| Parthian | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | ancient Iran | |
| Language extinction: | marginalized by Middle Persian from the 3rd century | |
| Language family: | Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Northwestern Iranian Parthian | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | ||
| ISO 639-3: | xpr | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iran topics. 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 Middle Persian is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times (224-654 CE became a Prestige dialect 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 Western Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages, attested from the time of Old Persian (6th century BC The Western Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages, attested from the time of Old Persian (6th century BC 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 In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's | ||
The Parthian language, also known as Arsacid Pahlavi, is a now-extinct ancient Northwestern Iranian language spoken in Parthia, a region of northeastern Greater Iran, to include a significant portion of Greater Khorasan. The Western Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages, attested from the time of Old Persian (6th century BC Parthia ( Middle Persian: اشکانیان Ashkâniân) was an Iranian civilization situated in the northeastern part of modern Iran Greater Iran (in Irān-e Bozorg, or fa ایرانزمین Irān-zamīn; the Encyclopedia Iranica uses the term Greater Khorasan (خراسان بزرگ (also written Khorasaan, Khurasan and Khurasaan) is a modern term for eastern territories of ancient Persia
Parthian was the language of state of the Arsacid Parthians (248 BC-224 AD).
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Classification
Parthian was a Western Middle Iranian language that, through language contact, also had some features of the Eastern Iranian language group, the influence of which is attested primarily in loan words. Language contact occurs when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times (from ca A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation Some traces of Eastern influence survives in Parthian loan words in the Armenian language. The Armenian language (hy հայերեն լեզու hajɛɹɛn lɛzu —, conventional short form) is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian [1]
Taxonomically, Parthian belongs to the Northwestern Iranian language group, while its close relative, Middle Persian, belongs to the Southwestern Iranian language group. The Western Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages, attested from the time of Old Persian (6th century BC Middle Persian is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times (224-654 CE became a Prestige dialect The Western Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages, attested from the time of Old Persian (6th century BC
Written Parthian
The Parthian language was rendered using the Pahlavi writing system, which had two essential characteristics: First, its script derived from Aramaic, the script (and language) of the Achaemenid chancellery (i. The Aramaic alphabet is an Abjad, a Consonantal Alphabet, used for writing Aramaic. e. Imperial Aramaic). Aramaic is a Semitic language with Second, it had a high incidence of Aramaic words, rendered as ideograms or logograms, that is, they were written Aramaic words but understood as Parthian ones (See Arsacid Pahlavi for details). Aramaic is a Semitic language with An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek idea "idea" + grafo "to write" is a Graphic symbol that represents an Idea A logogram, or logograph, is a Grapheme which represents a word or a Morpheme (a meaningful unit of language
The Parthian language was the language of the old Satrapy of Parthia and was used in the Arsacids courts. Parthia ( Middle Persian: اشکانیان Ashkâniân) was an Iranian civilization situated in the northeastern part of modern Iran The main sources for Parthian are the few remaining inscriptions from Nisa and Hecatompolis, Manichean texts, Sasanian multi-lingual inscriptions, and remains of Parthian literature in the succeeding Middle Persian. Among these, the Manichean texts, composed shortly after the demise of the Parthian power, play an important role for reconstructing the Parthian language[2].
Extinction
In 224 AD, Ardashir I, the local ruler of Pars, deposed and replaced Artabanus IV, the last Parthian Emperor, and founded the fourth Iranian dynasty, and the second Persian dynasty, the Sassanian Empire. Ardashir I, founder of the Sassanid dynasty, was ruler of Istakhr (206-241 subsequently Persia Artabanus IV of Parthia ruled the Parthian Empire from 216 to 224 The Persian Empire was a series of Iranian empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland and beyond in Western Asia The Sassanid Empire or Sassanian Dynasty or Sassanian Dynasty (ساسانیان) is the name used for the third Iranian dynasty and the second Persian empire Parthian was then succeeded by Middle Persian, which when written is known as Sasanian Pahlavi. Middle Persian is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times (224-654 CE became a Prestige dialect Parthian did not die out immediately, but remains attested in a few bi-lingual inscriptions from the Sasanian era.
See also
- Iranian Languages vocabulary comparison table
References
- Lecoq, Pierre (1983). "Aparna". Encyclopedia Iranica 1. Cosa Mesa: Mazda Pub.
- "Parthia". Encyclopaedia Britannica 20. The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911 is a 29-volume reference work that marked the beginning of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911). Ed. Hugh Chisholm. London: Cambridge University Press. 871.
- Boyce, Mary (1979). "Review: R. Ghirshman's L'Iran et la Migration des Indo-Aryens et des Iraniens" 99 (1): 119–120.
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