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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
Individual humans as well as human communities interact in a great variety of ways and, in essence, Unesco's Silk Roads Major Project endeavors to shed light on the cultural interactions along the trade routes linking various Eurasian civilizations. The term Silk Road or Roads conjures up visions of caravans laden with rare goods, carrying them from the distant, perhaps even the so-called “mysterious”, East towards the Western World. This general impression is partially created by the word “silk”, name of a commodity generally and correctly linked with China where it was first produced. It is good to remember that a “Silk Road” is a historic fiction, invented in the nineteenth century by the German geographer von Richthofen to call attention to the existence of, first and foremost, commercial contacts between China and the Roman Empire. Silk was but one of the many goods circulating all along the many roads criss-crossing the great Eurasian space. This short essay will provide some information on the languages used along the land arteries of communication between East and West.
1. The Sogdians were the Iranian-speaking inhabitants of Sogdiana (in Transoxania) before their adoption of Turkic tongues brought about by repeated Turkic in vasions. (ed).
2. St. Augustin, The City of God, XIX, vii, London, 1945, p. 243.
3. E.G.Pulleyblank, "A Sogdian Colony in Inner Mongolia," in T'oung Pao, 41 (1952), pp. 317-56, p.317.
4. Sir Henry Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither (new edition revised by Henri Cordier), 4 vols., London, 1913-1916, vol. III, pp.180-81.
5. Ying-shih Yü, Trade and Expansion in China: A Study in the Structure of Sino-Barbarian Economic Relations, Berkeley, 1967, p.143.
6. Edwin G. Pulleyblank, The Background of the An-lu-shan Rebellion, Oxford, 1955, p.8.
7. Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La practica della mercatura, ed. by Allan Evans, Medieval Academy of America, 1936, p.21.
8. The Sassanid king Chosroes (531-579) had the reputation of a wise and just man. He clashed with the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I and occupied Antioch and Lazica before withdrawing in 562 against payment of an annual tribute (ed.)
9. Vladimir Drimba, Syntaxe Comane, Bucuresti-Leiden, 1973, p.222.
10. Kumarajiva (344-413?) was born in Kucha to an Indian father who was a fer vent Buddhist and a Kuchean princess. His mother took him to Kashmir so that he would receive an Indian and Buddhist education. After his return to the Tarim Basin he lived for a year in Kashghar and in Kucha. In 388 he was taken by Chinese numerous Buddhist texts. (ed).
11. Because of the vastness of the subject no bibliography could here be given. Readers interested in the subject may find further information in Denis Sinor, "Interpreters in Medieval Inner Asia," in Asian and African Studies. Journal of the Israel Oriental Society, 16 (1982), pp. 293-320.
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