Some papers

March 22, 2008 1:00 AM

Some interesting papers by Shamsiddin Kamoliddin:
To the Question of Origin of the Name Hashimgird
To the Question of the Origin of the Samanids
NEW DATA ON THE BAZRS OF MEDIEVAL SAMARQAND
On the Origin of the place-Name Buxārā I found these mostly on Transoxiana.org
posted by Taksi Putra (14 comments total)

Awesome.
posted by squarehead at 8:46 AM on March 22

There are many HBO specials to be made out of all this!
posted by DenOfSizer at 8:56 AM on March 22

Yeah, I've just done some skimming so far and am already blown away. Medieval Central Asia is a topic that's always fascinated me; Bukhara, Samarkand, and the Samanids—magic words to my ears! The translationese in these articles can take getting used to, but it's worth it if you're interested in the topic:

Маnichaeism in the Central Asia during long time coexisted with the Buddhism, and influence of the Buddhism on east branch of the Manichaeism was so strong, that Mānī in the Manichaeic texts was called as the Buddha or Mānī–Buddha... Hence, the prototype of mausoleum of the Samanids was, most likely, not a Buddhist, but a Manichaean temple, and the king of Bukhara named Māh (El - tegin, Parmūda) was not the Buddhist, but Manichaean. ...

Basing on above mentioned data, it might be supposed that the name of Buxārā originated from a Turkic word buxar, that means «a Buddhist temple». In such case it can be explained impossibility of formation of the form pux’r, fixed in the Sogdian sources, from a Sanskrit word vihara, which, in turn, testifies that name of the city (Buxārā) is formed not on the basis of the Sogdian lexicon, but on the basis of the Turkic one. In that case the Sogdian form Puxar (pwx’r) was transformation not of the Sanskrit word vihara, but the Turkic buxar with the same meaning.

I love this stuff.
posted by languagehat at 8:58 AM on March 22 [3 favorites]

Languagehat, I share your fascination with this topic, unreservedly.

Posts like this make me love Metafilter so very, very much.
posted by EricGjerde at 11:14 AM on March 22

Favourited. Thanks.
posted by jokeefe at 12:13 PM on March 22

The papers read like the opening to the 1001 Nights. Wonderful.
posted by nax at 1:09 PM on March 22

I just jumped in to say how happy I was that the blue is doing what it does best. Great post.
Joeclark, your general purpose and mine vary considerably, but that's what great about this site.
posted by Wilder at 3:46 PM on March 22

There is, as it happens, a Metatalk thread where complaints about the post could go.
posted by cortex at 4:23 PM on March 22

Cool post. The region has always fascinated me since I came across a copy of Byron's Road to Oxiana at a thrift shop when I was little. As an aside, I always wanted to name my Kraut Rock/Prog Rock power trio Transoxiana
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 5:13 PM on March 22

Reglular Tajiks freezing and starving, while president steals loans from aid organisations.
posted by Meatbomb at 7:06 PM on March 22

Great post - looks like the kind of thing John Emerson would be interested in (assuming he didn't set it up).

Much reading here - many thanks.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 3:32 AM on March 24

Dear colleagues,

I research medieval history and geography of Central Asia.
I am glad that you are interested in my articles on the Bukhara and Samanids, which published in Transoxiana web-journal.
If anybody have some questions to me I am ready to comment my point of view.

All the best,

Shamsiddin Kamoliddin.
posted by shamskamol at 10:07 AM on April 1

For those, who intersted in the Turkic historical place names there is an English translation of the book S.Kamoliddin "Ancient Turkic Toponymy of Central Asia" (Tashkent: Sharq, 2006), which is available in the following web-site:

http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/40_Language/Toponymy/KamoliddinPart1En.htm

Shamsiddin Kamoliddin.
posted by shamskamol at 8:47 PM on April 4

Thanks very much, I look forward to reading it. Here's a direct link, for anyone else who's interested.
posted by languagehat at 5:57 AM on April 5