| Avestan | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | liturgical language of Zoroastrianism | |
| Language extinction: | likely by the 7th century BC | |
| Language family: | Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Eastern Iranian Avestan |
|
| Writing system: | Avestan alphabet | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | ae | |
| ISO 639-2: | ave | |
| ISO 639-3: | ave | |
Yasna 28. Zoroastrianism (ˌzɔroʊˈæstriəˌnɪzəm is the religion and philosophy based on the teachings According to some definitions an extinct language is a Language which no longer has any speakers, whereas a dead language is a language which is no longer spoken The 7th century BC started the first day of 700 BC and ended the last day of 601 BC. List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family and its subfamily Indo-Iranian. The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times (from ca A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. The Avestan alphabet is a writing system developed during the Sassanid era (226-651 in Iran to render the Avestan language. ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages 1, Ahunavaiti Gatha (Bodleian MS J2)
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| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. The word "Gātha" means a "hymn of praise" in the earliest Indo-Iranian poetry In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's | ||
Avestan is an Eastern Old Iranian language that was used to compose the sacred hymns and canon of the Zoroastrian Avesta. Zoroastrianism (ˌzɔroʊˈæstriəˌnɪzəm is the religion and philosophy based on the teachings The Avesta is the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language. Iranian languages are part of the Indo-Iranian Language group which includes the Indian languages such as Sanskrit. The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family and its subfamily Indo-Iranian. The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical The Indo-Iranian language group is the biggest branch of the Indo-European language family. The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages
Along with Old Persian, Avestan is one of the two oldest Iranian languages of which we have evidence (see also classification, below). The Old Persian language is one of the two attested Old Iranian languages (besides Avestan) The Avestan language should not be confused with the Avestan alphabet, which is a significantly later invention. The Avestan alphabet is a writing system developed during the Sassanid era (226-651 in Iran to render the Avestan language.
The Avestan language, as reflected in the Avesta, is divided into two different forms:
- Old Avestan or Gathic Avestan: This form of the language was used to compose the Gathas and other more ancient portions of the Yasna. The word "Gātha" means a "hymn of praise" in the earliest Indo-Iranian poetry Yasna ( Avestan: 'oblation' or 'worship' is the name of the primary liturgical collection of texts of the Avesta as well as the name of the Gathic Avestan is an archaic language with a complicated grammar which consists of eight case forms and a highly inflected noun system. In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice It is still quite close to the Vedic Sanskrit. Vedic Sanskrit is an ancient Indian language, the language of the Vedas, the oldest Shruti texts of Hinduism. Like Zoroaster's lifetime, widely differing dates for Avestan have been proposed; scholarly consensus floats around 1000 BC (roughly contemporary to the Brahmana period of Vedic Sanskrit). Zoroaster ( Latinized from Greek variants) or Zarathushtra (from Avestan Zaraθuštra) also referred to as Zartosht (زرتشت The Brāhmaṇa s ( Devanagari: sa ब्राह्मणं are part of the Hindu śruti literature
- Young Avestan: the language used for composing the greater part of the Avesta, including many of the Yashts, the Visperad, Vendidad and some sections of the Yasna. The ae Yashts ( ae Yašt s are a collection of twenty-one hymns in Younger Avestan. Visperad or Visprad is either a particular Zoroastrian religious ceremony or the name given to a passage collection within the greater Avesta compendium The Vendidad or Videvdat is a collection of texts within the greater compendium of the Avesta. Yasna ( Avestan: 'oblation' or 'worship' is the name of the primary liturgical collection of texts of the Avesta as well as the name of the Young Avestan itself has two forms, one called Original Young Avestan, and the other, Artificial Young Avestan. The first form was probably a natural development of Old Avestan and was most likely also a spoken language up to the 8th century BCE. The Artificial Young Avestan however is a corrupt form of the language, a form that was never spoken and was used by the priesthood in later times in order to compose new texts. The Vendidad is the most significant collection of texts that were composed in Artificial Young Avestan.
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Classification
Avestan is usually classified as Eastern Iranian. The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times (from ca However, because the separation of Eastern and Western Iranian is poorly understood, and because there is no attestation of an Iranian language contemporary to Avestan, as well as because of the defective tradition of the Avestan texts, the validity, or even applicability, of this classification is uncertain.
For example, Avestan jwa "live" is cited as closer to Sogdian žw, Khotanian juv- than to Old Persian jīva, but phonological Eastern characteristics of Avestan such as this one have been suspected of being due to a phase of the historical tradition of the texts rather than an original feature of Avestan itself. The Sogdian language is a Middle Iranian language that was spoken in Sogdiana ( Zarafshan River Valley located in modern day Uzbekistan The Old Persian language is one of the two attested Old Iranian languages (besides Avestan) According to Kellens,[1] the only thing that can be asserted with confidence is that Avestan is not a Persian dialect (the only Old Iranian language besides Avestan known in any detail being Old Persian). The Old Persian language is one of the two attested Old Iranian languages (besides Avestan) Avestan contains passive morpheme quite similar to that of Gorani or Hewrami, which is a Northwestern Iranian language spoken along Iran - Iraq border. In Morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning.
The original geographical location of Avestan is likewise uncertain, and it has been variously placed in north-western Iran, north-eastern Iran, Chorasmia, Sistan, and Bactria-Margiana.
Alphabet
After the alleged destruction of the Achaemenid palace library by Alexander the Great in 330 BC, the Avesta was transmitted orally until at least the first, and most likely until the 4th century AD. The Avestan alphabet is a writing system developed during the Sassanid era (226-651 in Iran to render the Avestan language. The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenid Persian Empire ( haχɒmaneʃijɒn (558–330 BC was the first of the Persian Empires to rule over significant portions of Alexander the Great ( or, Mégas Aléxandros; July 20 356 BC June 10 or June 11 323 BC also known as Alexander III of Macedon (el Ἀλέξανδρος Γ' The script used for the writing of Avesta, called Dīn Dabireh, developed during the 5th or 6th century (late Sassanian times) was a derivative of Pahlavi script of Middle Persian. The Avestan alphabet is a writing system developed during the Sassanid era (226-651 in Iran to render the Avestan language. The Sassanid Empire or Sassanian Dynasty or Sassanian Dynasty (ساسانیان) is the name used for the third Iranian dynasty and the second Persian empire Middle Persian is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times (224-654 CE became a Prestige dialect Dīn Dabireh is specially designed to reflect the Avestan sound system, and allows phonetic disambiguation of allophones.
Phonology
The Avestan sound differs from the later Old Persian chiefly by the larger inventory of vowels. As opposed to Sanskrit, Avestan has retained voiced sibilants, and has fricative rather than aspirate series. There are various conventions for transliteration of Dīn Dabireh, the one adopted for this article being:
Vowels:
- a ā ə ə̄ e ē o ō å ą i ī u ū
Consonants:
- k g γ x xw č ǰ t d δ ϑ t̰ p b β f
- ŋ ŋw ṇ ń n m y w r s z š ṣ̌ z h
The glides y and w are often transcribed as ii and uu, imitating Dīn Dabireh orthography.
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Post-alveolar or palatal |
Velar | Labiovelar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | ń [ɲ] | ŋ /ŋ/ | ŋw /ŋʷ/ | ||||||||
| Plosive | p /p/ | b /b/ | t /t/ | d /d/ | č /tʃ/ | ǰ /dʒ/ | k /k/ | g /g/ | |||||
| Fricative | f /ɸ, f/ | β /β/ | θ /θ/ | δ /ð/ | s /s/ | z /z/ | š /ʃ/ | ž /ʒ/ | x /x/ | γ /ɣ/ | xw /xʷ/ | h /h/ | |
| Approximant | y /j/ | w /w/ | |||||||||||
| Trill | r /r/ | ||||||||||||
| Lateral | l /l/ | ||||||||||||
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| Close | i /i/ | ī /iː/ | u /u/ | ū /uː/ | ||
| Mid | e /e/ | ē /eː/ | ə /ə/ | ə̄ /əː/ | o /o/ | ō /oː/ |
| Open | a /a/ |
ā /aː/ | å /ɒː/ | |||
| Nasal | ą /ã/ | |||||
Grammar
Nouns
| Case | "normal" endings | a-stems: (masc. Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth The term labiovelar is ambiguous It may mean labial-velar (a Consonant made at two places of articulation, one at the lips and the other at the soft Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants In Phonetics, a trill is a Consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the Place of articulation. Laterals are "L"-like Consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A central vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as A mid vowel is a Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as A nasal vowel is a Vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through Nose as well as the Mouth. neut. ) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Dual | Plural | Singular | Dual | Plural | |
| Nominative | -s | -ā | -ō (-as), -ā | -ō (yasn-ō) | -a (vīr-a) | -a (-yasna) |
| Vocative | - | -ā | -ō (-as), -ā | -a (ahur-a) | -a (vīr-a) | -a (yasn-a), -ånghō |
| Accusative | -em | -ā | -ō (-as, -ns), -ā | -em (ahur-em) | -a (vīr-a) | -ą (haom-ą) |
| Instrumental | -ā | -byā | -bīš | -a (ahur-a) | -aēibya (vīr-aēibya) | -āiš (yasn-āiš) |
| Dative | -ē | -byā | -byō (-byas) | -āi (ahur-āi) | -aēibya (vīr-aēibya) | -aēibyō (yasn-aēibyō) |
| Ablative | -at | -byā | -byō | -āt (yasn-āt) | -aēibya (vīr-aēibya) | -aēibyō (yasn-aēibyō) |
| Genitive | -ō (-as) | -å | -ąm | -ahe (ahur-ahe) | -ayå (vīr-ayå) | -anąm (yasn-anąm) |
| Locative | -i | -ō, -yō | -su, -hu, -šva | -e (yesn-e) | -ayō (zast-ayō) | -aēšu (vīr-aēšu), -aēšva |
Verbs
| Person | Sg. | Du. | Pl. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | -mi | -vahi | -mahi |
| 2. | -hi | -tha | -tha |
| 3. | -ti | -tō, -thō | -ngti |
Notes
- ^ Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum (1989), p. 35
References
- Robert S. P. Beekes, A Grammar of Gatha-Avestan, E. J. Brill: Leiden, New York, København, Köln 1988 ISBN 90-04-08332-4
- Karl Hoffmann & Bernhard Forssman, Avestische Laut- und Flexionslehre (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 84), Universität Innsbruck 1996 ISBN 3-85124-652-7
- Encyclopedia Iranica, "Avestan Language", Karl Hoffmann
- Encyclopedia Iranica, "Avestan Syntax", Jean Kellens
See also
- Iranian languages vocabulary comparison table
- Ebrahim Poordavood
External links
- avesta.org - Avestan lessons, Grammar, Dictionaries, etc. Karl Hoffmann ( 26 February 1915 &ndash 21 May 1996) was a German Linguist who specialized in Indo-European Ebrahim Poordavood ( February 9, 1885 - November 17, 1968) was born in Rasht, Iran, to a mother who was the daughter
- Text samples
- Unicode pipeline (contains suggestion for Avestan encoding)
- Avesta Corpus, Titus text collection. On the basis of the editions by K. F. Geldner, Avesta. Friedrich Karl Geldner ( December 17, 1852 &ndash February 5, 1929) was a German Linguist best known for his analysis and The Sacred Books of the Parsis, Stuttgart 1889-96; N. L. Westgaard, Zendavesta or The Religious Books of the Zoroastrians, Copenhagen 1852-54, and others. Digitized text: University of Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
- M. Boyce, Avestan people, Encyclopaedia Iranica, [1]. Encyclopædia Iranica is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language Encyclopedia about the history culture and
- G. Gnoli, Avestan geography, Encyclopaedia Iranica, [2].