DFG research group "The Linguistic (Pre-)History of the Indo-Iranian Frontier"
The old village of Ktivi (Kantiwā) in central Nuristan
Image Credit: Photo Sviatoslav Kaverin
The project “The Linguistic (Pre-)History of the Indo-Iranian Frontier” is a junior research group funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Emmy Noether Program. It focuses on the languages of the so-called “Indo-Iranian Frontier” (present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan).
The term “Indo-Iranian Frontier” was coined by the Norwegian linguist Georg Morgenstierne, who published a series of first descriptions of languages in the region between Pamir, Hindu Kush and Karakorum under the title “Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages” during the 20th century. For the purposes of the project, it refers to a transition and contact zone between the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani subgroups of the Indo-Iranian language family, in which these language groups interact with each other and influence each other.
The aim of the project is to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the linguistic history and prehistory of the region through a close integration of field research and empirical-descriptive work with historical-comparative studies.
Three subprojects respectively deal with representatives of the Iranian, Nuristani and Indo-Aryan subgroup, focusing on the individual languages Yidgha-Munji, Prasun and the Kunar group of Indo-Aryan. The members of the junior research group work with native speakers of these languages to further develop a descriptive understanding of the grammatical structure and lexicon of the languages, thereby contributing to their documentation. The resulting data also serves as a basis for the historical work within the project.
For the historical-comparative component of the project, comparisons with earlier attested stages of Iranian (Old and Middle Iranian) and Indo-Aryan (Old and Middle Indo-Aryan) and aspects of the reconstruction of the Indo-Iranian and Indo-European proto-language play an important role, with the aim of gaining new insights into the etymology and historical development of the sound system and morphology of the languages in question. The project will also complete and expand the etymological dictionary of the Nuristani languages begun as part of the DFG Walter Benjamin Project “An Etymological Dictionary of the Nuristani Nominal Lexicon”. In addition, loan relationships and contacts between the ancient lingua francas of the region, such as Bactrian and Gandhari, and the unattested precursors of the modern languages will also be addressed.