Middle Iranian languages comprise Middle Persian, Parthian, Bactrian, Sogdian, Choresmian, Khotanese, and Tumshuqese. Of these, Sogdian and Khotanese had contact with Chinese of the Táng period (618–906 CE) and borrowed a number of words from Chinese.

Iranian languages belong to the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European and have been spoken in the regions of present-day Iran, Afghanistan, the former Soviet Central Asia, and adjacent areas (Schmitt 1989 and Windfuhr 2009). Broadly speaking, Middle Iranian comprises those languages a…