Eastern Languages
The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family with an estimated 150-200 million native speakers today. Together with the Indo-Aryan languages they form the Indo-Iranian languages group, a branch of Indo-European. more...
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With Avestan and Old Persian, the Iranian languages comprise two of the oldest recorded Indo-European languages (along with the Indic language Vedic Sanskrit, Greek, and Hittite).
Name
This branch of languages is called 'Iranian' because its principal members, including Persian, have been spoken in an area centered around the Iranian plateau since ancient times. However, as a linguistic classification, the term does not imply any connection with the state of Iran, for which see Languages of Iran.
Early Iranian languages
The Indo-Iranian languages probably originated in Central Asia. The Andronovo culture is the near-universally preferred candidate for the common Indo-Iranian culture ca. 2000 BC.
Together with the other Indo-Iranian languages, the Iranian languages are descended from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-Iranian. This language split up into:
Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, attested from the 2nd millennium BC;
Dardic languages;
Nuristani languages;
Iranian languages, including Avestan (dated to roughly 1000 BC) and Old Persian (attested from roughly 500 BC).;
Proto-Iranian thus dates to some time after Proto-Indo-Iranian breakup, or the early second millennium BC, as the Old Iranian languages began to break off and evolve separately as the various Iranian tribes migrated and settled in vast areas of southeastern Europe, the Iranian plateau, and Central Asia.
Linguistically, the Old Iranian languages are divided into two major families and sub classes:
The eastern group;
The western group
The southwestern group;
The northwestern group;
;
The eastern group includes the Sogdian, Khwarezmian, Saka, and Avestan, (also known as Old Bactrian). The northwestern branch includes the Median language. The southwestern group includes Persian.
Avestan is mainly attested through the Avesta, a collection of sacred texts connected to the Zoroastrian religion. Old Persian is attested through inscriptions in the Old Persian cuneiform script.
The Middle Iranian languages
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. Again, geographically, one can classify these into two main families, Western and Eastern.
The former family includes the languages of Parthian (Arsacid Pahlavi) and Middle Persian, while Bactrian, Sogdian, Khwarezmian, Saka, and Old Ossetic (Scytho-Sarmatian) fall under the latter 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 retained more proximity to Old Iranian. They were inscribed in various Aramaic alphabets, which had evolved from the Achaemenid Imperial Aramaic.
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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