This article addresses derivational issues related to palatalization in Khotanese, focusing on action nouns of the kīra- type (< *-i̯a-). It is argued that diachronic palatalization conforms to the rules of synchronic palatalization and that the origin of the hapax legomenon jsīna- “killing” (Z 13.124), which apparently violates these rules, needs to be interpreted differently. It is traced back to a reduplicated Indo-Iranian verbal stem *ǰa-ghn- (cf. Young Avestan jaɣn-) < Proto-Indo-European *gwhé-gwhn- “to strike repeatedly” → “to kill”. This stem is also reflected in the Khotanese gerundive jsīñaa- “to be killed” < *dzai̯n-i̯a- ← *dzaɣn- < Iranian *ǰa-gn-. The article contributes additional evidence supporting the development of the preconsonantal voiced velar fricative *ɣ into *i̯ in pre-Khotanese.

In this article, I touch on some lexical and morphological aspects of Prasun historical linguistics. I propose six new etymologies for Prasun words that have not been etymologized at all (üžóg “resin”, ćəwā́ “rhubarb”, wulóg “footprint”, žíma “tent, camp”) or differently (wuzógrog, zógrog “knee”, wuẓnúg, wuẓéŋ “salt”), and add further remarks to three words (üzǖ́ etc. “ice; cold”, lümī́, lümǖ́ “tail”, wəs “day”) with whose traditional etymologizations I basically agree. Furthermore, it is argued that the common epenthetic wu- ~ ü- and the final (usually) -u ~ -ü have the same origin and largely go back to the acc.sg.m/n, nom.sg.n *-am of the Indo-Iranian a-stems. Additionally, while the *-ka-suffix is present in all Nuristani languages in various functions, there is a noticeable split between Prasun, where *-ka- is added to many nouns of the inherited basic vocabulary while it is absent in the cognates in the other Nuristani languages.

In 1983 and 1984, archaeologists excavated at the ruins of Khara-khoto, Inner Mongolia, about 3,000 fragments of handwritten and printed texts from the Yuan period (1271–1368). The texts were chiefly written in Chinese and Tangut but also included a handful of other languages. Among a small group of texts in Mongolian were fragments of a woodblock-printed book with illustrations, using the Uyghur script. The content of the text, as well as the presence of a few interlinear Chinese characters, made it clear that this was a translation of a Chinese work, probably of Daoist content. Because the folios were incomplete, the narrative framework of the text could only be reconstructed partially, which is also why the source text has not been identified so far. This article locates Chinese versions of the story and identifies one of them as the closest to that used by the translator. This, in turn, helps to improve our interpretation of the Mongolian fragments and provide background information for understanding the context of the text's circulation in the Khara-khoto region. My primary aim here is to engage with the original Chinese story, rather than the translation and its place in Mongolian literature.