Essays on Uzbek History, Culture, and Language

by Bakhtier Nazarov (Editor), Denis Sinor (Editor), Devin A. Deweese (Editor)

This volume contains ten individual articles which focus on a variety of topics relating to Uzbek history, culture, and linguistics. Coordinated by professors Bakhtiyar Nazarov and Denis Sinor, it is a joint project between American scholars and those from the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (now the Republic of Uzbekistan). At the time of its creation, it was intended to demonstrate the immense scholarly potential that could come from collaborations between the U.S. and Uzbek S.S.R. The essays it presents contain a vast breadth and depth of knowledge, and any scholar of Uzbek or Central Asian linguistics, history, or culture in general would be remiss to not read them.

128 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1993

Reviews

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I could split my rating, I’d give 5 stars to the first essay (origin of Uzbek people and formation of Uzbek language) and 4 stars to the seventh essay (Latin historical references to Khorezm).

It’s a scholarly collection, so it makes sense that the essays went a little bit above my head. But as someone wanting to learn about Uzbek culture and history, the essays focused a little too intensely on specific linguistic features (“the semantic-syntactic mechanism of comparative sentences”, for example). In addition, the translation from Uzbek made for an awkward flow in English.