Khwārezmian (Khwarezmian: , ''zβ'k 'y xw'rzm''; also transliterated Khwarazmian, Chorasmian, Khorezmian) is an extinct East Iranian language closely related to Sogdian. The language was spoken in the area of Khwarezm (Chorasmia), centered in the lower

Amu Darya The Amu Darya, tk, Amyderýa/ uz, Amudaryo// tg, Амударё, Amudaryo ps, , tr, Ceyhun / Amu Derya grc, Ὦξος, Ôxos (also called the Amu, Amo River and historically known by its Latin name or Greek ) is a major river in Central Asi ...

south of the Aral Sea (the northern part of the modern

Republic of Uzbekistan A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...

and the adjacent areas of

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

and

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the sout ...

). Knowledge of Khwarezmian is limited to its Middle Iranian stage and, as with Sogdian, little is known of its ancient form. Based on the writings of Khwarezmian scholars

Al-Biruni Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian in scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of Co ...

and Zamakhshari, the language was in use at least until the 13th century, when it was gradually replaced by

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

for the most part, as well as several dialects of Turkic.CHORASMIA iii. The Chorasmian Language
/ref> Sources of Khwarezmian include astronomical terms used by al-Biruni, Zamakhshari's

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

–

–Khwarezmian dictionary and several legal texts that use Khwarezmian terms and quotations to explain certain legal concepts, most notably the Qunyat al-Munya of Mukhtār al-Zāhidī al-Ghazmīnī (d. 1259/60). The noted scholar W.B. Henning was preparing a dictionary of Khwarezmian when he died, leaving it unfinished. A fragment of this dictionary was published posthumously by D.N. MacKenzie in 1971.

Writing system

Before the advance of Islam in

Transoxiana Transoxiana or Transoxania (Land beyond the Oxus) is the Latin name for a region and civilization located in lower Central Asia roughly corresponding to modern-day eastern Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, parts of southern Kazakhstan, parts of Tu ...

(early 8th century), Khwarezmian was written in a script close to that of Sogdian and Pahlavi with its roots in the imperial

Aramaic script The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

. From the few surviving examples of this script on coins and artifacts, it has been observed that written Khwarezmian included Aramaic

logograms In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced ''hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as ...

ideograms An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek "idea" and "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiari ...

, that is Aramaic words written to represent native spoken ones e.g. 𐡔𐡍𐡕 (ŠNT) for سرذ, ''sarδ'', "year", 𐡍𐡐𐡔𐡉 (NPŠY) for خداك, ''xudāk'', "self" and 𐡌𐡋𐡊𐡀 (MLK') for اى شاه, ''ī šah'', "the king". After the advance of Islam, Khwarezmian was written using an adapted version of the

Perso-Arabic alphabet The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran (Western Persian) and Afghanistan ( Dari Persian) since the 7th cent ...

with a few extra signs to reflect specific Khwarezmian sounds, such as the letter څ which represents /ts/ and /dz/, as in the traditional

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...

orthography.THE KHWAREZMIAN GLOSSARY—I, D. N. MacKenzi
Link
/ref>

Unicode

Khwarezmian script was added to the

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...

Standard in March, 2020 with the release of version 13.0. The Unicode block for Khwarezmian, called Chorasmian, is U+10FB0–U+10FDF:

Notes

Literature

;The Khwarezmian Glossary: * . * . * . * . * .

External links

Encyclopedia Iranica, "The Chorasmian language" by D.N. Mackenziehttps://web.archive.org/web/20040201160726/http://iranianlanguages.com/
{{DEFAULTSORT:Khwarezmian Language Medieval languages Eastern Iranian languages Extinct languages of Asia Languages attested from the 2nd century BC Languages attested from the 1st millennium Languages extinct in the 11th century

Writing system

Unicode

See also

Notes

Literature

Further reading

External links