LING 009. First Year Seminar: Voices of the Silk Road

This course leads students to survey the languages and societies of the diverse peoples who have called the “Silk Road” region home up through the middle ages as understood from different perspectives within those societies. Rather than view cultures of this region as peripheral or the Silk Road as a mere transit corridor between empires, students will understand the region as a diverse cultural, economic, and scientific center in its own right that has had an enduring impact on world history.

Supported by dictionaries, grammar descriptions, and English translations, we will learn about these societies in part by conducting close readings of authentic texts written by people who lived in this region, including love songs, bragging about archery skills, alimony letters, shopping lists, complaints to superiors, etc., in languages including Imperial Aramaic, Sogdian, Khotanese Saka, Tokharian, Classical Tibetan, Old Turkic, and Middle Mongol. Interactions with adjacent societies, such as Persia, India, and China, will also be featured prominently.

The study of language change, dispersion, and exchange will be introduced by applying analytical tools to these languages, including reconstruction through systematic correspondences, isogloss maps, decipherment of unknown languages, palaeographic analysis of writing systems, morphological and phonological analysis, and comparison to currently spoken relatives. Topics such as vowel harmony, tonogenesis, and templatic and agglutinative morphology will be introduced.

By interacting with texts and building these analytical skills, students will be able to appreciate and explore the interconnectivity of this region throughout history.
Social sciences.
1 credit.
Fall 2026. Washington.
Department website: Linguistics

Access the class schedule to search for sections.