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Meant to send this more than a month ago.

Interesting new journal in Iranian Studies

"Berkeley Working Papers in Middle Iranian Philology is a new open access e-journal hosted by UC Berkeley’s Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures and edited by Adam Benkato and Arash Zeini. It publishes short and longer articles or research reports on the philology and epigraphy of the Middle Iranian languages (Middle Persian, Parthian, Bactrian, Sogdian, Chorasmian, Khotanese). Submitted papers will be reviewed by the editors and published on an ongoing basis. The journal promotes a simple and quick publishing process with collective annual volumes published at the end of each year. The editors encourage scholars working on Middle Persian documents in particular to submit their work."

From Vito Acosta:

In the inaugural issue, "Towards a Manifesto for Middle Iranian Philology," Zeini borrows from Nietzsche’s meditations on philology to reflect on its position within the field of Iranian Studies. He summarizes Nietzsche’s view of philology as a discipline that "does not exclusively attempt a reconstruction of history, ritual or cultures, but is an engagement with texts within a broader context reflecting our own understanding of the past rather than establishing an authoritative and objective view of an actual past, whatever it may be" and concludes that, "It is precisely the attention to the larger contexts, the longue durée of history, religions or cultures, that philology of Middle Iranian languages, particularly Zoroastrianism, needs — and that we wish to promote and advocate by means of this journal."

Since we have a fair number of Middle Iranian specialist readers on Language Log, I thought it would be worthwhile to make this post.

 

Selected readings

• "Catalogue of Sogdian Writings in Central Asia" (1/5/23)
• "A Persian word in a Sinitic topolect" (3/10/20)
• "Sogdians and Xiongnu / Huns" (2/21/22)
• "Of chains and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (1/17/21)
• "Zoroastrianism and Mazdaism: Evidence from Sogdian and Pahlavi" (1/15/21)
• "The dissemination of iron and the spread of languages" (11/5/20)
• "Early Indo-Europeans in Xinjiang" (11/19/08)

 

March 1, 2023 @ 10:19 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Announcements, Philology

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