Among all of the non-Persian Iranian toponyms of Mawarannahr that have come down to us thanks to medieval sources (some 1,000 items), the vast majority (80—90%) are those mentioned in Islamic Arabic, Persian and Turkic sources. This multilingual group is united by certain general characteristics — a single cultural environment, a great deal of mutual influence, and, most important, a single tradition of writing. The transmission of Sogdian glosses through the Arabic script is the topic of the present article…