Multilingualism and History of Knowledge

This is the first issue of the new multi-volume publication on the subject of Multilingualism and the History of Knowledge, edited by Jens E. Braarvig, Markham J. Geller, Velizar Sadovski and Gebhard J. Selz and published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, uniting a number of papers on cross-linguistic and cross-religious cultural relations in Central Asia. Historical-comparative and contrastive-typological studies of the phenomenon of Multilingualism have been continuously increasing in the last decades, especially for what concerns the cultural history of Iran and Central Asia – but also cultural and intellectual processes on the entire territory of the so-called “Asia Maior” from Antiquity up to the Early Modern period. For this reason, a series of relevant research projects of several countries joint into an interdisciplinary forum working on topics of multilingualism, linguae francae and history of knowledge and science in different linguistic and chronological contexts – the ultilingualism Research Group, co-ordinated by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, whose activities culminated in a series of annual meetings that have been regularly taking place in the last years from 2008 onwards, hosted by various scholarly institutions of Europe and Asia. The circle of partner institutions engaged in the scholarly debates within the Multilingualism Research Group has been constantly increasing and, at present, unites partners from the University of Oslo, the TOPOI Cluster of Excellence and the Berlin Center for the History of Knowledge at the Freie Universität and the Max Planck Institute of History of Science in Berlin, the University of Bologna, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität of Munich, the DARIOSH Project at L’Orientale University of Naples and the University of Viterbo, La Sapienza University of Rome, the University of Verona, the University of Vienna and the Institute of Iranian Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The vol. 1 of the series, Buddhism among the Iranian Peoples of Central Asia, ed. by Matteo De Chiara, Mauro Maggi and Giuliana Martini, is dedicated to the linguistic and cultural contacts of Iranians with various cultural traditions from India and the mediaeval Middle and Far East as well as with the impact of the literary and religious heritage of Buddhism on their civilizations. Vol. 2 appears under the title Linguistic Developments along the Silkroad: Archaism and Innovation in Tocharian, ed. by Olav Hackstein and Ronald I. Kim; in preparation is also vol. 3, ed. by Velizar Sadovski and Gebhard J. Selz.