Week 5: Iranian Flashcards
The Iranian language family includes the following modern languages:
- Persian
- Kurdish
- Pashto
- Ossetic
What are the Middle Iranian languages?
- Pahlavi
- Sogdian
- Bactrian
Attested from approximately 400 BCE - 900 CE.
Which attested Iranian languages are the oldest?
- Old Persian (6th c. - 4th c. BCE)
- Avestan (orally transmitted from ca. 1000 BCE)
Which culture did the Indo-Iranians bear? And where did they split off to?
Andronovo culture. The Indians continued to India, and the Iranians spread to the southwest.
The oldest Iranian language we know is…
Avestan, which can be divided into Old Avestan and Young Avestan. The languages were orally transmitted.
How/why was the Avesta preserved?
Because the texts fulfilled a religious function, so they were preserved despite the that the Avestan was actually already extinct.
What is the best known text of Old Persian? And what was it often written on?
The best known text is that on the so-called Behistun inscription. Old Persian was often written on clay tablets and on the seals of the Achaemenid Empire.
In which languages was the Behistun written?
- Elamite (isolate language)
- Babylonian (Semitic language)
- Old Persian
Whose perspective appears in the Behistun?
Darius the Great, who was king of the Persian Empire.
Which languages appeared in the Persian Empire?
- Old Persian was the native language of the kings of the Achaemenid dynasty.
- Aramaic was the administrative language used throughout most of the entire empire.
- Elamite was also used for high status.
What do the inscriptions of the Behistun say?
King Darius’ conquests; he elaborates on his ancestry and on the events that occurre after the death of Cyrus the Great.
Why did Darius the Great install the Behistun inscriptions?
As a way of justifying his power by the grace of Ahura Mazda.
Reduplication
Double the first part of the root
How do you go from the present tense to the perfect tense?
Use reduplication; reduplicate the initial consonant.
How can Proto-Iranian be reconstructed?
By looking at the descendant languages of that Proto-language, such as ; Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, etc.
What is Proto-Indo-Iranian?
The single language that existed before the split into Indic and Iranian languages.
By 500 BCE, where were the Indic and Iranian languages predominantly located?
NW India (Indic), West India (Iranian)
What are some characteristics of Avestan?
Avestan is linguistically archaic and contains features that PIE might also have.
How was Avestan transmitted and what is its significance?
It was orally transmitted, with written texts appearing in the early Common Era. It was already dead by that time and is considered the holy language of Zoroastrianism.
What are the Gathas in Zoroastrianism?
The Gathas are Old Avestan hymns and are the most importantly texts in Zoroastrianism, and the oldest Avestan texts.
Who is the principal god in Zoroastrianism?
Ahura Mazda
How is the religion of Zoroastrianism similar to Vedic religion?
If features similar gods, indicating a kind of polytheism.
What was the official religion of the Persian Sasanian Empire?
Zoroastrianism
What type of inscriptions are Persian texts written in?
Cuneiform inscriptions
