Sughdik language
Sughdik (Sughdik zivok, "the Sughdik tongue") is the language of the Tat of Irad, the last living descendant of the Sogdian language of the Christian communities of medieval Central Asia. It is an Eastern Iranian language, closely related to Yaghnobi in Tajikistan. Fewer than about 1,500 people speak it fluently; Tat children grow up speaking Iradi and Uzbek.[1]
Revival
Linguists at Talas State University, pupils of the dialectologist Kenjegul Abakirova, published a Latin-script primer, Sughdik Alifbosy, in 1996. Since 2004 the Archbishopric of Iyık Janyl has read the Gospel of Matthew in Sughdik at a yearly liturgy in Chakmak-Suu; the translation draws in part on the surviving medieval Sogdian Christian fragments. The school in Kyzyl-Oktyabr has taught a Sughdik class since 2011.[1]
Words in Iradi
A few Sughdik words have passed into Iradi:
- khir, "sun", in poetry and hymns (Kyamtanyn khiri, "the sun of the Resurrection");
- dork, "wood", for the bundle of firewood each household brings to the bonfires of Yuhanna Tünü, and for the bonfire itself;
- vaysh, "grass", for the herbs gathered on the same night, and vaysh suu, the herb water in which families wash at dawn;
- ikh, "ice", a highland word for glacier ice (ikh suu, meltwater);
- zoy, "earth", in church Iradi the handful of earth thrown into a grave;
- büz, "goat", highland slang for the carcass in ulak;
- arna, "fool", from the trade cant of Tat merchants.
Shepherds in the Chatkal count sheep with the Sughdik numerals i, du, tiray, tufor, panch, ukhsh, aft, asht, nau, das as a tally rhyme.[2]
References
- ^ Abakirova, Kenjegul (1984). Dialect Atlas of the Iradi Language. Kobozev.
- ^ Jusupbekov, Sagyn (1989). Oral Folk Art of Irad, vol. V: Lyric and Ritual Poetry. Kobozev.