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" نامه نگاری در ایران پیش از اسلام: "
Nematollahi, Narges
Choksy, Jamsheed K.
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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1105555
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| Doc. No
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TLpq2313671060
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| Main Entry
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Choksy, Jamsheed K.
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Nematollahi, Narges
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| Title & Author
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نامه نگاری در ایران پیش از اسلام:\ Nematollahi, NargesChoksy, Jamsheed K.
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| College
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Indiana University
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| Date
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2019
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| student score
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2019
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| Page No
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310
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| Abstract
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In this study, I examine official epistolary traditions in pre-Islamic Iran, under the Achaemenids (550 – 320 BCE), the Seleucids (312 – 129 BCE), the Arsacids (129 BCE – 224 CE) and the Sasanians (224 – 650 CE). Each dynasty had a different official language; The Achaemenid Empire used Aramaic, a Semitic language which had been previously used as the administrative language of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in Mesopotamia. The Seleucid rulers of Iran used Greek, their own native language, whereas later Iranian dynasties of the Arsacids and the Sasanians used Middle Iranian languages, Parthian and Middle Persian, respectively, in their official correspondence. Therefore, this study covers official letters in four different languages over the course of more than a millennium. After describing the epistolary traditions in each language, I trace the historical development of official epistolary genre and seek to explain the linguistic changes in terms of social shifts. I argue that the changes occurred in language and layout of letters from Aramaic to Middle Persian reflect a shift from the semantics of power to the semantics of politeness, similar to what Brown & Gilman (1960) observe in the use of pronouns in European languages. I show that in the epistolary data, this shift is manifested in the use of pronouns as well as in the format of praescriptio and greeting sections of the letters. I further argue that while the Aramaic official letters were modeled after the legal documents, letters in Middle Iranian languages moved towards the literary texts by using various epithets as well as literary devices such as rhymed prose and parallelism, a trend which was to reach its summit in the epistolary tradition of New Persian in post-Islamic era.
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| Subject
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Ancient languages
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Linguistics
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Near Eastern studies
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