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Questions about extinct Iranic peoples of Central Asia; the Bactrians, Khwarezmians and Sogdians.
Bactrians
Bactria (from Βακτριανή, the Hellenized version of Old Persian Bāxtriš; Bactrian: Baktra; Persian/Pashto: باختر Bākhtar; Tajik: Бохтар; Chinese: 大夏 Dàxià; Sanskrit बाह्लीक Bahilka) is the ancient name of a historical region located south of the Amu Darya and west of Gandhara. Ancient Bactria was in present-day northern Afghanistan, between the Hindu Kush mountain range and the Amu Darya. Once Zoroastrian, this region subsequently hosted Buddhism before becoming Muslim after the arrival of the Rashiduns and Umayyads in the 7th century. Bactria was also sometimes referred to by the Greeks as Bactriana.The Bactrians were the inhabitants of Bactria. Several important trade routes from India and China (including the Silk Road) passed through Bactria and, as early as the Bronze Age, this had allowed the accumulation of vast amounts of wealth by the mostly nomadic population. The first proto-urban civilization in the area arose during the 2nd millennium BC. Control of these lucrative trade routes, however, attracted foreign interest, and in the 6th century BC the Bactrians were conquered by the Persians, and in the 4th century BC by the Ancient Macedonians. These conquests marked the end of the Bactrian independence. From around 304 BC the area formed part of the Seleucid Empire, and from around 250 BC it was the centre of a Greco-Bactrian kingdom, ruled by the descendants of Greeks who had settled there following the conquest of Alexander the Great.
These people, also known in Sanskrit as Yavanas, worked in cooperation with the native Bactrian aristocracy. By the early 2nd century BC the Greco-Bactrians had created an impressive empire that stretched southwards to include northwest India. By about 135 BC, however, this kingdom had been overrun by invading Yuezhi tribes, an invasion that later brought about the rise of the powerful Kushan Empire. From this point the Bactrians tend to disappear from the historical record, a disappearance made final by the Arab invasion of the 8th century AD.
The Bactrians spoke Bactrian, a northeastern Iranian language, descended from Avestan, and most closely related to extinct Khwarezmian, modern Yaghnobi, and Ossetian. Bactrian went extinct, replaced by southeastern Iranian languages such as Pashto, Yidgha, Munji, and Ishkashmi. The Encyclopaedia Iranica states:
Bactrian thus occupies an intermediary position between Pashto and Yidgha-Munji on the one hand, Sogdian, Choresmian, and Parthian on the other: it is thus in its natural and rightful place in Bactria.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactria
Khwarezmians
Khwarezm /kwəˈrɛzəm/ or Chorasmia /kəˈræzmiə/(Persian:خوارزم) is a large oasis region on the Amu Darya river delta in western Central Asia, which borders to the north the (former) Aral Sea, to the east the Kyzylkum desert, to the south the Karakum desert and to the west the Ustyurt Plateau. It was the center of the (indigenous) Khwarezmian civilization and a series of kingdoms, whose capitals were (among others) Kath, Gurganj (the modern Köneürgenç) and, from the 16th century on, Khiva. Today Khwarezm belongs partly to Uzbekistan, partly to Kazakhstan and partly to Turkmenistan.An East Iranian language, known as Khwarezmian language, was spoken in Khwarezm proper (i.e., the lower Amu Darya region) until soon after the Mongol invasion, when it was replaced by Turkic languages.[13][14][15][16] It was closely related to Sogdian. Other than the astronomical terms used by the native Iranian Chorasmian speaker Biruni,[10] our other sources of Khwarezmian include Zamakhshari's Arabic-Persian–Khwarezmian dictionary and several legal texts that use Khwarezmian terms to explain certain legal concepts.
In the very early part of its history, the inhabitants of the area were from Iranian[17][18] stock and they spoke an Eastern Iranian language called Khwarezmian. The famous scientist Biruni, a Khwarezm native, in his Athar ul-Baqiyah (الآثار الباقية عن القرون الخالية) (p. 47), specifically verifies the Iranian origins of Khwarezmians when he wrote (in Arabic):
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khwarezm
Sogdians
Sogdiana (/ˌsɔːɡdiˈænə/ or /ˌsɒɡdiˈænə/) or Sogdia (/ˈsɔːɡdiə/ or /ˈsɒɡdiə/; Old Persian: Suguda-; Ancient Greek: Σογδιανή, Sogdianē; Persian: سغد Soġd; Tajik: Суғд, سغد Suġd; Uzbek: Sugʻd; Chinese: 粟特, Mandarin: Sùtè, Middle Chinese: Suwk-dok) was the ancient civilization of an Iranian people and a province of the Achaemenid Empire, eighteenth in the list on the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great (i. 16). Sogdiana is "listed" as the second of the "good lands and countries" that Ahura Mazda created. This region is listed second after Airyanem Vaejah, "homeland of the Aryans", in the Zoroastrian book of Vendidad, indicating the importance of this region from ancient times.[1] Sogdiana, at different times, included territories around Samarkand, Bukhara, Khujand, Panjikent and Shahrisabz in modern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The Sogdian states, although never politically united, were centered around the main city of Samarkand. Sogdiana lay north of Bactria, east of Khwarezm, and southeast of Kangju between the Oxus (Amu Darya) and the Jaxartes (Syr Darya), embracing the fertile valley of the Zeravshan (ancient Polytimetus). Sogdian territory corresponds to the modern provinces of Samarkand and Bokhara in modern Uzbekistan as well as the Sughd province of modern Tajikistan. During the High Middle Ages Sogdian cities included sites stretching towards Issyk Kul such as that at the archeological site of Suyab.The Sogdians spoke an Eastern Iranian language called Sogdian, closely related to Bactrian, another major language of the southern part of Central Asia in ancient times. Sogdian was written in a variety of scripts, all of them derived from the Aramaic alphabet.
Even in the Middle Ages, the valley of the Zarafshan around Samarkand retained the name of the Sogdian, Samarkand. Arabic geographers reckoned it as one of the four fairest districts in the world. The Yaghnobis living in the Sughd province of Tajikistan still speak a dialect of the Soghdian language.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogdia
So, what really did happen to these Iranic groups?
Why and how have they gone extinct? Was this because of the Mongol invasion or linguistic assimilation by the Turkic tribes that migrated into the regions? What was their phenotype?
I believe that these people are today the descendants of Pashtuns, Tajiks (east farsis), Pamirs etc people of Central Asia and looked very similar to them. However, the more northerly ones got assimilated while the ones that survived probably contributed to much of the ethnogenesis of the mentioned Iranic groups, (Tajiks, Farsis, Pashtuns, Pamirs etc) while also contributing to a significant portion of the central Asian Turkic peoples (Turkmens, Uzbeks, Kirgyz, Kazakhs etc). The phenotype of the Sogdians and Bactrians were probably Pamirid types while Khwarezmians probably looked like today's Turkmens (barring the Mongoloid admixture in them) with a recognizable Iranid look.
Possible Sogdian and Bactrian look
Possible Khwarezmian look
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Originally Posted by Nabatea1
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