The advances in Iranian studies in the 19th century were associated with the general development of the humanistic disciplines in Europe and increased European interest in the countries of the East owing to nascent colonialist policies. The late 19th and early 20th centuries were characterized by the widening of the range of Iranian research and the beginning of the differentiation into separate branches. The number of languages and dialects studied grew, and previously unknown sources in Iranian languages were discovered: Sogdian, Parthian, Khota-nese Sakian, and later Khwarezmian and Bactrian. Historical geography, Manichaean studies, modern history, ethnology, paleography, epigraphy, and numismatics were developed. Manuscript catalogs were published (C. Rieu, Great Britain; E. Blochet, France; H. Ethé and L. C. W. Pertsch, Germany).The most significant contributions to the study of Iranian languages and literatures and the ideologies and cultures of the Iranian peoples and their archaeology were made by the German scholars F. Andreas, C. Bartholomae, H. Ethé, P. Horn, F. Justi, T. T. Nöldeke, W. Geiger, M. Marquart, and F. Sarre; the Hungarian scholar I. Goldziher; the British scholars E. Browne, E. West, and R. Nicholson; the Italian scholar I. Pizzi; the French scholars J. Darmesteter, A. C. Barbier de Meynard, J. de Morgan, and C. Huart; and the Czech scholar W. Tomaschek. The achievements of Iranian studies up to the early 20th century are systematized in the encyclopedic work Fundamentals of Iranian Philology (Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, vols. 1–2, 1895–1904), in the articles on Iranian topics in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, and in E. Browne’s works on the literary history of Iran.
Iranology or Iranian Studies: What Does it Mean?
