Branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family
This article is about the language family. For languages spoken in the modern country of Iran, seeLanguages of Iran. For the official language of Iran, seePersian language.
The Iranian languages are grouped in three stages: Old Iranian (until 400 BCE), Middle Iranian (400 BCE – 900 CE) and New Iranian (since 900 CE). The two directly attested Old Iranian languages areOld Persian (from theAchaemenid Empire) andOld Avestan (the language of theAvesta). Avesta predates Old Iranian language, Old Avestan (c. 1500 – 900 BCE)[8] and Younger Avestan (c. 900 – 400 BCE).[9] Of the Middle Iranian languages, the better understood and recorded ones areMiddle Persian (from theSasanian Empire),Parthian (from theParthian Empire), andBactrian (from theKushan andHephthalite empires).
The termIran derives directly fromMiddle PersianĒrān, first attested in a third-century inscription atNaqsh-e Rostam, with the accompanyingParthian inscription using the termAryān, in reference to theIranian peoples.[7] The Middle-Iranianērān andaryān are oblique plural forms ofgentilic nounsēr- (Middle Persian) andary- (Parthian), both deriving fromProto-Iranian language*arya- (meaning "Aryan", i.e. "of the Iranians").[7][8] In the Iranic languages spoken on the plateau, the gentilic is attested as a self-identifier, included in ancient inscriptions and the literature of theAvesta,[9][note 1] and remains also in other Iranian ethnic namesAlan (Ossetian:ИрIr) andIron (Ирон).[8]
When used as a linguistic termIranian is applied to any language which descends from the ancestralProto-Iranian language.[10]
Some scholars such asJohn R. Perry prefer the termIranic as theanthropological name for thelinguistic family and ethnic groups of this category, andIranian for anything about the modern country of Iran. He uses the same analogue as in differentiating German fromGermanic or differentiating Turkish andTurkic.[11]
Southeastern, of whichPashto is the dominant member;
Northeastern, by far the smallest branch, of whichOssetian is the dominant member.
According to modern scholarship, theAvestan languages are not considered to fall under these categories, and are instead sometimes classified as Central Iranian, since they diverged fromProto-Iranian before the east–west division rose to prominence. It has traditionally been viewed as Eastern Iranian; however, it lacks a large number of Eastern Iranian features and thus is only "Eastern Iranian" in the sense that it is not Western.[18]
The language was situated precisely in the western part of Central Asia that borders present-day Russia and Kazakhstan. It was thus in relative proximity to the othersatem ethno-linguistic groups of theIndo-European family, such asThracian,Balto-Slavic and others, and to common Indo-European's original homeland (more precisely, thePontic-Caspian Steppe to the north of the Black Sea and theCaucasus), according to the reconstructed linguistic relationships of common Indo-European.
Proto-Iranian thus dates to some time after the Proto-Indo-Iranian breakup, or the early-2nd millennium BCE, as the Old Iranian languages began to break off and evolve separately as the various Iranian tribes migrated and settled in vast areas ofsoutheastern Europe, theIranian Plateau, and Central Asia.
Proto-Iranian innovations compared to Proto-Indo-Iranian include:[19] the turning ofsibilantfricative *s into non-sibilant fricative glottal *h; the voiced aspiratedplosives *bʰ, *dʰ, *gʰ yielding to the voiced unaspirated plosives *b, *d, *g resp.; thevoiceless unaspirated stops *p, *t, *k before another consonant changing into fricatives *f, *θ, *x resp.; voiceless aspirated stops *pʰ, *tʰ, *kʰ turning into fricatives *f, *θ, *x, resp.
The multitude ofMiddle Iranian languages and peoples indicate that great linguistic diversity must have existed among the ancient speakers of Iranian languages. Of that variety of languages/dialects,direct evidence of only two has survived. These are:
The other directly attested Old Iranian dialects are the two forms ofAvestan, which take their name from their use in theAvesta, theliturgical texts of indigenous Iranian religion that now goes by the name ofZoroastrianism but in the Avesta itself is simply known asvohu daena (later:behdin). The language of the Avesta is subdivided into two dialects, conventionally known as "Old (or 'Gathic') Avestan", and "Younger Avestan". These terms, which date to the 19th century, are slightly misleading since 'Younger Avestan' is not only much younger than 'Old Avestan', but also from a different geographic region. The Old Avestan dialect is very archaic, and at roughly the same stage of development asRigvedic Sanskrit. On the other hand, Younger Avestan is at about the same linguistic stage as Old Persian, but by virtue of its use as a sacred language retained its "old" characteristics long after the Old Iranian languages had yielded to their Middle Iranian stage. Unlike Old Persian, which has Middle Persian as its known successor, Avestan has no clearly identifiable Middle Iranian stage (the effect of Middle Iranian is indistinguishable from effects due to other causes).
In addition to Old Persian and Avestan, which are the onlydirectly attested Old Iranian languages, all Middle Iranian languages must have had a predecessor "Old Iranian" form of that language, and thus can all be said to have had an (at least hypothetical) "Old" form. Such hypothetical Old Iranian languages includeOld Parthian. Additionally, the existence of unattested languages can sometimes be inferred from the impact they had on neighbouring languages. Such transfer is known to have occurred for Old Persian, which has (what is called) a "Median" substrate in some of its vocabulary.[21] Also, foreign references to languages can also provide a hint to the existence of otherwise unattested languages, for example through toponyms/ethnonyms or in the recording of vocabulary, asHerodotus did for what he called "Scythian" and in one instance,Median (σπάκα "dog").
Conventionally, Iranian languages are grouped into "western" and "eastern" branches.[22] These terms have little meaning with respect to Old Avestan as that stage of the language may predate the settling of the Iranian peoples into western and eastern groups. The geographic terms also have little meaning when applied to Younger Avestan since it is not known where that dialect (or dialects) was spoken either. Certain is only that Avestan (all forms) and Old Persian are distinct, and since Old Persian is "western", and Avestan was not Old Persian, Avestan acquired a default assignment to "eastern". Further confusing the issue is the introduction of a western Iranian substrate in later Avestan compositions and redactions undertaken at the centers of imperial power in western Iran (either in the south-west in Persia, or in the north-west in Nisa/Parthia and Ecbatana/Media).
Two of the earliest dialectal divisions among Iranian indeed happen to not follow the later division into Western and Eastern blocks. These concern the fate of the Proto-Indo-Iranian first-seriespalatal consonants, *ć and *dź:[23]
Avestan and most other Iranian languages havedeaffricated and depalatalized these consonants, and have *ć >s, *dź >z.
Old Persian, however, has fronted these consonants further: *ć >θ, *dź > *ð >d.
As a common intermediate stage, it is possible to reconstruct depalatalized affricates: *c, *dz. (This coincides with the state of affairs in the neighboringNuristani languages.) A further complication however concerns the consonant clusters *ćw and *dźw:
Avestan and most other Iranian languages have shifted these clusters tosp,zb.
In Old Persian, these clusters yields,z, with loss of the glide *w, butwithout further fronting.
TheSaka language, attested in the Middle Iranian period, and its modern relativeWakhi fail to fit into either group: in these, palatalization remains, and similar glide loss as in Old Persian occurs: *ćw >š, *dźw >ž.
A division of Iranian languages in at least three groups during the Old Iranian period is thus implied:
Persid (Old Persian and its descendants)
Sakan (Saka,Wakhi, and their Old Iranian ancestor)
Central Iranian (all other Iranian languages)
It is possible that other distinct dialect groups were already in existence during this period. Good candidates are the hypothetical ancestor languages ofAlanian/Scytho-Sarmatian subgroup of Scythian in the far northwest; and the hypothetical "Old Parthian" (the Old Iranian ancestor of Parthian) in the near northwest, where original *dw > *b (paralleling the development of *ćw).
What is known in Iranian linguistic history as the "Middle Iranian" era is thought to begin around the 4th century BCE lasting through the 9th century. Linguistically the Middle Iranian languages are conventionally classified into two main groups,Western andEastern.
The Western family includesParthian (Arsacid Pahlavi) andMiddle Persian, whileBactrian,Sogdian,Khwarezmian,Saka, andOld Ossetic (Scytho-Sarmatian) fall under the Eastern category. The two languages of the Western group were linguistically very close to each other, but quite distinct from their eastern counterparts. On the other hand, the Eastern group was an areal entity whose languages retained some similarity to Avestan. They were inscribed in variousAramaic-derived alphabets which had ultimately evolved from the Achaemenid ImperialAramaic script, though Bactrian was written using an adaptedGreek script.
Middle Persian (Pahlavi) was the official language under theSasanian dynasty in Iran. It was in use from the 3rd centuryCE until the beginning of the 10th century. The script used for Middle Persian in this era underwent significant maturity. Middle Persian, Parthian, and Sogdian were also used as literary languages by theManichaeans, whose texts also survive in various non-Iranian languages, from Latin to Chinese. Manichaean texts were written in a script closely akin to theSyriac script.[24] TheAchomi (Larestani/Khodmooni) language is considered a surviving remains of Pahlavi Middle Persian,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31] as well asLuri, with their respective dialects.
Dark green: countries where Iranian languages are official. Teal: countries where Iranian languages are official in a subdivision.
Following theMuslim conquest of Persia, there were essential changes in the role of the different dialects. The old prestige form ofMiddle Iranian,Pahlavi, which was associated with the western Sasanian provinces ofSpahan andPars, was replaced by a new variety as the official language of the court. In 875, heSaffarid dynasty was the first in a line of many dynasties to adopt the new prestige language officially.
These scholars also noted that the unofficial language of the royalty wasKhuzi, associated with the westernprovince of Khuzestan; it was likely a late variety of theElamite language, a language isolate that previously was the official court language ofElam in that region.
The Islamic conquest also brought with it the adoption of theArabic script for writing Persian and much later, Kurdish, Pashto and Balochi. All three were adapted to the writing by the addition of a few letters. This development probably occurred sometime during the second half of the 8th century, when the old middle Persian script began dwindling in usage. The Arabic script remains in use in contemporary modern Persian. TheTajik alphabet, used to write theTajik language, was initiallyRomanized in the 1920s under theSoviet nationalities policy. This was shifted to aCyrillic script in the 1930s.
^In the Avesta, theairiia- are members of the ethnic group of the Avesta-reciters themselves, in contradistinction to theanairiia- (the "non-Arya"). The word also appears four times in Old Persian: One is in theBehistun Inscription, whereariya- is the name of a language (DB 4.89). The other three instances occur inDarius the Great's inscription atNaqsh-e Rostam (DNa 14–15), in Darius I's inscription at Susa (DSe 13–14), and in the inscription ofXerxes I atPersepolis (XPh 12–13). In these, the two Achaemenid dynasties describe themselves aspārsa pārsahyā puça ariya ariyaciça "a Persian, son of a Persian, an Ariya, of Ariya origin."—The phrase withciça ("origin, descendance") assures thatariya is an ethnic name wider in meaning thanpārsa and not a simple adjectival epithet.[9]
^In modern and colloquial context, the term "Indic" refers more generally to the languages of theIndian subcontinent, thus also including non-Aryan language families likeDravidian andMunda. See e.g.Reynolds, Mike; Verma, Mahendra (2007)."Indic languages". In Britain, David (ed.).Language in the British Isles. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. pp. 293–307.ISBN978-0-521-79488-6. Retrieved2021-10-04.
^John R. Perry (Summer–Autumn 1998). "A Review of the 'Encyclopaedia Iranica'".Iranian Studies.31 (3/4):517–525.
^Lassen, Christian. 1936. Die altpersischen Keil-Inschriften von Persepolis. Entzifferung des Alphabets und Erklärung des Inhalts. Bonn: Weber. S. 182. This was followed byWilhelm Geiger in hisGrundriss der Iranischen Philologie (1895).Friedrich von Spiegel (1859),Avesta, Engelmann (p. vii) used the spellingEranian.
^Cust, Robert Needham. 1878.A sketch of the modern languages of the East Indies. London: Trübner.
^Dani, Ahmad Hasan. 1989.History of northern areas of Pakistan. Historical studies (Pakistan) series. National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research. "We distinguish between the Aryan languages of Iran, or Irano-Aryan, and the Aryan languages of India, or Indo-Aryan. For the sake of brevity, Iranian is commonly used instead of Irano-Aryan".
^Schmitt, Rüdiger. 1994.Sprachzeugnisse alt- und mitteliranischer Sprachen in Afghanistan in:Indogermanica et Caucasica. Festschrift für Karl Horst Schmidt zum 65. Geburtstag. Bielmeier, Robert und Reinhard Stempel (Hrg.). De Gruyter. S. 168–196.
^Nicholas Sims-Williams, Iranica, under entry: Eastern Iranian languages
^Windfuhr, Gernot (2009). "Dialectology and Topics".The Iranian Languages.Routledge. pp. 18–21.
^Mary Boyce. 1975.A Reader in Manichaean Middle Persian and Parthian, p. 14.
^Talei, Maryam; Rovshan, Belghis (2024-10-24)."Semantic Network in Lari Language".Persian Language and Iranian Dialects.doi:10.22124/plid.2024.27553.1673.ISSN2476-6585.Archived from the original on 2024-11-28.This descriptive-analytical research examines sense relations between the lexemes of the Lari language, the continuation of theMiddle Persian and one of the endangered Iranian languages spoken in Lar, Fars province
^"Western Iranian languages History".Destination Iran. 2024-06-16.Archived from the original on 2024-11-28. Retrieved2024-11-28.Achomi or Khodmooni (Larestani) is a southwestern Iranian language spoken in southern Fars province and the Ajam (non-arab) population in Persian Gulf countries such as UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait. It is a descendant of Middle Persian and has several dialects including Lari, Evazi, Khoni, Bastaki, and more.
^Taherkhani, Neda; Ourang, Muhammed (2013)."A Study of Derivational Morphemes in Lari & Tati as Two Endangered Iranian Languages: An Analytical Contrastive Examination with Persian"(PDF).Journal of American Science.ISSN1545-1003.Archived(PDF) from the original on 2024-11-30. Retrieved2024-11-28.Lari is of the SW branch of Middle Iranian languages, Pahlavi, in the Middle period of Persian Language Evolution and consists of nine dialects, which are prominently different in pronunciation (Geravand, 2010). Being a branch of Pahlavi language, Lari has several common features with it as its mother language. The ergative structure (the difference between the conjugation of transitive and intransitive verbs) existing in Lari can be mentioned as such an example. The speech community of this language includes Fars province, Hormozgan province and some of the Arabic-speaking countries like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman (Khonji, 2010, p. 15).
^Brzezinski, Richard; Mielczarek, Mariusz (2002).The Sarmatians, 600 BC-AD 450. Osprey Publishing. p. 39.(..) Indeed, it is now accepted that the Sarmatians merged in with pre-Slavic populations.
^Adams, Douglas Q. (1997).Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Taylor & Francis. p. 523.(..) In their Ukrainian and Polish homeland the Slavs were intermixed and at times overlain by Germanic speakers (the Goths) and by Iranian speakers (Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans) in a shifting array of tribal and national configurations.
^Atkinson, Dorothy; et al. (1977).Women in Russia. Stanford University Press. p. 3.ISBN9780804709101.(..) Ancient accounts link the Amazons with the Scythians and the Sarmatians, who successively dominated the south of Russia for a millennium extending back to the seventh century B.C. The descendants of these peoples were absorbed by the Slavs who came to be known as Russians.
^Slovene Studies. Vol. 9–11. Society for Slovene Studies. 1987. p. 36.(..) For example, the ancient Scythians, Sarmatians (amongst others), and many other attested but now extinct peoples were assimilated in the course of history by Proto-Slavs.
Mallory, J. P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (2006).The Oxford introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European world. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-929668-2.
Toroghdar, Zia (2018). "From Astara to Fuman: Comparison words from dialects of different languages Talysh and Tatic".Farhang-e Ilia. pp. 38–172.
Sokolova, V. S. "New information on the phonetics of Iranic languages." Trudy Instituta jazykoznanija NN SSR (Moskva) 1 (1952): 178–192.
Jügel, Thomas. "Word-order variation in Middle Iranic: Persian, Parthian, Bactrian, and Sogdian." Word order variation: Semitic, Turkic, and Indo-European languages in contact, Studia Typologica [STTYP] 31 (2022): 39–62.
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