Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1941, Page 139

IRANIAN RESEARCH IN THE NORTH
By Georg Morgenstierne,
Professor of Indian Languages and Literature in the University of Oslo.
IN the course of the i9th century the field of Oriental studies
has undergone an enormous expansion. Comprising at the
outset only a few Semitic languages of importance for the
interpretation of the Bible, they have grown both in depth and
scope. All the civilizations of Asia and North Africa have been
made the objects of intensive investigation by linguists and philo-
logists, archaeologists and historians. Manuscript finds, excavat-
ions, and the study on the spot of peoples and languages have
caused the material to increase so fast that merely the preliminary
treatment of it has given investigators enough to do. In addition,
new points of view and novel ways of presenting the problems
have forced them continually to take up old material for revised
treatment.
It goes without saying that the contributions of the Northern
countries, with their relatively small populations and their lack
of colonial possessions which might have provided a practical
incentive to work in this field, are not quantitatively on a level
with those of the great powers. Nevertheless, Northern scholars
have not contented themselves with tackling the problems which
lay nearest to hand; they have gone further afield in search
of wider perspectives, and they may point with legitimate
pride to achievements in Sinology, Indology, Assyriology and
Egyptology, and in the investigation of Caucasian and Semitic
languages, Turkish and Santal, etc. In fact, the Northern countries
have fully held their own in that peaceful competition of free
research in which scholars of all countries vie with each other in
endeavouring to explain all the forms of human mental activity
as manifested at various stages of development and under varying
conditions.
It may perhaps be of interest to look a little closer at the
achievements of Northern scholarship in one of these geographi-
cally remote fields. The study of Iran presents itself as a good
example. It is a many-sided subject, which is linked up with
several other branches of knowledge, and it has gradually created
for itself a well-established tradition in Northern countries.