Overview of Sogdian language

Sogdian belongs to the eastern dialect of Iran in the Middle Ages. The Sogdians once played an important role in the culture of Uighurs and their descendants. The Uyghur characters used by Uighurs were created on the basis of the initial consonants of Sogdian. Sogdian literature is mostly about Christianity, Manichaeism, Buddhism and other religious contents. Sogdian alphabet developed from Aramaic alphabet in a region. Like semitic letters, they are consonants. Generally does not represent vowels. The Sogdian documents discovered in China are mainly written in three letters, namely, Sogdian letters, Mani letters and ancient Syrian letters. Because of the different letter systems, the number of letters is also different.

Also known as Li. In ancient times, Jiali people used phonetic symbols to record the commercial language-Jiali language, which was popular in Central Asia and Northwest China. Some people also use this letter to write religious documents, especially Buddhist scriptures. This language belongs to the eastern branch of Indo-European and Iranian languages, and is closely related to Persian and ancient Khotan. Some people think that Jagnobi in Pamirs of modern Soviet Union is its remains. Yili is not only an ancient place name, but also an ancient national name and an ancient language name.

In China's historical records, it is also called Su Yi, Su Li, Sun Lin, Su Li, Li Xiu and Su Te. Sughda in ancient Persian and Avisto, and sū lik in Pahlavi. In addition, there are different ways of writing such as Surik and Sogd. Yuli is located between Wuhu water (now Amu Darya) and Yaosha water (now Syr Darya). Xuanzang briefly described the landscape and characters of Jianli in the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty, and pointed out that Jianli's characters are phonetic characters with more than 20 letters, and their characters should be read vertically. According to the research on the remnants of Jiali characters and other archaeological materials unearthed in Turpan, Xinjiang, China, it is generally believed that Jiali characters originated from the Syrian Aramaic alphabet. There are 22 Aramaic letters, of which 17 is borrowed by Yan. This set of letters only indicates consonants, not vowels, and there are three variants: ① Sasol, which was introduced into many areas with immigrants; (2) Buddhist scriptures, which appeared around 500 AD; (3) Grass appeared before the 7th century at the latest. There are two types of lines: horizontal writing from right to left and vertical writing from top to bottom. Handed down documents include Manichaeism, Christianity, Buddhist classics and business letters. After Mongols entered Central Asia in the 0/3rd century A.D./KLOC, they were abandoned by Li.