The Collected Works of Bronisław Piłsudski (2011), vol. IV: Materials for the Study of Tungusic Languages and Folklore. PDF

Title The Collected Works of Bronisław Piłsudski (2011), vol. IV: Materials for the Study of Tungusic Languages and Folklore.
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Studia orientalia 112 Studia Orientalia Volume 112 Published by the Finnish Oriental Society Helsinki 2012 Studia Orientalia, vol. 112, 2012 Copyright © 2012 by the Finnish Oriental Society Societas Orientalis Fennica c/o Department of World Cultures P.O. Box 59 (Unioninkatu 38 B) FI-00014 Universit...


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Studia orientalia 112

Studia Orientalia Volume 112

Published by the Finnish Oriental Society

Helsinki 2012

Studia Orientalia, vol. 112, 2012 Copyright © 2012 by the Finnish Oriental Society Societas Orientalis Fennica c/o Department of World Cultures P.O. Box 59 (Unioninkatu 38 B) FI-00014 University of Helsinki FINLAND Editor Lotta Aunio Co-Editors Patricia Berg Sari Nieminen Advisory Editorial Board Axel Fleisch (African Studies) Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila (Arabic and Islamic Studies) Tapani Harviainen (Semitic Studies) Arvi Hurskainen (African Studies) Juha Janhunen (Altaic and East Asian Studies) Hannu Juusola (Semitic Studies) Klaus Karttunen (South Asian Studies) Kaj Öhrnberg (Librarian of the Society) Heikki Palva (Arabic Linguistics) Asko Parpola (South Asian Studies) Simo Parpola (Assyriology) Rein Raud (Japanese Studies) Saana Svärd (Assyriology) Riikka Tuori (Secretary of the Society) Typesetting Lotta Aunio ISSN 0039-3282 ISBN 978-951-9380-81-0 WS Bookwell Oy Jyväskylä 2012

ConTents “Muslims” and “Islam” in Middle Eastern Literature of the Seventh and Eighth Centuries ad: An Alternative perspective of West European oriental scholarship.........................1 Marcin Grodzki Zionist Restitution of the Ugly Jew’s Image: The Case of Theodor Herzl............. 17 Artur Kamczycki Aśoka, the Buddhist Saṁgha and the Graeco-Roman World.................................... 35 Klaus Karttunen Christians in the Qurʾān: Some insights derived from the classical exegetic approach.......................................41 Haggai Mazuz One More Time on the Arabized Nominal Form Iblīs.............................................. 55 Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala Describing the Ruin: Writings of Arabic notaries in the last period of al-Andalus..................................... 71 María Dolores Rodríguez Gómez Larger than Life: Prayer during wartime in Islamic law..........................................103 Nesya Rubinstein-Shemer Using Feudalism for Political Criticism and for Promoting Systemic Change in China..................................................................................................................... 127 Taru Salmenkari Weapons of the Storm God in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Traditions....... 147 Joanna Töyräänvuori Book Reviews............................................................................................................ 181

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The Collected Works of Bronisław Piłsudski, vol. IV: Materials for the Study of Tungusic Languages and Folklore. Reconstructed, translated, and edited by Alfred F. Majewicz, with the assistance of Larisa V. Ozoliņa, Mikhail D.  Simonov, Tatyana Bulgakova, Elżbieta Majewicz, Tatyana P.  Roon, Tomasz Wicherkiewicz & Werner Winter. (Trends in Linguistics; Documentation 15-4) Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2011. xv + 1397 pp., photographs, maps, illustrations. ISBN 978-3-11-022105-3. The arrival of this fourth volume confirms that the project of publishing the works of Bronisław Piłsudski (1866–1918) continues, slowly but steadily. Not long ago it was commonplace to ignore the contributions of this Polish ethnographer and linguist, due to the difficulty, if not total impossibility, of accessing his writings, particularly those in which Piłsudski demonstrated his understanding of linguistics. As for the ethnological artifacts that he diligently collected during nineteen years in exile, they now rest in museums in three different cities in Russia, namely St Petersburg, Vladivostok, and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Unfortunate events have prevented us from being able to profit fully from his scholarly production. For example, part of Piłsudski’s original materials perished in Warsaw during the bombing by Nazi Germany in 1939. I am unaware of any other Tungusic collection so damaged as the result of the war. Notwithstanding this, thanks to the efforts of Alfred F. Majewicz and an international network of very knowledgeable specialists, what is left of Piłsudski’s production – and that is very much, indeed – can now be found in the pages of this impressive series. Actual knowledge about Piłsudski’s (linguistic) materials was very scant and incomplete before the appearance of The Collected Works. It is only natural that with this publication, many faulty descriptions would come to be corrected, if not entirely abandoned. A very good example is Piłsudski’s frequently cited ignorance about the linguistic distance, in terms of affinity, between Ulcha and Orok. We are told in Gorcevskaja (Očerk istorii izučenija tunguso-man’čžurskix jazykov, Leningrad, 1959: 21) that Piłsudski was unaware of it and that, in his collected vocabularies, he uncritically mixed materials from both languages. Now that we have both vocabularies at hand, however, we can see that the truth could not be more different (for further details on this, see pp. 5–6). Piłsudski clearly knew the difference between the two languages. Moreover, the quality of his materials far supersedes any other collected at that time. One could still add to this story that for Gorcevskaja, as well as the rest of her contemporaries, the difference between Ulcha and Orok was old news because V.I. Cincius had already published the comparative phonology of the Tungusic languages (Sravnitel’naja fonetika tunguso-man’čžurskix jazykov, Leningrad, 1949).

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Piłsudski, however, reached his conclusions independently many decades before Cincius even began to conduct field work. Needless to say, the amendment of previous mistakes is a natural consequence of scholarly improvement. The anecdote of the “discovery” of a new vocabulary of the Oroch language, which was first erroneously ascribed to Ulcha by I.A. Lopatin (in Materials of the Orochee Language, the Goldi (Nanai) Language, and the Olchi (Nani) Language, MicroBibliotheca Anthropos, vol. XXVI, Switzerland, 1957: 105–109; for the correction by J. Benzing, see his review of Lopatin’s booklet in Anthropos 1958, 53: 597–603), is well known amongst specialists. The contents of the current book are divided into five large sections: Introduction and Bibliography (pp. 1–111), materials on Orok (pp. 113–745), materials on Ulcha (pp. 747–1005), materials on Nanay (pp. 1007–1282), and appendices and indices (pp. 1283–1297, including an index verborum of different languages, personal names and toponyms, and even onomatopoeia). Each linguistic section has its own introductory chapter, adding much information to the particularities of Piłsudski’s notes and important experiences, and supplementing what is found in the general introduction. The Orok and Ulcha vocabularies, alphabetically ordered, are rendered with the Latin alphabet, whereas the Nanay is composed of Cyrillic; in both cases, the use of diacritics is very restricted. Piłsudski’s practice of indicating the stress position may prove useful in the future. The notation of vowel length is not very consistent (this is a typical defect of pre-scientific linguistic descriptions), but since we have at our disposal very good contemporary dictionaries which can be used along with Piłsudski’s material, it should be no challenge to restitute original vowel length. The value of these new glossaries is obvious even at first glance. In writing this review, the author has made a close inspection of the lemmata belonging to only two head-letters, namely and , in the Ulcha dictionary. This was a most fruitful task, for only a couple hours sufficed to provide the SSTMJa (= V.I. Cincius (ed.), Sravnitel’nyj slovar’ tunguso-man’čžurskix jazykov, 2 vols, Leningrad, 1975–1977) with a new few dozen Ulcha cognates. For instance, Ulcha hamarha ‘(it) missed (about time)’ (p. 818) is most likely related to Kili xamï- ‘to reach’ and Written Manchu hami-mbi ‘to approach, be close, almost reach’ (SSTMJa I: 461a, correctly dismissed as a Mongolian loanword in W. Rozycki, Mongol Elements in Manchu, Bloomington, 1994: 100–101). Ulcha -ha(n) is the past participle suffix, whereas the segment r- can be identified in written Manchu hamirakû ‘insufficient, unbearable’ < †hamire akû, from *hamï+rï(ï) < *hamï+rä(ï), with a regular loss of the (second) high vowel in medial position in Ulcha. Ulcha hamarha confirms that there is a secondary verbal formation based on the present parti-

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ciple *xamï+ra, exactly as in Written Manchu hamire-mbi (I. Zakharov, Polnyj man’čžursko-russkij slovar’, St Petersburg, 1875: 391b), whose perfective is hamirehe (= Ulcha hamarha). The apparent polarity of meanings is just a matter of interpretation, i.e. ‘(it) missed’ = ‘(it) was close, (it) almost reached’ (= ‘it didn’t make it in the end’). On the other hand, there are many cases where the lack of reference to SSTMJa may just be a slip (e.g. Ulcha xastá ‘spruce’ (p. 823), cf. SSTMJa I: 56a, from Proto-Common Tungusic *xasï(ï)+kta; cf. Literary Ewenki asiikta), again with a regular loss of high vowels in medial position in Ulcha. Leaving aside the vocabularies, Piłsudski’s notes include two additional types of materials: personal names (distinguishing masculine from feminine) and toponyms (Orok, pp. 543–561; Ulcha, pp. 946–952; Nanay, pp. 1169–1172) and texts (Orok, pp. 568–638; Ulcha, pp. 955–974; Nanay, pp. 1177–1182). The linguistic and ethnological clues which are hidden in the former type will most likely remain so, as the difficulties of profiting from them without entering into wild speculation are well known. A careful study of the latter type, however, should be much more rewarding. This is a task for the immediate future, to locate the contents of Piłsudski’s texts within their folkloric context by comparing them with the already existing collections gathered by Russian, Chinese, and Japanese scholars during the last decades. Texts are analyzed – although not by the modern system of linguistic glosses – and translated into Polish or Russian (usually by Piłsudski) and English (by Majewicz, when required). In a few cases, it has been necessary to reconstruct the original text in order to show how close (or how far) Piłsudski’s vernacular is to the language which we actually know (see pp. 582–603). Such reconstructions illustrate very pragmatically the high quality of Piłsudski’s notes. There are also some grammatical remarks by Piłsudski, but in sharp contrast to other aspects of his linguistic production, these must be reviewed in the light of current Tungusic studies. The brief sketches done by Majewicz on the history of the philological traditions of each of the Tungusic languages described in this book (Orok-Uilta, Ulcha, and Nanay) are exemplary. The extensive bibliography, which includes the most important and recent publications in Russian and Japanese (these are the two dominant academic languages on the ethnolinguistics of the Lower Amur region), is equally impressive. One is only missing an explicit mention of Kazama’s extensive collection of Ulcha oral texts (they are quoted in the bibliography, but not commented upon in the text), which, like Piłsudski’s, offer interesting new insights into the Ulcha language. One of the most salient aspects of this book is the remarkable quality of the numerous facsimile reproductions. There is no excuse not to conduct visual

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examinations when faced with difficult or dubious words or passages, as the plates can be read unambiguously. The use in some places of the Soviet-Russian label “Manchu-Tungus(ic)”, which has nowadays become old-fashioned, may strike some as inappropriate (the Anglicized forms “Nanaian” and “Ulchan”, for that matter, have not been consequently extended to Ewenk(i) or Solon; **Ewenkian and Solonian, respectively, are no less exotic). Be that as it may, I agree with J. Tulisow (“Turkic, Mongolic and...?”, Rocznik orientalistyczny, 2010, 63(1): 266–270) that the best solution would be to merge all the existing terminological disparities in “Tungus(ic)”, as has been done for the last decades outside of Russia (and in the title of the book!). The contribution which A.F. Majewicz and all his collaborators have made to the field of Tungusic studies with the publication of this volume is invaluable. Monumental is the only adjective that comes to mind when to attempting to define the physical and intellectual dimensions of this project. It will take several years to assess their relevance in more specific subfields (e.g. historical and comparative linguistics), although one can already be assured that the wealth of new materials will be substantially enriching and complete many gaps.

José Andrés Alonso de la Fuente University of the Basque Country

Gerhard Doerfer, Lamutische Märchen und Erzählungen. Teil I: Kategori­ sierte Märchen und Erzählungen. Teil II: Nicht-kategorisierte Märchen und Erzählungen. Nach dem Tod des Verfassers herausgegeben, eingeleitet und kommentiert von Michael Knüppel. (Tunguso-Sibirica 31: I–II) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011. 120 + 168 pp. ISBN 978-3-447-06551-1. The many valuable contributions to the field of Tungusic studies – not to mention those in the Mongolic and Turkic traditions – by Gerhard Doerfer (1920–2003) cover an ample spectrum of linguistic issues from both the synchronic and diachronic perspectives (see J. Janhunen, “North Asian studies in West Germany”, in Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen 1983(45): 292–296). Notwithstanding, his interest in other domains, especially those of ethnology and folklore, are also well known. The book under review is a token of such a fascination for the latter. Michael Knüppel, a former student of Doerfer’s as well as being responsible for the present edition, has very diligently prepared his teacher’s notes for publication, so the international community may consult and profit from them.

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The book is presented in two volumes, the main criterion for the division being the possibility or impossibility to classify the texts according to Thompson’s motif-index. The first volume contains the “categorized” (Kategorisierte) texts, while the “uncategorized” texts can be found in the second volume. Whether this is or is not appropriate, I leave for the specialists in oral literature and folklore to answer. However, the decision seems reasonable, given the space limitations that the Tunguso-Sibirica series imposes on the authors, and the proportion of the resulting parts that very conveniently allows the setting up of two volumes of nearly the same size. The first volume contains a general introduction (pp. 7–40) with a brief account of Doerfer’s curriculum, the editorial particularities of his notes, and a short introduction to the Ewen people, language, and (oral) literature. In this regard, the linguistic presentation (pp. 21–27) including a summary of earliest linguistic sources of the Ewen language as well as a crude grammatical description, reminds one of the sketches that one designs for personal usage by way of quick-reference while working with a given corpus of texts. Indeed, as the editor informs us, these are actually notes belonging to a series of lectures which were delivered during the summer semester of 2001. Therefore, by this account, they cannot be considered to be of any value to Ewen linguistics. It is also somewhat surprising to find it in a book where there is no place for material in the vernacular language. The second volume begins with what appears to be the remains of some previously unpublished etymological reflections about 13 Tungusic terms related to the spheres of religion and mythology (pp. 9–28). Few deserve a second thought (e.g. samān) and the rest requires further elaboration (especially those which are considered as borrowings). Each volume has its own abbreviation list and bibliographical section (I: 113–120; II: 159–168). Generally speaking, references are up to date, although there are notable absences (works by A.A. Burykin, most notably Malye žanry èvenskogo fol’klora, St Petersburg, 2001, E.N. Bokova, K.S. Čerkanov, or L.E. Bolšakova, to mention but a few names). It is worth noting that there is no trace of the original Ewen in the majority of cases (as shown in a very informative table in I: 33–37, the exact figure is 65 out of 92). This comes as no surprise, because many originals were gathered under very specific conditions and not always by linguists, hence the lack of a full agenda to publish them in a proper way. On one hand, it cannot be rejected that some of them may actually lie in neglect in some archive waiting to be discovered. On the other hand, it would do no harm to go through the entire Ewen corpus in order to either locate possible matches for these orphan texts, or definitely confirm the

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lack of them. As for the former option, it is easy, to certain degree, to find close parallels, if not the exact text. For instance, the legend with the title “Der Bär” (I: 49–57) has a very attractive correspondence with the text (e) of the brief anthology included at the end of Bogoraz’s grammatical description of the Omolon dialect of Ewen (“Materialy po lamutskomu jazyku”, in Tunguskij sbornik 1931: 63–64). Bogoraz’s text begins gulo! gulo! ät’ka! ät’ka-dinä! Torgándra dantäš gunin, ämikan ašaŋgerar, aiic biŋadri! (I simplified the orthography) where the sequence gulo, gulo and the character Torgandra can be clearly linked to gulo, gulo and the Torgani in Novikova’s version (the one used by Doerfer for his German translation). Such a full assessment of each text would require an article-length paper. This is a valuable publication that will most certainly help to promote interest in Ewen and Tungusic intellectual culture. It is another remarkable achievement of Michael Knüppel in his gargantuan task of recovering for our benefit the many unpublished works by G. Doerfer.

José Andrés Alonso de la Fuente University of the Basque Country

Jorma Luutonen, Chuvash Syntactic Nominalizers. On *-ki and its counter­ parts in Ural-Altaic Languages. (Turcologica 88) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011. 133 pp. ISBN 978-3-447-06581-8. The issue addressed in this book should attract the attention not only of specialists in Chuvash, but also, more broadly, of Turkology in general. The element -ki, which transforms oblique nominal forms into new basic forms which, in turn, can take other case endings, is present in the most representative languages of this family, including Turkish (at some point, all learners have to experience the difficulties in mastering its nuances!). Such a distribution guarantees the necessity to approach the question from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. Luutonen’s main goal is to describe the morphosyntactic properties of -ki in Chuvash and other Turkic languages. Previous grammatical treatment has provided a large variety of explanations, some of them very exotic, and sometimes incomplete, if not inconsistent. The decision regarding the name for this element belongs to the latter. The label “syntactic nominalizers” (the original Russian kategorija vydelenija ‘category of distinction’ does not make a better case) may seem, to some, inadequate, for the particularities of -ki illustrate very well what happens when terminology depends on which grammatical aspect one focuses.

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Luutonen’s capacity to discuss the available materials in the specialist literature, at the same time as integrating his own materials, which were collected from different consultants, is admirable. In the first place (pp. 12–34), he discusses the existence of this suffix in all Turkic languages except Chuvash, including old (Old Turkic) and mediaeval (Ottoman, Chaghatay, etc.) varieties. The following presentation and discussion of the Chuvash facts (pp. 35–91) only makes sense after these general facts have been presented to the reader. Luutonen addresses the description of three Chuvash suffixes, namely -i, -χi (< Common Turkic *-ki, with harmonic variants) and -sker (the grammaticalization of üsker ‘object, thing’), from all possible angles: etymology, morphophonology and morphosyntax, semantics, and discourse. The very extensive textual and oral examination results in the conclusion s...


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