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235 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXIV N° 1-2, januari-april 2007 236

form in Parthian. These articles are titled ‘Elamite and Akka- dian Translations of the Old Persian Periphrastic Perfect’ (17- 27), ‘Das Nomen im Parthischen’ (29-44), ‘The ‘Ergative Construction’ in Pashto’ (45-75), ‘Dative Counterparts in Pashto’ (77-88), ‘Transitive Verb Constructions in the Pamir and Dardic Languages’ (89-95), ‘The Linguistic Importance of the Dardic Languages’ (97-104). The second part of this volume includes ten articles related to classical Persian poetry (107-238): ‘The meaning of the Persian Ghazal’ (107-127), ‘Sept ghazals de Rumi’ (129- 141), ‘Modes of address in the maxlaÒ of the Ghazals of Sacdi and Îafez’ (143-151), ‘Jalal-od-din Rumi’s tabriz’ (153-162), ‘Humour in Rumi’s Ghazals’ (163-174), ‘The ‘Seven Val- leys’ of cA††ar’ (175-193), ‘Five Ghazals of cA††ar’ (195-209), ‘Îafez’s Thorns and Roses’ (211-222), ‘A Bewildering Ghazal of Îafez’ (223-227), ‘Le qalandar chez Îafez’ (229- 236). The topos in these articles is Skalmowski’s interesting theory about the meaning and role of the ghazal metre in the Persian poetic tradition of the early Islamic period. Accord- ing to this theory, ghazal verses cannot be interpreted in a mystical or realistic context. Poets such as Sacdi, Rumi, Îafez and cA††ar have used ghazal mainly in a didactic and riddle- like way, aiming at testing and developing the perception of their readers as a necessary step to transmit and develop their message. Skalmowski’s viewpoint on the role of ghazal has not changed since the time that he first claimed it and, regard- less of whether this theory is popular or not (compared to the realistic and mystical interpretations of the ghazals), it is cer- tainly an important contribution to the interpretation of the enigmatic ghazal poetry. The third section of articles combines Skalmowski’s lin- guistic and philological repertoire (239-304), titled as ‘Le terme a(i)rya- en iranien’ (239-41), ‘Review of an Edition of the SKZ Inscription’ (243-7), ‘Old Persian vazraka-’ (249-52), ‘A Note on Iranian *dahyu-’ (253-4), ‘Old Persian Parqava-’ (255-61), ‘A Note on OP uvamarsiyu- (DB I, 43)’ (263-6), ‘Two Old Persian Names’ (267-270), ‘Avestan syaoq(a)na-’ (271-5), ‘Avestan tanu.p¢r¢qa-’ (277-82), ‘Inscriptional Middle Persian ’kblyt’ (283-4), ‘Le moyen- iranien gryw/gr(’)yw «âme»’ (285-7), ‘Iranian Heterography and Aramaic: Some Reflections’ (289-96), ‘Middle Persian xuastan’ (297-300), ‘New Persian xana ‘House’’ (301-304). PERSICA The interesting point of the author at this point is that he considers the phonological and semantic analyses of a term must be seen in the literary context in which each term is SKALMOWSKI, W. — Studies in Iranian Linguistics and used. Philology. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego, Apart from the three main parts of this volume, the intro- Kraków, 2004. (24 cm, 336). ISBN: 82-233-1872-7. ductory part consists of the foreword (7-10) and a useful list This volume is an anthology of interesting and useful arti- of abbreviations of languages and texts into English, French cles which Skalmovski produced during the forty years of his and German as well as of periodicals and books (11-14). academic life. As the author mentions in his introduction, The last part of the book consists of a list with the sources these articles were selected according to their up-to-date of the reprinted articles (305-308) and a useful as well as scholarly value. The decision to incorporate them into a vol- extensive general index of terminology and forms (309- ume resulted from the need to present in a systematic form 336). his works which were published in various journals, confer- An important merit of this volume is that it has been care- ence proceedings and so on. The author organized his arti- fully edited: although the articles come from a wide spec- cles into three sections: grammar, interpretations and ety- trum of journals with various fonts, punctuation and anno- mology. Each section reveals aspects of the author’s attempts tating styles, the author and the editor of the volume managed to shed light on complicated scholarly issues. to unify the material in terms of style and produce a consis- The first section (17-104) contains six articles referring to tent result concerning the above aspects. linguistic, and especially grammatical, issues, such as that of As a whole, Skalmowski’s volume is an important contri- the passive construction, the development of the Dardic and bution to the study of Iranian linguistics and literature. Pamir languages as well as the importance of the nominal Although the volume does not bring something new in terms 9840_BIOR_2007/1-2_01 27-04-2007 09:05 Pagina 121

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of content, it incorporates in a very consistent way signifi- cant articles and makes them accessible to specialists. These articles reflect Skalmowski’s extensive erudition in the field of Iranian linguistics and literature and they enable the reader to indulge in the quest of still unresolved issues of Iranian studies.

Leiden, October 2006 Evangelos VENETIS