.png)
.png)
Email this article 
The content and functions of ‘unwan in letter structure in Shah-nameh by A. Ferdowsi
https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2019-7-55-82
Abstract
There are close to 300 messages in Shah-nameh by Ferdowsi (10th – 11th c. CE) and nearly half of them imitate written ones. Many of those letters include one or more elements of traditional formal structure, and among those elements is ‘unwan. In medieval Persian and Arabic letters, ‘unwan represent the part of the formal structure that contains information about the addresser of the letter and its addressee. In Shah-nameh, ‘unwan’s core consists of the names and titles of communicants, but official nominations are usually accompanied by additional lexical structures.
This paper deals with the structural and lexical characteristics of ‘unwan in Shah-nameh as well as the correlation between those characteristics on the one hand, and the communicative intention of the addresser and relative social statuses of the participants in the communication act on the other.
About the Author
S. V. LahutiRussian Federation
Sofia V. Lahuti
bld. 6, Miusskaya Square, Moscow, 125993
bld. 12, Rozhdestvenka Street, Moscow, 107031
References
1. Baranova, V., Lyamin, S. and Orlova, V. (2016), “Pis’metso v konverte pogodi – ne rvi... O nepisanyh pravilah epistolyarnogo zhanra v XX veke” [“Don’t hurry to tear up the envelope with a letter”: Of the unwritten rules of epistolary genre in the 20 th c.], Rodina, Moscow, Russia, no 916(9), available at: https://rg.ru/2016/09/06/rodinaperepiska.html (Accessed 17 May 2018).
2. Davis, D. (1996), “The Problem of Ferdowsî’s Sources”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 116, no. 1, pp. 48–57.
3. Gully, A. (2008), The Culture of Letter-Writing in Pre-Modern Islamic Society, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, UK.
4. Kozheko, A.V. (2015), “Epistolyarnye zhanry: traditsionnye i sovremennye formy” [Epistolary genres: traditional and modern forms], Sovremennye problemy nauki i obrazovaniya, Moscow, Russia, no 2–3, available at: http://www.science-education.ru/ru/article/view?id=23775 (Accessed 17 May 2018).
5. Lahuti, S.V. (2013), “Ritual v srednevekovoi persidskoi epistolyarnoi kommunikatsii na materiale poemy A. Firdousi Shahname” [Ritual in medieval Persian epistolary communication according to Abulqasim Ferdowsi’s poem Shah-nameh], Ritual v yazyke i kommunikacii, Moscow, Russia, pp. 377–386.
6. Lahuti, S.V. (2015), “Formal’naya ramka pisem v «Shakh-name»: mezhdu persidskoi doislamskoi i arabo-persidskoi traditsiyami” [On initial and final requisites of the letters in Shah-nameh: between the Iranian pre-islamic and Iranian-arabic traditions], RSUH/RGGU Bulletin, “History. Philology. Cultural Studies. Eastern Studies” Series, Moscow, Russia, n. 8, pp. 30–43.
7. Miller, T.A. (1967), “Antichnye teorii epistolyarnogo stilya” [The ancient theory of the epistolary style], Antichnaya epistolografiya. Ocherki, Nauka, Moscow, Russia, pp. 5–26.
8. Schimmel, A. (2011), Mystical Dimensions of Islam, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, USA.
Supplementary files
For citation: Lahuti S.V. The content and functions of ‘unwan in letter structure in Shah-nameh by A. Ferdowsi. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin: “Literary Teory. Linguistics. Cultural Studies”, Series. 2019;21(7):55-82. https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2019-7-55-82
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
