The article examines the etymology of the word " necklace, beads", which is common in a number of languages of the Pamir-Hindu Kush region: Vakhan, Ishkashim, Yidga, Khovar. We see in it a borrowing from the Sogdian mn. the number " beads, signets ". Historical sources speak quite clearly about the trading activities of Sogdian merchants in the mountainous country between Central Asia, Northern India and Kashgaria, and it can be assumed that for trade with the locals, who until ethnographic times preferred commodity exchange to money, they used beads found in many Pamir monuments (where coin finds are extremely rare).). Keywords: Pamir languages, Dardic languages, Pamir-Hindu Kush region, Sughd trade, Sughd language, beads, borrowings. Sogdian merchants, who in the early Middle Ages conducted extremely lively trade along the so - called Silk Road between various regions of the then ecumenical world, penetrated - and, as a result, left their traces in many seemingly remote or inaccessible places.2 One of these areas is the mountainous country of the Pamirs, Hindu Kush and Karakoram, which separates three important regions for Sogdian traders: the Tarim basin, the northern part of the Indian subcontinent and their native Central Asia. The earliest evidence of Sogdian (and Khwarezmian) activity in this region dates back to the turn of the sixth and fifth centuries BC. The inscription of Darius the Great, which listed the materials used to build his palace in Susa, mentions haya kapautaka stones brought by the Sogdians and haya Khorezmians [DSf, 37-40, Kent, 1953, p. 143-144]. The first of them, haya kapautaka - "blue", is lapis lazuli, the main mines of which were located on the Kokcha River in Badakhshan, Afghanistan. It is less clear what is hidden under the term Apparently, it is a red stone, perhaps a garnet, "Badakhshan ruby" [de la Vaissiere, 2005, p. 18-22]. "Dark haya " in Khorezm is usually translated as "turquoise" 3. It should be noted that it cannot be a na ... Read more