Charles M. Kieffer has devoted his life to the study of some of the least known languages of the Iranian family, in particular Ormuri and Parachi, on which he carried out fieldwork in Afghanistan during the years 1959–1971 and on which he has published many important articles. As a result of these publications he is universally recognized as the world’s leading expert in these languages.
The present volume represents the culmination of Charles M. Kieffer’s life’s work. Originally presented as a Paris thèse de doctorat d’état in 1975, it was recommended for immediate publication by a very distinguished jury (G. Fussman, G. Lazard, G. Morgenstierne, G. Redard). Since then, the manuscript has lost nothing of its value: apart form one book in Russian, and the articles of Charles M. Kieffer himself, hardly anything has been published on the Ormuri language during the last 25 years.
The Ormri language belongs to the Iranian family of languages, but within this family it is an isolate without close relatives, giving it a particularly significant role in historical linguistics. It must be regarded as certain that Ormuri will die out completely in the near future, therefore this book is not merely a work of scholarship but virtually a primary source, containing the most reliable and detailed information on a dying language.
„Besondere Bedeutung kommt dieser Grammatik (deren typographische Herstellung allerdings nicht immer einen professionellen Eindruck macht) auch deshalb zu, weil sie einen Dialekt vorstellt, der in allernächster Zukunft zum Aussterben verdammt ist und der schon heute seine wesentliche Aufgabe nicht mehr erfüllt, der Kommunikation zwischen Menschen zu dienen. Charles Kieffer, der dieses Werk kurz vor seinem 80. Geburtstag vollendete, hat damit sich selbst, vor allem aber die iranistische Fachwelt reich beschenkt, die ihm dafür Dank schuldet.“
In: Kratylos. 50 (2005). S. 204-206.
The series Beiträge zur Iranistik was founded in the 1960s by Georges Redard and subsequently edited by Nicholas Sims-Williams from 1997 to 2020; the present series editor is Agnes Korn.
The series publishes works on the languages of the Iranian branch of Indo-European. The focus is on linguistics, including grammars, dictionaries, text editions, philology as well as diachronic and synchronic studies of linguistic topics. Neighbouring fields such as literature, archaeology and anthropology are likewise represented. The languages of the series are English, German and French. The Beiträge zur Iranistik are represented in libraries internationally and are widely used standard works of Iranian studies.
