Christopher I. Beckwith

Christopher I. Beckwith (born 1945) is a professor of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.^[1]

He received his Ph.D. degree from Indiana University in Uralic and Altaic Studies (1977).

He specializes in Asian language studies and linguistics, and in the history of Central Eurasia. He teaches Old Tibetan, Central Eurasian languages, and Central Eurasian history.^[2]

Selected publications

• Beckwith, Christopher I. (1977). A Study of the Early Medieval Chinese, Latin, and Tibetan Historical Sources on Pre-Imperial Tibet. Indiana University PhD Dissertation.
• Beckwith (1979): "The Introduction of Greek Medicine into Tibet in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries". Journal of the American Oriental Society 99.2: 297-313.
• Beckwith (1984): "Aspects of the Early History of the Central Asian Guard Corps in Islam". Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, Vol. 4, 1984, 29-43.
• Beckwith, Christopher I (1983). “The Revolt of 755 in Tibet” Contributions on Tibetan Language, History, and Culture. Ernst Steinkellner and Helmut Tauscher eds. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde; Heft 10. Wien: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien, pp. 1–16. reprinted in: The History of Tibetan. ed. Alex Mckay. London: Routledge Curzon, 2003: 273-285.
• Beckwith (1984): 'The Plan of the City of Peace: Central Asian Iranian Factors in Early ‘Abbâsid Design.' Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 38: 128-147.
• Beckwith (1984): 'Aspects of the Early History of the Central Asian Guard Corps in Islam.' Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi l984, Vol. 4:29-43. (Reprinted in C. Edmund Bosworth, ed., The Turks in the Early Islamic World. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007: 275-289.)
• Beckwith (1987): The Tibetans in the Ordos and North China: Considerations on the Role of the Tibetan Empire in World History. In: C.I. Beckwith, ed., Silver on Lapis. Bloomington: Tibet Society, 1987, 3-11.
• Beckwith (1991): "The Impact of the Horse and Silk Trade on the Economies of T'ang China and the Uighur Empire: On the Importance of International Commerce in the Early Middle Ages". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 34, 1991, 183-198.
• Beckwith (1993): The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia: A History of the Struggle for Great Power among Tibetans, Turks, Arabs, and Chinese during the Early Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-691-05494-0. First paperback edition, with a new afterword, 1993. ISBN 0-691-02469-3
• Beckwith (1996): "The Morphological Argument for the Existence of Sino-Tibetan". Pan-Asiatic Linguistics: Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Languages and Linguistics, January 8-10, 1996. vol 3. Bangkok: Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development Mahidol University at Salaya: 812-826.
• Beckwith (1998): "Noun Specification and Classification in Uzbek." Anthropological Linguistics 40.1: 124-140.
• Beckwith (2002): Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages. PIATS 2000: Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-04-12424-1
• Beckwith (2004): "Old Chinese." Encyclopedia of Linguistics Philipp Strazny, (ed.). New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 771-774.
• Beckwith (2005): "On the Chinese Names for Tibet, Tabghatch, and the Turks." Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, 14: 5-20.
• Beckwith (2006): Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages II. Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-04-15014-5
• Beckwith (2006). “The Sonority Sequencing Principle and Old Tibetan Syllable Margins.” In: Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages II. Leiden: Brill, 45-57.
• Beckwith (2006). "Methodological Observations on Some Recent Studies of the Early Ethnolinguistic History of Korea and Vicinity." Altai Hakpo 2006, 16: 199-234.
• Beckwith (2006). "The Ethnolinguistic History of the Early Korean Peninsula Region: Japanese-Koguryoic and Other Languages in the Koguryo, Paekche, and Silla Kingdoms." Journal of Inner and East Asian Studies, 2006, Vol. 2-2: 34-64.
• Beckwith, and Gisaburo N. Kiyose (2006): 'The Silla Word for "Walled City" and the Ancestor of Modern Korean.' Arutaigo Kenkyu - Altaistic Studies 2006, Vol. 1: 1-10.
• Beckwith (2007): Koguryo, the Language of Japan's Continental Relatives: An Introduction to the Historical-Comparative Study of the Japanese-Koguryoic Languages, with a Preliminary Description of Archaic Northeastern Middle Chinese. Brill Academic Publishers, 2004. ISBN 90-04-13949-4. Second edition, 2007. ISBN 90-04-16025-5
• Beckwith (2007) "On the Proto-Indo-European Obstruent System." Historische Sprachforschung 2007, 120: 1-19.
• Beckwith (2007): Phoronyms: Classifiers, Class Nouns, and the Pseudopartitive Construction. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. ISBN 1-433-10139-4
• Beckwith (2007): "The Frankish Name of the King of the Turks." "Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi" 2006/7, 15: 5-11.
• Beckwith (2008). "An introduction to theoretical and methodological problems in the comparative-historical linguistics of Eastern-Eurasian languages." Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages III. Christopher Beckwith, ed. (Proceedings of the 11th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies.) Halle: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies GmbH: 9-48.
• Beckwith (2008). "The Pai-lang songs: The earliest texts in a Tibeto-Burman language and their Late Old Chinese transcriptions." Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages III. Christopher Beckwith, ed. (Proceedings of the 11th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies.) Halle: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies GmbH: 87-110.
• Beckwith (2008). "Old Chinese loans in Tibetan and the non-uniqueness of „Sino-Tibetan“." Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages III. Christopher Beckwith, ed. (Proceedings of the 11th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies.) Halle: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies GmbH: 61-201.
• Beckwith, and Gisaburo N. Kiyose (2008): 'The Origin of the Old Japanese Twelve Animal Cycle.' Arutaigo kenkyû – Altaistic Studies 2008, Vol. 2: 1-18.
• Beckwith (2009): Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-13589-2.
• Beckwith (2010): 'Could There Be a Korean–Japanese Linguistic Relationship Theory? Science, the Data, and the Alternatives. A State-of-the-Field Article.' International Journal of Asian Studies 2010, Vol. 7, 2: 201-219.
• Beckwith (2010): 'Old Chinese Loanwords in Korean.' In: Sang-Oak Lee, ed., Contemporary Korean Linguistics: International Perspectives. Seoul: Thaehaksa, 2010: 1-22.
• Beckwith and Walter (2010). "On the Meaning of Old Tibetan rje-blon during the Tibetan Empire Period." Journal Asiatique 298.2: 535-548.

Reviews

From a review of Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present:

Beckwith's many quirky personal asides about this and that do not detract from the formidable scholarship with which he surveys the nations and states that waxed and waned in what is perhaps best called Inner Asia from the earliest times to the present. But this is no mere survey. Beckwith systematically demolishes the almost universal presumption that the peoples and powers of Inner Asia were typically predatory raiders, and thus supplied themselves by extracting loot and tribute from more settled populations. He demonstrates that it is much more accurate to view them as traders and the protectors of traders.^[3]

References

1. ^ http://www.indiana.edu/~ceus/faculty/beckwith.shtml
2. ^ http://www.indiana.edu/~ceus/faculty/beckwith.shtml
3. ^ Edward Luttwak (August 31, 2009). "The Best and the Fastest". The New Republic. http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/the-best-and-the-fastest?page=0,1. 

See also

• Department of Central Eurasian Studies (Indiana University)
• Goguryeo language

Persondata
Name	Beckwith, Christopher I.
Alternative names
Short description	American linguist
Date of birth	1945
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death