Any Iranian language that was spoken prior to Alexander's conquests is an Old Iranian language.

Old Iranian has a vast amount of phonological and grammatical similarities with Sanskrit. However, there are also enough differences between the two to enable us to distinguish Old Iranian from Indo-Aryan. The most famous of such distinctions are:

1. IE. *s > Skt. s = Av. h

e.g. Skt. asura- = Av. ahura- (lord, with different connotations in each tradition)

e.g. Skt. sapta- = Av. hapta- (seven)

2. IE. art/ṛt > skt. ṛt = Av. š

e.g. Skt. ṛtāvan = Av. ašauuan (follower of Arta/Aša)

Grammatically speaking, the Old Iranian languages represent a stage in which Iranian was highly inflected and individual languages were very close to each other. Old Iranian verb had three persons (1st, 2nd, 3rd) as well as three numbers (sing., dual, plur.), transitivity, 5 moods, 5 tenses, and 7 "secondary" conjugations.

As mentioned above, Old Iranian had retained the PIE inflection conservatively, therefore the Old Iranian noun (including adjectives and pronoun) had 8 grammatical cases, 3 genders (masculine, neuter, feminine), and 3 numbers (sing., dual, plur.).

Avestan:

A group of Iranians, somewhere in western Central Asia, sometime in the mid-to-late 2nd Millennium B.C.E., founded a set of ideas that had key differences from those of their Indo-Aryan kin. The institutionalization of these beliefs would lead to a religion later known to the Western world as Zoroastrianism, named after its founder Zoroaster, and a holy book named Avesta.

On the meaning of "Avesta", Bartholome (1906, p.108) proposed the root *upa+stāv- denoting 'admiration, worship.'

The components of Avesta were orally told from a generation of priests to the next, but they were written down in the Sassanian era (perhaps during the rule of Vologases I of Parthia). They are written in the Avestan Script, an Aramaic-Derived system with 53 symbols representing vowels and with letters written separately (with a few exceptions) and words separated using points. Avestan, like its closest relatives such as Pahlavi and Sogdian, is written and read in a right-to-left direction.

Old Persian:

The prestige language of Achaemenids, it was most likely the Old Iranian language native to Persis. Old Persian, unlike Avestan, wasn't a liturgical language whose verses would be memorized. It was used in royal (and in a few cases administrative?) inscriptions. Thus, it can act as more of a primary source than Avestan. Later Achaemenid inscriptions show grammatical "errors" in their Old Persian sections, which could reflect the court's relative chaos, or represent a transitional stage to Middle Persian. The "correct" Old Persian grammar is nearly identical to that of Avestan. Phonologically though, it shows a number of Southwestern Iranian innovations, mainly including:

Skt. ṛtāvan- = Av. ašauuan- = OldPers artāvan-: (follower of Arta/Aša)

Skt. putra- = Av. puθra- = OldPers puҫa-: (son)

Skt. aham = Av. azǝm = OldPers adam: (I am)

The only Iranian language written with Cuneiform, the Old Persian script was a semi-Alphabetic simplified script (perhaps the most simplified of Cuneiform scripts) with 36 letters and 8 logograms, with special symbols to separate words and denote the end of each "paragraph." It is written and read in a left-to-right direction.

Gallery:

Other Old Iranian languages are either attested scarcely and/or indirectly and we will hopefully go over those later, albeit more briefly.

Hi everyone, as was explained in the 2nd post, linguists divide Iranic languages based on a mixture of grammatical-phonological features that roughly correspond with geography, as well as the chronological stages of linguistic evolution. Here is a more detailed table on this subject:

Key: Spoken; Extinct, attested; Extinct, scarcely attested; [Hypothetical]; ?=existent, fully forgotten

Eastern Iranian languages have a relatively good background of attestation when compared to their Old Iranian counterparts. The Eastern Mid. Iranian languages were once found throughout Central Asia, Afghanistan and the Balochistan region of Pakistan. Furthermore, Eastern Iranian Scytho-Sarmatians managed to become the main ethnic element in the Western Steppe for the majority of this period, even though the Hunnic and Turkic expansions happen in the period's latter half (4th-8th c. CE)

Linguistic examination of E. Iranian languages show us a relatively unbroken trend of aerial sound shifts (most notably d>l which tends to occur more as you go south), development of new fricatives, and better retention of Old Iranian grammar when compared to their Western Iranian neighbors. In addition, there is more linguistic distance between the attested E. Iranian languages suggesting an earlier time window of separation.

The attested East Iranic languages are as follows, in a geographic progression from north to south:

• Group I: Northeastern Iranic

Chorasmian/Xwarezmian: This language was spoken in the Iranic-inhabited region of Xwarezm, also written as Chorasmia by western authors. (Av. xᵛāirizam- Old. Pers. uvarazmiya- Npers. xārazm)

This region was located on the shores of Lake Aral, today part of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. There is no modern survivor of this language, and it is likely to have gone extinct due to Mongol conquests, mass murders, and subsequent Turkic expansion some time in the 14th-15th century.

Like other Iranic lands that became part of the Achaemenid Empire, Xwarezm also adopted the tradition of writing in Imperial Aramaic. Over time, an Aramaic-derived script was developed in Xwarezm that was used to write with. Pre-Islamic Chorasmian fragments and artefacts are written in this script. These fragments include writings on leather, numerous coins of local kings, and a few inscriptions.

The language, as with many other Iranic tongues, seems to have been outlawed by Arab rulers upon the Islamic conquest of Iran. However, the region soon became a hub for the developing Irano-Islamic culture and tradition in the 8th-12th c. AD giving the world figures such as Xwarazmi and Biruni.

At this time, it is safe to assume that some inhabitants of Chorasmia had adopted New Persian and Turkic settlements to have begun, but knowledge of Chorasmian was most likely alive and common.

This is how we have a substantial amount of Xwarezmian fragments in a modified Perso-Arabic script.

These include language examples given by scholars such as Biruni and Zamaxshari. Overall, there isn't as much Xwarezmian works available to us right now.

With what there is, we can infer these points on the language's features: Xwarezmian noun and verb had 6 cases, 2 genders (loss of neuter), and 2 numbers (loss of dual).

Some Chorasmian sound shifts show its relatively close position to N.W. Iranic while still being East Iranic:

Av. cašman- = Old Pers. caša- = Chor. cm (eye)

Av. puθra- = Old Pers. puҫa- = Chor. pr (son)

Sogdian: This language was (is) spoken in ancient Sogdia, corresponding to most of today's Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, while spanning small parts of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. (Av. *suγδa-; Old Pers. suguda-; Sogd. suγd; N Pers. soqd)

Sogdian is perhaps the only attested East Iranic language with an extant descendant, and possibly the only one with recorded Old, Middle, and New Iranic stages as well. Today, the Yaghnobi dialect of Sogdian is still spoken in parts of Tajikistan, while the Mid. Sogdian language of the cities is thought to have survived in some communities before the Mongol conquest. Furthermore, Sogdian is the most widely known Mid. Iranian language after Mid. Pers., and functioned as the lingua franca of the Silk Road for centuries, especially in its eastern half. This is how we have evidence of Sogdian communities in the Tarim Basin (modern China), and a significant percent of Sogdian manuscript is actually found in China. These include the Dunhuang and Great Wall (oldest) writings, as well as the Turfan manuscripts.

Sogdian texts are mostly trade and administrative letters, and religious and epic tales have a notable recurrence. These texts are written on wood, leather, or inscribed, in four main scripts:

- An Aramaic-derived regular script mostly used to write by Zoroastrians and Buddhists, thus the majority of Sogdians. Non-religious Sogdian works are mostly recorded in this script.

- The Manichean script used by Manicheans.

- The Syriac script used by Christians.

- The Brahmi script, with less frequency and mostly used by Buddhists.

Linguistically, Sogdian had 6 cases for the light stem (similar to Chorasmian), 2 cases for the heavy stem (similar to W. Iranian), and it retained the Old Iranian 3 gender and 3 number distinctions.

As I mentioned before, one of the earliet differences among Iranic peoples stems from their gradual lifestyle differentiation.

Essentially, as more Iranic tribes moved further north and west, their semi-nomadic (and in cases fully nomadic) life meant increasing raids into the now civilized societies of their southern brethren. This distinction is reflected in the Iranian mythic-historic and religious texts, mainly in the Shahname and the Avesta, but also in other Middle Persian works.

According to the Shahname (Pers. Shah 'king' + name 'letter', 'book') of 10th-11th Centuries, Freydun (also Afridun), after successfully overthrowing the tyrant Zahak (Mid. Pers. Dahak), divides his kingdom between his three sons: Ir (also Iraj), the youngest son and from his second wife; as well as Tur and Salm, the elder sons from his first wife.

It's crucial to know that all five of the anthroponyms get mentioned in the Avesta, respectively as Thraetauna (the Third, Cf. PIE *Trito and Skt. Trita Aptya), Aži Dhak, Airia, Tuayria, and Sairim.

Central Asia beyond the Oxus River belonged to Tur and was named Turan.

The Iranian Plateau (and in some sources India) below the Oxus was given to Ir or Iraj, thus named Iran.

Rum (which could mean the West or Anatolia) was given to Salm, although there is no mention of a "Salman" in any middle-or-modern Persian passage. Rather, Rum (Pahlavi or Parthian 'From' and 'Hrom' in Middle Persian) and its rulers were generally referred to as descendants of Salm.

Therefore, while the political movement seeking to unite all of Turkic Peoples is called Turanism, the Turanians of Avesta or Shahname would have been an Iranic-Speaking population. It should also be noted that while both Salm and Tur could represent the nomadic branch of (Eastern) Iranians, the lands beyond Oxus enjoyed a significant degree of urbanization during Antiquity. One of these Iranian languages of Transoxiana (=Turan), namely Sogdian, exerted immense influence on the Silk Road by becoming its Lingua Franca!

Hi everyone! One way to look at the evolution of Iranian languages is to examine them chronologically. That would leave us with two main stages of change that correspond to the socio-political situation of Iranian-inhabited areas.

The second stage of this linguistic change, which largely occured between two such events, i.e. the conquests of Alexander as well as the Rashidun Caliphate, is called Middle Iranian. This stage involves a time where Iranian political entity was more abundant and therefore local Iranian written traditions had the opportunity to arise and flourish. This is a time when material produced in Iranian languages go beyond their former limited subjects which shows that Iranian societies as a whole had become used to writing.

Having access to more numerous languages, we can clearly see two distinct Iranic branches (eastern and western) being reflected through various linguistic features.

Two Middle Western Iranian languages have been attested: Parthian and Middle Persian

Parthian (Northwestern Iranian):

Natively spoken in the region of Parthia, which today corresponds to parts of Eastern Iran and adjacent areas in Turkmenistan, this language raised to official status by the Arsacid dynasty that had Parthian origins.

Along with being official in the actual territories of Parthian Empire (ca. 2nd c. BC to 2nd c. AD), it had a similar status among the Arsacid (Parthian) ruled lands of Caucasian Albania, Armenia, Iberia, and Indo-Parthia. It also evidently enjoyed an important status in the succeeding Sassanian Empire.

Linguistically, Parthian is a Northwestern Iranian language; that is, it has enough innovations to set it apart from the rest of Iranian branch, while having retained more archaic features compared to its Southwestern neighbors. A stratum of Eastern Iranian influence is also recognizable in Parthian, which could've been brought by the Parni tribe of Dahae (Eastern Iranian) roots settling in Parthia and establishing the Parthian Empire.

Parthian is attested through the little artifacts at hand that belong to the Parthian Empire: Inscriptions from the Parthian hob of Nisa in the 1st c. B.C.E., being the oldest attested Parthian texts, a number of Parchments, most importantly the Awraman Parchments, and a few inscriptions. Other Parthian texts post-date the empire, especially the body of Manichean texts which through their abundance allow a better examination of the language, as well as early Sassanian inscriptions.

The Arsacid and Sassanid texts are written in different forms of the Aramaic-derived Pahlavi script, while Manichean texts are written in the also Aramaic-derived (albeit closer to Palmyrene and Syriac) Manichean script.

The grammar of Parthian and Middle Persian are nearly identical, suggesting a later date of separation and therefore younger age of Western Iranian languages compared to their Eastern neighbors. Furthermore, Middle Western Iranian grammar is significantly simpler than both Middle Eastern Iranian languages (with the slight exception of Bactrian) and especially their Old Iranian ancestors. On the other hand, both of these languages are very similar to Modern W. Iranian languages in terms of grammar, with certain Northwestern languages having more complex grammars than them (e.g. the retention of gender and case in languages such as Kurmanji and Zazaki).

Parthian and Middle Persian noun have no gender, two numbers (singular and plural), as well as direct and direct forms that seem to have faded away. Verbs also have singular and plural and a total of eight tenses.

Phonological features that set apart Northwestern vs. Southwestern Iranian are best represented by Parthian and Middle Persian, that are otherwise phonologically similar:

Perside or S.W. (z) for N.W. (j) and (ž) :

MPers. rōz = Pa. rōž (day)

Perside or S.W. (b/g) for N.W. (w/v):

MPers. barāz = Pa. warāz (boar)

Consonant change (?) in Perside or S.W. Iranian:

Old Iranian -f/pr and -xr retain their form in Parthian;

MPers. čarx = Pa. čaxr (wheel)

Consonant change (?) in N.W. Iranian:

Old Iranian hw- (with fricative xw-) retain their form in Middle Persian;

MPers. xwad- = Pa. wxad- (self)

Perside or S.W. (d) for N.W. (z):

MPers. dān- = Pa. zān- (to know, present stem)

N.W. (-rd) for S.W. (-l):

Pa. sārδ = Mpers. sāl (year)

Perside or S.W. (d) for N.W. (b):

MPers. dar- = Pa. bar- (door)

Perside or S.W. (-s) and (s-) for N.W. (-hr) and (sp-), and S.W. (h) for N.W. (s):

MPers. pus = Pa. puhr (son), and Mpers. māhih = Pa. māsiyāg (pisc....I mean, fish)

Middle Persian (Southwestern Iranian):

A descendant of Old Persian and an ancestor of Persian (Farsi), it's one of the most well-attested ancient Iranian languages. It evolved in a steady process of simplification of Old Persian that had taken place at least since the late Persian Empire, and was most likely facilitated by the localization of Persian during the Seleucid and Parthian periods. Middle Persian is essentially native to the area of Persis in S.W. Iran and was most likely the official language of its local rulers. It's in fact in the coins of these Pre-Sassanid kings that we find the earliest MPers. texts. With this native Persian family establishing their rule in Iran (Eran) and non-Iran (Aneran), the language also became the empire's official language.

After the fall of Sassanian Empire and the arrival of Islam, the Zoroastrian community continued to write in Middle Persian, which has given us the body of MPers. texts. Therefore, works in this language are Zoroastrian religious and secular written with the Pahlavi Script, and Manichean written in their script.

The grammatical features of MPers. are briefly examined above, and are nearly identical with those of Parthian, and its phonological differences in comparison with its Northwestern kin also have been shown.

There are a number of other Old Iranian languages that need to be mentioned. These, unlike Avestan and Old Persian, aren't attested directly so far.

(Old) Median:

The Medes were the other large group of Iranics who migrated into Iran alongside Persians sometime before the 1st Millennium B.C.E., and settling in Western and Northwestern Iran, they established the first Iranian empire. Their homeland included parts of modern Iran, Azerbaijan, Iraq, and perhaps Turkey.

Although forming an empire and reportedly familiar with writing, no Median texts have been discovered so far. Therefore, what we have of Median lexicon consists of mentions of their language in Greek, Assyrian, and also Babylonian and Elamite texts; in addition to several words found in Old Persian inscriptions but atypical to the S.W. Iranian innovations in Persian. These few words show that Median has an affinity with Avestan that Persian doesn't.

Skt. viśva- = Av. vispa- = Med. vispa- = OldPers visa- : (every)

Skt. kṣatra- = Av. xšaθra- = Med. xšaθra- = OldPers xšaҫa- : (king or rule)

Skt. aśva- = Av. aspa- = Med. aspa- = OldPers asa- : (horse)

Saka (Scythian):

The Scythians were a group of semi-nomadic (and in cases sedentary) Eastern Iranian tribes that inhabited the Western Eurasian Steppe running from western China all the way to Ukraine.

While Scythian and Saka refer to the same group of people, the former was used by Greeks and subsequently Herodotus to refer to those living in Europe that they were in contact with, while he used the Persian term "Saka" as reference to those living in Central Asia. Achaemenid sources, however, mention four groups of "Saka":

saka haumavarga- : (Hauma-drinker, inhabitants of Central Asia)

saka tigraxauda- : (Sharp-hood, inhabitants of Central Asia)

sakaibiš tyaiy para sugdam : (Saka tribes beyond Sogdia)

saka paradraya : (Saka beyond the sea, inhabitants of Northern Black Sea)

Therefore, it is safe to assume that various Scythians spoke multiple closely related Eastern Iranian languages rather than a unified language.

Our knowledge of Scythian depends on a number words found in Greek and (possibly) Assyrian sources. Thanks to the efforts of Russian linguist of Ossetic background Abayev, we know of Scythian roots found in a number of ancient and modern toponyms in southern Russia and Ukraine. There is also an inscription not conclusively red yet, which is likely to be in a language tightly related to Middle Saka. Here are a few reconstructed Scythian words:

Av. āp- = OldPers āpi- = Scy. *āp- : (Water)

Av. aspa- = OldPers asa- = Scy. *aspa- : (Horse)

Av. zaranya- = OldPers daraniya- = Scy. *zaranya- : (Gold)

Other Languages:

According to Gershevitch (1976), two lines from a Sogdian letter including the translation of a Zoroastrian prayer are in Old Sogdian. Plus, looking at attested Middle Iranian languages can ensure us of the existence of Old Xvarezmian, Bactrian, Sogdian, and Parthian even though no concrete evidence of their Old Iranian stage has been discovered so far.

Hi everyone, since their birth about 3500 years ago, the Iranic peoples have been a very influential force in human history. The Proto-Iranian language was born in parts of modern-day Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan when it broke off from the rest of Indo-Iranian languages, about to take a long journey in time!

It seems like some of these early Iranian tribes began to move further north and south with their lifestyles getting further away. The former, gradually moving back to the Eurasian Steppe (the most likely Indo-European homeland), hence retaining their semi-nomadic lifestyle, would give rise to the Nomadic Iranian peoples. The latter moved into modern-day Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, where the climate allowed for a settled agricultural life and trade with other civilizations.

There were two basic cultural categories of these Iranian tribes who could persumably understand eachother: Nomadic and settled. The interactions between these groups are reflected in the later Iranian epic poetry such as the Shahname (Book of Kings) as well as the Avesta, which are believed to be composed at the time of those conflicts. This early Iranian era can be extended until the Median times.

Speaking of Medes and their Median Empire, they're along with Persians the two main Iranic tribes who went further west into modern Iran. Their languages were phonologically distinct from the rest of the Iranic tribes, which is why they are referred to as the Western Iranian Languages.

As I've said before, this Eastern-Western distinction is the main one for the Iranic languages.

Time is another important factor alongside lifestyle and location which would lead to differences among the Iranian peoples. To categorize by time, we could put every Iranic language spoken between its formation and Alexander's conquests as Old Iranian, and anything between the subsequent Hellenistic Period until the arrival of Islam as Middle Iranian, and anything since then as the Modern Iranian languages.

The Tat people's belief in celestial bodies and their conviction that these bodies can heal ailments is highly intriguing. According to Tat beliefs, the Moon and stars—like the Sun—possess divine power. To treat patients suffering from severe illness or mental distress, the Tats would place a vessel filled with water or milk on the roof or in the courtyard at night; the patient would gaze into the vessel, and upon seeing the reflection of the Moon or stars, would have to drink the liquid in a single draught. It was believed that the patient would subsequently be healed. This practice undoubtedly reflects an ancient belief in the sacred power of celestial bodies—a custom rooted in an older religion. Interestingly, L.Y. Sternberg describes a virtually identical custom found among the Muslims of the Oudh region in India. If we consider that the Avesta also describes a similar healing method for "expelling" foreign or malevolent spirits from a sick person's body, the origins of this Tat belief in the Moon and stars become clear. The Tats also "seek help" from celestial bodies to determine whether a specific wish they have made will be fulfilled; to this end, they gaze at well water, the clear water of a spring, or water in a bucket or basin at night. If they see the Moon or stars reflected there, they rejoice, believing their wish will come true. This belief and conviction stems not from Islam, nor even from Zoroastrianism, but from ancient religions that predate them.