The main part of the book is a new systematic treatment of the historical phonology of Balochi. Comparing important related languages (chiefly Avestan, New Persian and Parthian), the book analyses the development of Old Iranian sounds to the stage of Common Balochi and the changes leading from that stage to the variants spoken today in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and some other countries. The diversity and intensity of contacts with neighbouring languages are reflected in the Balochi lexicon of which selected fields are presented and discussed.

This volume is the first attempt to present omen and taboo texts from Georgia in a structured form, and to make this type of traditional culture accessible for systematic research. The texts, most of which were collected in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, are given in German translation of the Georgian, Russian and French originals. A sizeable portion of the material is from archive material, which is published here for the first time.

The present volume addresses the linguistic categories of Prospective and Proximative, which refer to an event before it actually takes place, in a number of languages spoken in Eurasia. For most treated languages, these categories are described here for the first time. Highlighting historical, areal and typological aspects, the contributions in this book investigate the encoding of proximative and prospective semantics in genetically related and non-related languages.

This volume presents papers demonstrating the current state of research on oral traditions among different groups in the Iranian-speaking cultural sphere. The articles offer from a variety of perspectives, encouraging the exchange of ideas between different academic disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, linguistics, literature, religious studies and folklore studies concerning methods and models applied to studies of oral traditions in Iranian languages and cultures.

Throughout history Balochistan has been an important contact zone between the Indian Subcontinent and the Iranian Plateau. Today Balochistan is a land divided among several states. It is a region where a variety of languages intermingle, different religions jostle for attention, and traditional ways of living are challenged by modernity. The papers in this volume explore Balochistan's linguistic, socio-political and cultural diversity. Some take a historical perspective, and others examine the dramatic developments now shaping the region.

The issue of ditransitive constructions has enjoyed increased attention over the last decade, and a number of important studies appeared. However, a number of questions are not quite explored yet. The contributions in this volume address a variety of languages, provide rich new data on the distribution of ditransitive constructions in lesser-researched languages, and substantiate the findings with corpus data. Recurrent themes in the present collection include the factors underlying the choice of construction in the ditransitive alternation, the most important of which are lexical choices, information structure and discourse prominence of theme and recipient argument.

Der vorliegende Band enthält die Beiträge eines internationalen Symposiums über Sprachkontakt in Balochistan. Das Themenspektrum reicht vom Sprachkontakt zwischen Balochi und seinen Nachbarsprachen in historischen und rezenten Zeiten über soziolinguistische Fragen der Mehrsprachigkeit bis zur Rolle des Balochi ans Minderheitensprache im heutigen Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan und den Golfstaaten. Der Band bietet eine umfangreiche und vielfältige Zusammenschau der aktuellen Forschung zum Balochi.

The 13 chapters of this volume represent a selection of the papers presented at the “Third International Conference on Iranian Linguistics”, held in September 2009 at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris. This series of conferences brings together scholars from all theoretical persuasions has established a tradition of interdisciplinary linguistic research on Iranian languages. This volume represent the dynamic and rapidly growing nature of Iranian linguistics, a field which has united linguists of all persuasions who share a strong commitment to the scientific investigation of Iranian languages, their structure, history and use.