A number of regions in historical Eastern Iran Central Asia, Afghanistan have been proposed as the native land of its original speakers, though none of them can be accepted with absolute certainty. Based upon the language of the Avestan texts, Avestan is divided into two dialects, Old and Young Avestan.
The relation of these two dialects is debated, though the majority of scholars consider them to represent the earlier and later phases of the same language.
It was based on the Pahlavi alphabet see Middle Persian. It has 14 vowels and 37 consonants. Before the invention of the alphabet, the Avestan language was preserved by successive generations of Zoroastrian priests by means of oral tradition.
Avestan is a highly inflected language. Its noun distinguishes three genders masculine, feminine, neutral , three numbers singular, dual, plural , and 8 cases nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, instrumental, ablative, locative, vocative.
Old Avestan has a more archaic character and is closely related to the dialect of the hymns of the Rig Veda. Old Persian. Grammars: Mayrhofer, M.
Their main area of habitation included the territories of South Atropatene and Media Proper, which constitute the north-western quarter of modern Iran. Nothing is known about the literary status of Median. Despite being the royal language of the Median state, no written monuments or records have been discovered in this language.
The main evidence for Median comes from secondary sources, like Greek, Aramaic, Assyrian, and Old Persian sources, which have preserved a number of loanwords and proper names from Median. This has helped scholars reconstruct the basic phonetic structure of this language. In this phonetic aspect Median shows remarkable similarity to the phonetic system of Avestan, having only slight phonetic differences from it. Nothing particular is known about the grammatical structure of Median, except that it was flectional, like the other Old Iranian languages.
Period: mid-1st mil. Grammars: Abaev, V. Word list: See Abaev Scythian or Saka was the language or rather the cluster of interrelated dialects of the Scythian tribes that inhabited the vast areas of South Russia and modern Kazakhstan in the 1st millennium B.
Like Median, these languages have not been preserved in any written form. The only evidence for the existence of these languages, besides the existence of its descendants like Ossetic , are a number of loanwords, toponyms, and personal names around that have been preserved in various textual sources from that time, especially in the writings of Greek authors. These words serve as a basis for the phonetic reconstruction of this dialect group.
No means are available for the reconstruction of the grammar of these languages. Subgroup: Southwestern Period: 3rd c. BC - 9th c. Dictionaries: MacKenzie, D. III, Part 1. Middle Persian was the native tongue of the Sasanian rulers, and for this reason MP became the state language of the Sasanian Empire, which stretched from the Euphrates to modern-day Afghanistan. Later, it spread to the northeastern regions of the Sasanian Empire Xwarasan, Khurasan , where it replaced the native Parthian.
During the Islamic period, the Persian dialect of Khurasan became the main literary standard of Persian. Script and literature. There are also Sasanian royal inscriptions left mostly by the early Sasanian kings and high-ranking officials of the state, which, as authentic epigraphical monuments, are important besides the obvious historical reasons for reconstructing the history of MP.
Middle Persian Zoroastrian literature also called Pahlavi literature is comparatively rich and almost completely of religious character. It is written in the Pahlavi alphabet, which is a very complicated script. Manichaeism was a gnostic religion founded by the prophet Mani A. Manichaean preachers were active in the Roman, Sasanian empires and later also in China. Manichaean MP literature is written in a Palmyrenean type of alphabet which has 30 letters and thus provides scholars with a clearer picture of the phonetic structure of MP.
The Manichaean MP texts were discovered in Turfan in the beginning of the 20th century. Most of the texts are only fragments from various religious works. MP has an analytical grammatical structure, which makes it closer to New Persian.
It has preserved no cases, although the Early Sasanian inscriptions attest to the initial existence of two cases: direct and oblique. This can be observed in the differentiated use of the 1st singular personal pronoun an dir. No traces of grammatical gender nor dual number have been preserved.
Phonetic structures have been simplified, leading to the monophthongization of OI diphthongs, e. Subgroup: Northwestern Period: 3rd c. I, Moscow, , pp. Text editions: Boyce, M. Dictionaries: Durkin-Meisterernst, D.
Parthian was originally the language of the population of Parthia proper the Parthians , a region that was situated in the northeastern part of modern Iran Khorasan , and southern Turkmenistan. After the rise of the Arsacid dynasty in this region and the creation of the Parthian Empire, Parthian gained importance and eventually became the official language of the state.
The main sources for the study of the Parthian language are the Manichaean manuscripts written in Parthian see Boyce They are written in the Manichaean Palmyrenean script and were discovered in the Turfan Oasis by the European archeological expeditions at the beginning of the 20th century.
The Manichaean script had around 30 letters. This has provided scholars with the conventional means to the study the phonetic structure of Parthian. Besides these Manichaean texts, there are other sources for the study of Parthian which are of significant importance, like the 3rd c.
Sasanian tri- or bilingual inscriptions, foreign loanwords mostly in Armenian , the numerous ostraca from Nisa near modern day Ashgabat, Turkmenistan , the Awroman parchment, etc. All these sources are written in the Parthian script, which was based on the Imperial Aramaic alphabet that was in use in the Achaemenid empire.
Like Middle Persian, Parthian also has an analytical structure, which means it lacks gender differentiation, a case system, and it has simplified verbal inflection, etc.
In many respects, both Parthian and Middle Persian show close similarities in their grammar. During the first half of the 20th century most scholars in the field considered them to be the dialects of one language Sundermann However, its phonetic structure tells us that Parthian belongs to the Northwestern Iranian language group.
Its phonetic structure is closer to that of Median and Avestan, rather than Old Persian. Subgroup: Northeastern Period attested : 1st c BC - 9th c. Text editions: MacKenzie, D. Dictionaries: Gharib, B. The region was connected with the name of the Sogdians already in the Achaemenid period, as it is mentioned in the Behistun inscription 6th c. The main cultural centers of the region were Samarkand and Bukhara.
Their cultural and economical importance started to fade in the last quarter of the 1st millennium A. The only surviving dialect that is related to Sogdian is spoken in the Yaghnob Valley in Northwest Tajikistan see Yaghnobi. Comparatively rich literature has survived in Sogdian, which was unknown to the scholarly community before the beginning of the 20th century. Another type of alphabet is found in the inscriptions e.
There are both secular and religious literary texts preserved in Sodgian. There is one page of a medical text preserved in Indian Brahmi script. The majority of the surviving literature and epigraphical remains comes from Central Asia or Chinese Turkestan Dunhuang, Turfan.
Two major collections of written material of a secular character have been discovered so far, the ancient letters and the archive of Mount Mugh. AD that were discovered in Dunhuang Xinjiang. Like most of the Eastern Iranian languages, Sogdian is a highly inflected language. To put it simply, if the stem of the word is stressed, it is a heavy stem. If not, it is a light stem. The stress on the heavy stem caused the loss of final vowels, which resulted in a reduced inflectional system.
Thus, words with light stems have six cases Nom. Three genders are distinguished: Fem. Three numbers, singular, plural, and dual, are attested, although the dual is rarely used and wherever it is, it has lost its function and may be called numerical Sims-Williams Subgroup: Northeasten Period: ca.
Text editions: Bailey, H. Dictionaries: Bailey, H. The Khotanese or Khotan Saka language Kh. Throughout its history, Khotanese was confined mostly to Khotan and its environs. It is considered to be a Saka language. The Saka s were a nomadic Iranian people who ended up settling in different regions of Central Asia and India in the last few centuries of the 1st mil.
BC and the first few centuries AD. One of their branches settled in the area of ancient Khotan and is the descendent of their language, which is known to us as Khotanese. The main religion in Khotan in the second half of the 1st millennium A. And it is mostly in the ruins of Buddhist monasteries that most of the Khotanese texts were found.
The language is written in the Central Asian variety of the Brahmi script see Emmerick The majority of the texts are of Buddhist religious character. Many are translations from Sanskrit or Prakrit Buddhist texts. The majority of the documents are written either on pothi manuscripts or Chinese rolls. The first is a type of MS where the text is written on a number of rectangular paper leaves, which are then bound together by a string which passes through a hole on the left side of the MS.
The second type, as its name implies, is a roll of Chinese paper which can reach up to 7m on which the text was written Emmerick Most of the texts were discovered by European expeditions in Chinese Turkestan and are in various libraries and collections in London, Paris, St.
Petersburg, Munich, and Washington for more on this literature, see Emmerick Emmerick, R. Khotanese has an analytical grammar structure like most of the Eastern Iranian languages.
Its noun distinguishes two grammatical genders masculine and feminine, not neuter and six cases Nom. Nouns and adjectives are inflected according to vocalic and consonantal declensions. Verbs have two stems, for present and preterite formed by adding -ta to the OI past participle. For further details, see Emmerick Subgroup: Northeasten Period attested : c.
Text editions: Emmerick, R. Tumshuqese is a closely related dialect of Khotanese. It was spoken in the area around what is modern Tumshuq Ug. Not much else is known about its speakers, besides that they were the descendents of the Saka tribes that settled in the area probably around the 2nd c. Very few texts around 15 have been found in this language, which makes its study somewhat problematic. A variant of the Brahmi script is employed for writing the texts.
This script, despite some minor similarities to the Khotanese Brahmi, shows significant differences from the latter esp. Around two dozen pieces of documents have survived, including legal documents, Buddhist texts, sale documents, etc.
Overall, Tumshuqese displays more archaic features compared to Khotanese. Like Khotanese, its noun distinguishes grammatical gender masc. The lack of sufficient materials impedes the thorough study of its grammar.
For further reference, see Emmerick Subgroup: Northeasten Period attested : 2nd c. III, Moscow, , cc. Dictionaries: Davari, G. Its center, Balkh, was situated in the vicinity of modern Mazar-i Sharif Afghanistan.
Bactrian, being the administrative language of the Kushan Empire, was also used outside Bactria. Only one script is known to have been used to write Bactrian, the Greek alphabet. This alphabet was the heritage of the earlier Graeco-Bactrian kingdom and started being used in the 2nd c.
AD, probably during the reign of the Kushan emperor Kanishka I 1st half of the 2nd c. Two types of writing are distinguishable: rectangular and cursive. Not much has survived in Bactrian. The longest written piece is the Surkh-Kotal inscription, discovered in 25 lines, c.
Various small fragments of miscellaneous epigraphical documents and coins have been found Afghanistan, South Uzbekistan, North-West Pakistan. Recently, a number of important legal documents have been found in the territory of the former Bactrian kingdom. They have been published by N. Sims-Williams Some manuscript fragments found in the ancient town of Loulan Xinjiang province, PRC testify to the existence of Buddhist Bactrian literature.
One single leaf of a Manichean MS has been discovered M Despite being classified as Eastern Iranian language, Bactrian shows extensive simplification in grammatical forms, like Parthian. Morphology is greatly simplified, due to the reduction of final vowels.
Two cases, direct and oblique, survive. Nouns and adjectives do not distinguish grammatical gender in the inflected forms, although there is gender distinction in the use of the definite article, e.
Verbal inflection shows similarities to that of West. Iranian Sims-Williams Subgroup: North-Eastern Period attested : 2nd B. Sources: Coins, epigraphical evidence; citations in Arabic works. Grammars: Freyman, A. I, Moscow, ; Edelman, D. Dictionaries: Henning, W. Khwarezmian was the ancient language of Khwarezm , a region situated on the lower course of Amu-Darya, south of the Aral sea West Uzbekistan. The Khwarezmian language did not have much political or religious significance outside Khwarezm, which may explain the lack of documentation in this language.
Despite that, unlike other well-documented Central Asian Iranian languages, it survived for a much longer period after the Arabic conquest, at least until the 14th c. Edelmann Based on the archaeological evidence, the Aramaic script started being used to write Khwarezmian probably from the 4th-2nd cc.
Not much has survived besides some ancient coins, and laconic inscriptions on various types of ceramic, wooden and leather materials. Most of the information on the phonology and grammar of this language is garnered from various fragmentary texts words, phrases, dialogs, etc.
The nature of the script prevents researchers from reconstructing the phonetic picture of the language. Khwarezmian has an inflected type of grammar. Farsi is just the endonym for what the rest of the world calls Persian — a.
There are 79 living languages spoken in Iran, which includes 65 indigenous tongues. Technically though, Persian is a macrolanguage that includes Dari, also known as Afghan Persian, and Tajik, the spoken language of Tajikistan. And there are Dari speakers in Iran as well.
Among these, one of the most common is Azerbaijani, which is related to Turkish and Crimean Tatar. It has 23 million speakers in Iran, most of whom live in the northwestern region known as Iranian Azerbaijan. There are also a number of Turkish speakers living in Tehran.
Persian is spoken as a second language by a large proportion of the rest. Many different dialects of Persian are spoken in various parts of the Central Plateau, and people from each city can usually be identified by their speech. Some dialects, such as Gilaki and Mazandari, are distinct enough to be virtually unintelligible to a Persian speaker from Tehran or Shiraz. Persian is an ancient language that has developed through three historical stages. Old Persian dates back to at least B.
It was written in cuneiform and used exclusively for royal proclamations and announcements. Middle Persian, also known as Pahlavi, was in use from about A.
It was the official language of the Sassanid Empire and of the Zoroastrian priesthood. It was written in an ideographic script called Huzvaresh. Modern Persian is a continually evolving language that began to develop about A. Following the Arab conquest of the Sassanid Empire in the seventh century and the gradual conversion of the population to Islam, Arabic became the official, literary, and written language, but Persian remained the language of court records.
Persian, however, borrowed heavily from Arabic to enrich its own vocabulary and eventually adopted the Arabic script. In subsequent centuries, many Turkic words also were incorporated into Persian. This relationship can be seen in such cognates as beradar brother , pedar father , and mader mother.
It is a relatively easy language for English-speaking people to learn compared with any other major language of the Middle East.
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