Glossary
TRANSLITERATED terms have been defined in the text at least the first
time they occur. Those terms which occur more than once are included
here. The languages to which they belong are abbreviated as follows:
A. Aramaic L. Latin
Ak. Akkadian M. Mandaic
Ar. Arabic M.P. Middle Persian
Av. Avestan N.P. New Persian
Gr. Greek Syr. Syriac
Heb. HebrewIn a multilingual society many words circulate in several languages,
changing their form from one to another. Thus, loanwords are not
always easy to recognize and there are differences of opinion over
etymologies. Older works such as S. Frankel, Die aramiiischen
Fremdworter im Arabischen (Leiden, 1886), and A. Shir, Kitab al-
alfiiz al-farisiyya al-mu'arraba (Beirut, 1908) contain a wealth of
suggestive information which is not restricted to the languages in their
titles and are worth consulting, even though some of their derivations
are out of date. The same applies to A. Schall, Studien aber griechische
Fremdworter im Syrischen (Darmstadt, 1960). Treatments of the proc-
ess of sound changes in loanwords may be found in A. Siddiqi, Studien
uber die persischen Fremdworter im klassischen Arabisch (Gottingen,
1919); M. Kamil, "Persian words in ancient Arabic," Bulletin of the
Faculty of Arts (Majallah Kulliyat al-Adab) (Cairo University), 19
(1957): 55-67; and S. Brock, "Some Aspects of Greek Words in Syriac,"
in A. Dietrich, ed., Synkretismus im syrisch-persischen Kulturgebiet
(Gottingen, 1975), pp. 80-108. The notes to Brock's contribution also
identify recent literature on this subject. Both D. N. Mackenzie, A
Concise Pahlavi Dictionary (London, 1971) and H. S. Nyberg, A
Manual of Pahlavi, Part II: Glossary (Wiesbaden, 1974) distinguish
between the Middle Persian and New Persian form of words. Nyberg
also provides the Aramaic logograms with which Middle Persian words
were sometimes written and he notes which Middle Persian words
were used in Arabic.
afziin (M.P.): "may he prosper," a slogan used on late Sasanian coins.
afziit (M.P.): "may he live long," a slogan used on the coins of Khusraw
Parvlz and his successors and on Arab-Sasanian coins.