 | This article shouldspecify the language of its non-English content, using{{langx}},{{transliteration}} for transliterated languages, and{{IPA}} for phonetic transcriptions, with an appropriateISO 639 code. Wikipedia'smultilingual support templates may also be used - notably xme for Median.See why.(October 2024) |
| Median | |
|---|---|
| Medean, Medic | |
| Native to | Media |
| Region | Ancient Iran |
| Ethnicity | Medes |
| Era | 500 BCE – 500 CE[1] |
| Dialects | |
| Linear Elamite? | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xme |
xme | |
| Glottolog | None |
Median (alsoMedean orMedic) is anextinctIranian language which was spoken by the ancientMedes. It belongs to theNorthwestern branch of the Iranian language family, which includes many other much more recently attested and different languages such asKurdish,Old Azeri,Talysh,Gilaki,Mazandarani,Zaza–Gorani andBaluchi.[2][3]
Median is attested only by numerous loanwords inOld Persian. Nothing is known of its grammar, "but it shares importantphonologicalisoglosses withAvestan, rather than Old Persian. Under the Median rule . . . Median must to some extent have been the official Iranian language inwestern Iran".[4]No documents dating to Median times have been preserved, and it is not known what script these texts might have been in. So far only one inscription of pre-Achaemenid times (a bronze plaque) has been found on the territory ofMedia from the time Media was under the control of theNeo-Assyrian Empire. This is acuneiform inscription composed inAkkadian, perhaps in the 8th century BCE, but no Median names are mentioned in it."[5]
Words of Median origin include:
_Relief_Achamenid_Period.JPG)
A distinction from other ethnolinguistic groups such as thePersians is evident primarily in foreign sources, such as from mid-9th-century BCEAssyrian cuneiform sources[18] and fromHerodotus' mid-5th-century BCE secondhand account of the Perso-Median conflict. It is not known what the native name of the Median language was (just like for all other Old Iranian languages) or whether theMedes themselves nominally distinguished it from the languages of otherIranian peoples. TheAssyrians who ruled over both the Medes and Persians from the 9th to 7th centuries BC called themManda andParshumash, respectively.
Median is presumed to have been asubstrate of the officialOld Persian used in the Achaemenid Empire.[19] AsProds Oktor Skjærvø explains, the Median element is readily identifiable because it did not share in the developments that were particular to Old Persian. Median forms "are found only in personal or geographical names […] and some are typically from religious vocabulary and so could in principle also be influenced byAvestan […]. Sometimes, both Median and Old Persian forms are found, which gave Old Persian a somewhat confusing and inconsistent look: 'horse,' for instance, is [attested in Old Persian as] bothasa (OPers.) andaspa (Med.)."[20]
Using comparativephonology of proper names attested in Old Persian, Roland Kent[21] notes several other Old Persian words that appear to be borrowings from Median: for example,taxma, 'brave', as in the proper nameTaxmaspada. Diakonoff[22] includesparidaiza, 'paradise';vazraka, 'great' andxshayathiya, 'royal'. In the mid-5th century BCE, Herodotus (Histories 1.110[23]) noted thatspaka is the Median word for a female dog. This term and meaning are preserved in living Iranian languages such asTalyshi andZaza language.[24]
In the 1st century BCE,Strabo (c. 64BCE–24CE) would note a relationship between the various Iranian peoples and their languages: "[From] beyond theIndus...Ariana is extended so as to include some part ofPersia,Media, and the north ofBactria andSogdiana; for these nations speak nearly the same language." (Geography, 15.2.1-15.2.8[25])
Traces of the (later) dialects of Media (not to be confused with the Median language) are preserved in the compositions of thefahlaviyat genre, verse composed in the old dialects of the Pahla/Fahla regions of Iran's northwest.[26] Consequently, these compositions have "certain linguistic affinities" withParthian, but the surviving specimens (which are from the 9th to 18th centuries CE) are much influenced byPersian. For an enumeration of linguistic characteristics and vocabulary "deserving mention", seeTafazzoli 1999. The use offahla (fromMiddle Persianpahlaw) to denote Media is attested from lateArsacid times so it reflects the pre-Sassanid use of the word to denote "Parthia", which, during Arsacid times, included most of Media.
A number of modernIranian languages spoken today have hadmedieval stages with attestations found in Classical and Early Modern Persian sources. G. Windfuhr believes that the "modern [Iranian] languages of Azarbaijan and Central Iran, located in ancient Media and Atropatene, are 'Median' dialects" and that those languages "continue the lost local and regional language" of Old Median, and bear similarity to "Medisms in Old Persian".[27] The term Pahlav/Fahlav (seefahlaviyat) in traditional medieval Persian sources is also used to refer to regionalisms in Persian poetry from western Iran that reflect the period ofParthian rule of those regions, but Windfuhr also ascribes some of these to older Median influence.[27] and their languages "being survivals of the Median dialects have certain linguistic affinities with Parthian".[28] The most notable New Median languages and dialects are spoken in central Iran[29] especially around Kashan.[30]
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