B. Ashurov

Sogdian Christian Texts: the Manifestation of “Sogdian Christianity”

Abstract. This paper aims to discuss the philological “mechanisms” used in translating Christian texts into Sogdian. It focuses specifically on how different Christian theological and ecclesiological vocabularies were translated from Syriac. Particular emphasis will be given to showing how the Sogdian Church linguistically contextualized its theological and ecclesiological concepts. Section 1 offers introductory review of the composition of the texts focusing on the physical organization and philological structure of the texts, including short survey of research history on individual vocabularies. Section 2 discusses the translation mechanisms observed in structure of the texts. Section 3 provides examples of the “Christian” vocabularies related to a selected major theological ecclesiological concepts and expressions.

Keywords: Christian texts, Sogdian Christianity, Central Asia, The Church of the East, linguistic contextualization

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