PhD defence
Traces of Language Contact in Niya Prakrit
- N. Schoubben
- Date
- Wednesday 6 November 2024
- Time
- Location
-
Academy Building
Rapenburg 73
2311 GJ Leiden
Supervisor(s)
- Prof.dr. M. Peyrot
- Prof.dr. A. Lubotsky
Summary
In the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, in the desert oases of NW China, scribes in the Shanshan kingdom were relentlessly writing accounts, letters, and other official documents in the Middle-Indo-Aryan language which we now call Niya Prakrit. This dissertation is the first systematic investigation into the traces that linguistic contact left in the vocabulary and grammar of this language. It is argued that most of the Iranian loanwords in Niya Prakrit were borrowed from Bactrian; that Bactrian influenced Niya Prakrit also in its grammar; that there is no compelling proof for Tocharian substrate influence on Niya Prakrit; and that the Bactrian influence on Niya Prakrit is due to Bactrian-speaking officials of the Kuṣāṇa dynasty using the immediate ancestor of Niya Prakrit as a chancellery idiom.
PhD dissertations
Approximately one week after the defence, PhD dissertations by Leiden PhD students are available digitally through the Leiden Repository, that offers free access to these PhD dissertations. Please note that in some cases a dissertation may be under embargo temporarily and access to its full-text version will only be granted later.
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