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Date:        Thu, 27 May 1999 15:36:16 -1000
To:          e.karloukovski@uea.ac.uk
From:        Farooq Babrakzai <babrak@hawaii.edu>
Subject:     Re: pashto, bulgar

Hello,

My advisor, Dr. Jacobs, forwarded to me your list of old Bulgar lexicon
which found quite interesting.  I indeed recognized words that are still
used in Persian, Pashto, and Indian languages.  In its golden period,
Persian enjoyed the status of "colonial" language in Asia, from Turkey to
Bangladesh.  The Persian/Pamirian words went to Bulgar and Slavic
languages with the Turkish conquests.

There are also many Persian words that I do not recognize, but there are
others to which I can add some information.

 Sanskrit fsu-pana > shab-bAn > chopAn *night+having = night spender
"shepherd".  Pashto "Shpoon"

Vesh in Pashto "division" of land, "lot".
Khazn from Arabic > makhzan "storage"  > magazine
mir is Arabic, but mikhr is probably Persian "mihr" and "mitra" the god of
harvest, love, friendship, contract.
tuva = gift is probably from tohfa "gift, present"

I am a native speaker of Pashto and also know Urdu and Persian.  Your list
is quite long and I do not know what kind of comments you would prefer.  I
have no direct knowledge of Turkish and its spread into the Balkans, but I
know that Persian (and Arabic) words did spread there through Turkish.

Farooq Babrakzai

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. . .

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Date:        Tue, 1 Jun 1999 15:09:17 -1000
To:          Vassil Karloukovski <E.Karloukovski@uea.ac.uk>
From:        Farooq Babrakzai <babrak@hawaii.edu>
Subject:     Re: pashto, bulgar

Dear Vassil:

Thanks for the message.  The questions of different ethnic groups
historically living in Central Asia are quite complex.  That is an
opinion based on verious references that I have come across.  Those groups
that migrated south-ward at different times have not been identified
properly.  Many have assimilated into the latter day cultures, kindgoms
and newer waves of migration.  However, recent works have inidicated
clearly that people living in the Chinese Turkestan (Sinkiang?) region
were and still are of European type (Persian/Tajik?).  The Pashto speakers
are believed to be the descendents of Saka tribes or the people living in
northern trans-Oxus region.  Similar views are held about the later
arrivals into the Indian Sub-continent of groups such as the Rajputs, the
White Huns, etc.  The Nooristanis, Pathans, and others (eg Kashmiris)  who
lived in isolated mountain communities, preserved their gene pool.  The
percentage of brown/blond hair and green/blue eye color is very high in
those areas.

You are perhaps right to say that the original Bulgars came from Central
Asia.  The words are clearly of the Indo-Iranian origin.  Perhaps one
should setup a university dedicated to Central Asian Studies and its
historical links to Europe and south Asia.

Farooq

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