Even language cannot necessarily be assumed to represent the ancient languages spoken by the inhabitants of the chiefdoms that the Spanish found." [2] [1]: (Giraldo 2010, 59) [2]: (Langebaek 2005, 1-3) |
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inapplicable
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inapplicable
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"We do not know what language the Kidarites spoke".
[1]
Coinage had "inscriptions in Sogdian, Bactrian, Middle Persian and Brahmi."
[2]
"The Bactrian script and language were used for a long time after the Kushan age but only small fragments of Bactrian literary works have been discovered so far."
[3]
Administration was carried out at a regional level and probably in the local language by administrators recruited from the majority settled population.
[1]: (Zeimal 1996, 136) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [2]: (Zeimal 1996, 136-137) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [3]: (Harmatta 1994, 424) Harmatta, J. Languages and literature in the Kushan Empire. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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"We do not know what language the Kidarites spoke".
[1]
Coinage had "inscriptions in Sogdian, Bactrian, Middle Persian and Brahmi."
[2]
"The Bactrian script and language were used for a long time after the Kushan age but only small fragments of Bactrian literary works have been discovered so far."
[3]
Administration was carried out at a regional level and probably in the local language by administrators recruited from the majority settled population.
[1]: (Zeimal 1996, 136) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [2]: (Zeimal 1996, 136-137) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [3]: (Harmatta 1994, 424) Harmatta, J. Languages and literature in the Kushan Empire. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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"We do not know what language the Kidarites spoke".
[1]
Coinage had "inscriptions in Sogdian, Bactrian, Middle Persian and Brahmi."
[2]
"The Bactrian script and language were used for a long time after the Kushan age but only small fragments of Bactrian literary works have been discovered so far."
[3]
Administration was carried out at a regional level and probably in the local language by administrators recruited from the majority settled population.
[1]: (Zeimal 1996, 136) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [2]: (Zeimal 1996, 136-137) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [3]: (Harmatta 1994, 424) Harmatta, J. Languages and literature in the Kushan Empire. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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"We do not know what language the Kidarites spoke".
[1]
Coinage had "inscriptions in Sogdian, Bactrian, Middle Persian and Brahmi."
[2]
"The Bactrian script and language were used for a long time after the Kushan age but only small fragments of Bactrian literary works have been discovered so far."
[3]
Administration was carried out at a regional level and probably in the local language by administrators recruited from the majority settled population.
[1]: (Zeimal 1996, 136) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [2]: (Zeimal 1996, 136-137) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [3]: (Harmatta 1994, 424) Harmatta, J. Languages and literature in the Kushan Empire. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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Greek language on coins until reign of Kanishka I (128-150 CE). Thereafter only Bactrian script on coins. Kharoshthi discontinued on coins from the same time but "was almost exclusively employed on various types of inscriptions in Gandhara and it was also exclusively and extensively employed for compiling Buddhist texts in Gandhara all through the Kushan period. .. Kharoshthi was also employed on a fairly large scale for writing non-religious texts, such as legal documents, land transfer deeds, official letters, etc. in various parts of Xingjiang Province of China, particularly in the Kashgar-Khotan-Niya Region."
[1]
Kanishka I (155-190 CE) era inscriptions (Rabatak and Surkh Kotal) found in Bactrian script employing monumental Greek script rather than the cursive style.
[1]
the state chancery used both "Bactrian written in Greek script and Gandhari written in Kharoshthi".
[2]
There also was a "formulae transmitted from the Achaemenians."
[3]
Sanskrit and Prakrit (of various types) were literary languages.
[4]
Official: Bactrian; {Regional: Gandhari; Sogdian; Greek; Chorasmian; Tocharian; Saka dialects}; Liturgical: Sanskrit.
[1]: (Samad 2011, 89) Samad, R. U. 2011. The Grandeur of Gandhara: The Ancient Buddhist Civilization of the Swat, Peshawar, Kabul and Indus Valleys. Angora Publishing. [2]: (Grenet 2012, 1-2) Grenet, Franz. 2012. The Nomadic Element in the Kushan Empire. (1st-3rd Century AD). Journal of Central Eurasian Studies. Volume 3. Center for Central Eurasian Studies. Seoul National University. [3]: (Grenet 2012, 2) Grenet, Franz. 2012. The Nomadic Element in the Kushan Empire. (1st-3rd Century AD). Journal of Central Eurasian Studies. Volume 3. Center for Central Eurasian Studies. Seoul National University. [4]: (Harmatta 1994, 425) Harmatta, J. Languages and literature in the Kushan Empire. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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Greek language on coins until reign of Kanishka I (128-150 CE). Thereafter only Bactrian script on coins. Kharoshthi discontinued on coins from the same time but "was almost exclusively employed on various types of inscriptions in Gandhara and it was also exclusively and extensively employed for compiling Buddhist texts in Gandhara all through the Kushan period. .. Kharoshthi was also employed on a fairly large scale for writing non-religious texts, such as legal documents, land transfer deeds, official letters, etc. in various parts of Xingjiang Province of China, particularly in the Kashgar-Khotan-Niya Region."
[1]
Kanishka I (155-190 CE) era inscriptions (Rabatak and Surkh Kotal) found in Bactrian script employing monumental Greek script rather than the cursive style.
[1]
the state chancery used both "Bactrian written in Greek script and Gandhari written in Kharoshthi".
[2]
There also was a "formulae transmitted from the Achaemenians."
[3]
Sanskrit and Prakrit (of various types) were literary languages.
[4]
Official: Bactrian; {Regional: Gandhari; Sogdian; Greek; Chorasmian; Tocharian; Saka dialects}; Liturgical: Sanskrit.
[1]: (Samad 2011, 89) Samad, R. U. 2011. The Grandeur of Gandhara: The Ancient Buddhist Civilization of the Swat, Peshawar, Kabul and Indus Valleys. Angora Publishing. [2]: (Grenet 2012, 1-2) Grenet, Franz. 2012. The Nomadic Element in the Kushan Empire. (1st-3rd Century AD). Journal of Central Eurasian Studies. Volume 3. Center for Central Eurasian Studies. Seoul National University. [3]: (Grenet 2012, 2) Grenet, Franz. 2012. The Nomadic Element in the Kushan Empire. (1st-3rd Century AD). Journal of Central Eurasian Studies. Volume 3. Center for Central Eurasian Studies. Seoul National University. [4]: (Harmatta 1994, 425) Harmatta, J. Languages and literature in the Kushan Empire. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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Entry field has been edited to make it machine readable French; Langues d’Oïl; Occitan: 1000-1200 CE
[1]
During 11th and 12th centuries the population that lived south of the Loire spoke Occitan.
[2]
Celtic language still strong in Brittany, even among the aristocrats.
[3]
[1]: (Turchin and Nefedov 2009, 112) [2]: (Nicolle and McBridge 1991, 3) [3]: (Nicolle and McBridge 2000, 6) |
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Greek language on coins until reign of Kanishka I (128-150 CE). Thereafter only Bactrian script on coins. Kharoshthi discontinued on coins from the same time but "was almost exclusively employed on various types of inscriptions in Gandhara and it was also exclusively and extensively employed for compiling Buddhist texts in Gandhara all through the Kushan period. .. Kharoshthi was also employed on a fairly large scale for writing non-religious texts, such as legal documents, land transfer deeds, official letters, etc. in various parts of Xingjiang Province of China, particularly in the Kashgar-Khotan-Niya Region."
[1]
Kanishka I (155-190 CE) era inscriptions (Rabatak and Surkh Kotal) found in Bactrian script employing monumental Greek script rather than the cursive style.
[1]
the state chancery used both "Bactrian written in Greek script and Gandhari written in Kharoshthi".
[2]
There also was a "formulae transmitted from the Achaemenians."
[3]
Sanskrit and Prakrit (of various types) were literary languages.
[4]
Official: Bactrian; {Regional: Gandhari; Sogdian; Greek; Chorasmian; Tocharian; Saka dialects}; Liturgical: Sanskrit.
[1]: (Samad 2011, 89) Samad, R. U. 2011. The Grandeur of Gandhara: The Ancient Buddhist Civilization of the Swat, Peshawar, Kabul and Indus Valleys. Angora Publishing. [2]: (Grenet 2012, 1-2) Grenet, Franz. 2012. The Nomadic Element in the Kushan Empire. (1st-3rd Century AD). Journal of Central Eurasian Studies. Volume 3. Center for Central Eurasian Studies. Seoul National University. [3]: (Grenet 2012, 2) Grenet, Franz. 2012. The Nomadic Element in the Kushan Empire. (1st-3rd Century AD). Journal of Central Eurasian Studies. Volume 3. Center for Central Eurasian Studies. Seoul National University. [4]: (Harmatta 1994, 425) Harmatta, J. Languages and literature in the Kushan Empire. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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There is still no consensus on the language of the Yuezhi: ’Some authors believe they originally spoke a "Tocharian" language, and others that they spoke an eastern Iranic or proto-Turkic language’.
[1]
Benjamin describes Tocharian as ’the Indo-European language spoken by the core Yuezhi’.
[2]
However, ’By the time Kajula Kadphrises ... established the Kingdom of the Kushans in Bactria, the Kushans had adopted Bactrian as their spoken language".
[3]
[1]: (Hill 2009, 312) John E. Hill. 2009. Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. An Annotated Translation of the Chronicle on the ’Western Regions’ from the Hou Hanshu. Charleston, SC: BookSurge Publishing. [2]: (Benjamin 2003) C. Benjamin. 2003. ’The Yuezhi Migration and Sogdia’, in Ēran ud Anērān: Studies Presented to Boris Ilich Marshak on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday, edited by Matteo Compareti, Paola Raffeta and Gianroberto Scarcia. Transoxiana Webfestschrift Series I, published online at http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/. [3]: (Samad 2011, 88) Samad, R. U. 2011. The Grandeur of Gandhara: The Ancient Buddhist Civilization of the Swat, Peshawar, Kabul and Indus Valleys. Angora Publishing. |
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There is still no consensus on the language of the Yuezhi: ’Some authors believe they originally spoke a "Tocharian" language, and others that they spoke an eastern Iranic or proto-Turkic language’.
[1]
Benjamin describes Tocharian as ’the Indo-European language spoken by the core Yuezhi’.
[2]
However, ’By the time Kajula Kadphrises ... established the Kingdom of the Kushans in Bactria, the Kushans had adopted Bactrian as their spoken language".
[3]
[1]: (Hill 2009, 312) John E. Hill. 2009. Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. An Annotated Translation of the Chronicle on the ’Western Regions’ from the Hou Hanshu. Charleston, SC: BookSurge Publishing. [2]: (Benjamin 2003) C. Benjamin. 2003. ’The Yuezhi Migration and Sogdia’, in Ēran ud Anērān: Studies Presented to Boris Ilich Marshak on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday, edited by Matteo Compareti, Paola Raffeta and Gianroberto Scarcia. Transoxiana Webfestschrift Series I, published online at http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/. [3]: (Samad 2011, 88) Samad, R. U. 2011. The Grandeur of Gandhara: The Ancient Buddhist Civilization of the Swat, Peshawar, Kabul and Indus Valleys. Angora Publishing. |
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"The people whose material culture is studied here did not yet, as far as we know, use the Eastern Zhou term Zhongguo, or “middle kingdoms,” nor is there any evidence that they considered themselves to have a common collective identity. Indeed, it is likely that many, if not most, of those within the area of what is now the People’s Republic of China did not speak any language ancestral to modern Chinese. In addition to archaic Chinese, there would have been speakers of other Sino-Tibetan languages, as well as Altaic, Austroasiatic, Hmong-Mien, Tai-Kadai, Austronesian, and perhaps even Indo-European languages."
[1]
[1]: (Campbell 2014, 13) |
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The demotic Egyptian language, spoken and written, was very important during the early part of the first Ptolemaic period (305-217 CE), a continuation of scribal practice from the Persian period. Very little Greek administrative texts survive until the reign of Ptolemy II. The general assumption is that this does not reflect accidence of survival but a time lag to establish Greek within the bureaucratic system. It took, thus, roughly 75 to 50 years (counting from either Alexander’s conquest or from 320bc) before the Greek language becomes dominant.
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The Hmong sub-groups spoke different languages: ’Miao, mountain-dwelling peoples of China, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, and Thailand, who speak languages of the Hmong-Mien (Miao-Yao) family.’
[1]
’The customs and histories of the four Miao groups are quite different, and they speak mutually unintelligible languages. Closest linguistically to the Hmong are the A-Hmao, but the two groups still cannot understand each others’ languages. Of all the Miao peoples, only the Hmong have migrated out of China.’
[1]
Xiangxi, Qiandong, and Chuanqiandian are among the major languages spoken by non-Chinese ’hill peoples’: ’According to Chinese language classification, the Miao languages belong to the Miao-Yao Branch of Sino-Tibetan. Officially, these languages are termed fangyin (dialects) although they are not mutually intelligible. There are at least three main languages, further divisible into distinct and separate sublanguages or dialects of varying degrees of closeness. The Miao languages are tonal. Xiangxi, spoken in western Hunan by close to one million speakers, is associated with the Red Miao. It is comprised of two sublanguages. The larger of the two has been taken as standard and given a romanization for school texts and other local publications. The Qiandong language of central and eastern Guizhou is associated with the Black Miao. It has three major subdivisions. The most widespread of the three has well over a million speakers, and is taken as the official standard. The others, with a half million speakers each, are regarded as dialects and, as of this writing, have no official recognition. The Chuanqiandian languages are spoken by White, Flowery, and Blue Miao. There are at least seven major subdivisions, each further divided into a number of local dialects. As of 1994, only Chuanqiandianci (White Miao) and Diandongbei (Hua Miao) are officially recognized. Both of these formerly used a phonetic script, introduced by missionaries at the turn of the century. The script has been supplanted by a government-introduced romanization. In addition there are some eight additional fangyin , with several thousand speakers each, which do not fit into any of the major categories. Most of the Miao in Hainan are Yao speakers, and some Miao elsewhere speak only Dong or Chinese.’
[2]
The pace of the Sinification process still needs to be determined in further detail. The sources imply that Chuanqiandian was spoken by the Flowery Hmong, but make no mention of A-Hmao or Big Flowery Hmong. We have therefore chosen to keep all there of these major Chinese languages in the code, awaiting expert feedback on the A-Hmao.
[1]: http://www.britannica.com/topic/Miao [2]: Diamond, Norma: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Miao |
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Entry field has been edited to make it machine readable French; Langues d’Oïl; Occitan: 1000-1200 CE
[1]
During 11th and 12th centuries the population that lived south of the Loire spoke Occitan.
[2]
Celtic language still strong in Brittany, even among the aristocrats.
[3]
[1]: (Turchin and Nefedov 2009, 112) [2]: (Nicolle and McBridge 1991, 3) [3]: (Nicolle and McBridge 2000, 6) |
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Entry field has been edited to make it machine readable French; Langues d’Oïl; Occitan: 1000-1200 CE
[1]
During 11th and 12th centuries the population that lived south of the Loire spoke Occitan.
[2]
Celtic language still strong in Brittany, even among the aristocrats.
[3]
[1]: (Turchin and Nefedov 2009, 112) [2]: (Nicolle and McBridge 1991, 3) [3]: (Nicolle and McBridge 2000, 6) |
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The Hmong sub-groups spoke different languages: ’Miao, mountain-dwelling peoples of China, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, and Thailand, who speak languages of the Hmong-Mien (Miao-Yao) family.’
[1]
’The customs and histories of the four Miao groups are quite different, and they speak mutually unintelligible languages. Closest linguistically to the Hmong are the A-Hmao, but the two groups still cannot understand each others’ languages. Of all the Miao peoples, only the Hmong have migrated out of China.’
[1]
Xiangxi, Qiandong, and Chuanqiandian are among the major languages spoken by non-Chinese ’hill peoples’: ’According to Chinese language classification, the Miao languages belong to the Miao-Yao Branch of Sino-Tibetan. Officially, these languages are termed fangyin (dialects) although they are not mutually intelligible. There are at least three main languages, further divisible into distinct and separate sublanguages or dialects of varying degrees of closeness. The Miao languages are tonal. Xiangxi, spoken in western Hunan by close to one million speakers, is associated with the Red Miao. It is comprised of two sublanguages. The larger of the two has been taken as standard and given a romanization for school texts and other local publications. The Qiandong language of central and eastern Guizhou is associated with the Black Miao. It has three major subdivisions. The most widespread of the three has well over a million speakers, and is taken as the official standard. The others, with a half million speakers each, are regarded as dialects and, as of this writing, have no official recognition. The Chuanqiandian languages are spoken by White, Flowery, and Blue Miao. There are at least seven major subdivisions, each further divided into a number of local dialects. As of 1994, only Chuanqiandianci (White Miao) and Diandongbei (Hua Miao) are officially recognized. Both of these formerly used a phonetic script, introduced by missionaries at the turn of the century. The script has been supplanted by a government-introduced romanization. In addition there are some eight additional fangyin , with several thousand speakers each, which do not fit into any of the major categories. Most of the Miao in Hainan are Yao speakers, and some Miao elsewhere speak only Dong or Chinese.’
[2]
The pace of the Sinification process still needs to be determined in further detail. The sources imply that Chuanqiandian was spoken by the Flowery Hmong, but make no mention of A-Hmao or Big Flowery Hmong. We have therefore chosen to keep all there of these major Chinese languages in the code, awaiting expert feedback on the A-Hmao.
[1]: http://www.britannica.com/topic/Miao [2]: Diamond, Norma: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Miao |
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|
The Hmong sub-groups spoke different languages: ’Miao, mountain-dwelling peoples of China, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, and Thailand, who speak languages of the Hmong-Mien (Miao-Yao) family.’
[1]
’The customs and histories of the four Miao groups are quite different, and they speak mutually unintelligible languages. Closest linguistically to the Hmong are the A-Hmao, but the two groups still cannot understand each others’ languages. Of all the Miao peoples, only the Hmong have migrated out of China.’
[1]
Xiangxi, Qiandong, and Chuanqiandian are among the major languages spoken by non-Chinese ’hill peoples’: ’According to Chinese language classification, the Miao languages belong to the Miao-Yao Branch of Sino-Tibetan. Officially, these languages are termed fangyin (dialects) although they are not mutually intelligible. There are at least three main languages, further divisible into distinct and separate sublanguages or dialects of varying degrees of closeness. The Miao languages are tonal. Xiangxi, spoken in western Hunan by close to one million speakers, is associated with the Red Miao. It is comprised of two sublanguages. The larger of the two has been taken as standard and given a romanization for school texts and other local publications. The Qiandong language of central and eastern Guizhou is associated with the Black Miao. It has three major subdivisions. The most widespread of the three has well over a million speakers, and is taken as the official standard. The others, with a half million speakers each, are regarded as dialects and, as of this writing, have no official recognition. The Chuanqiandian languages are spoken by White, Flowery, and Blue Miao. There are at least seven major subdivisions, each further divided into a number of local dialects. As of 1994, only Chuanqiandianci (White Miao) and Diandongbei (Hua Miao) are officially recognized. Both of these formerly used a phonetic script, introduced by missionaries at the turn of the century. The script has been supplanted by a government-introduced romanization. In addition there are some eight additional fangyin , with several thousand speakers each, which do not fit into any of the major categories. Most of the Miao in Hainan are Yao speakers, and some Miao elsewhere speak only Dong or Chinese.’
[2]
The pace of the Sinification process still needs to be determined in further detail. The sources imply that Chuanqiandian was spoken by the Flowery Hmong, but make no mention of A-Hmao or Big Flowery Hmong. We have therefore chosen to keep all there of these major Chinese languages in the code, awaiting expert feedback on the A-Hmao.
[1]: http://www.britannica.com/topic/Miao [2]: Diamond, Norma: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Miao |
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