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51-578: Arsaces or Arsakes ( Ἀρσάκης , Arsákēs , Graecized form of Old Persian 𐎠𐎼𐏁𐎣 R̥šakaʰ ) is the eponymous Greek form of the dynastic name of the Parthian Empire of Iran adopted by all epigraphically attested rulers of the Arsacid dynasties . The indigenous Parthian and Armenian form was 𐭀𐭓𐭔𐭊 Aršak and Արշակ Aršak . Kings of this name include: Old Persian Old Persian appears primarily in

102-554: A chariot burial at Krivoye Lake to about 2000 BC, and a Bactria-Margiana burial that also contains a foal has recently been found, indicating further links with the steppes. Historical linguists broadly estimate that a continuum of Indo-Iranian languages probably began to diverge by 2000 BC, preceding both the Vedic and Iranian cultures which emerged later. The earliest recorded forms of these languages, Vedic Sanskrit and Gathic Avestan , are remarkably similar, descended from

153-421: A "pre-Middle Persian," or "post-Old Persian." Old Persian subsequently evolved into Middle Persian , which is in turn the ancestor of New Persian . Professor Gilbert Lazard , a famous Iranologist and the author of the book Persian Grammar , states: The language known as New Persian, which usually is called at this period (early Islamic times) by the name of Parsi-Dari, can be classified linguistically as

204-617: A continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanian Iran, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenids. Unlike the other languages and dialects, ancient and modern, of the Iranian group such as Avestan , Parthian , Soghdian , Kurdish , Pashto , etc., Old, Middle and New Persian represent one and the same language at three states of its history. It had its origin in Fars and

255-532: A few changes in the shape of characters during the period it was used. This can be seen as a standardization of the heights of wedges, which in the beginning (i.e. in DB ) took only half the height of a line. The following phonemes are expressed in the Old Persian script: Notes: Lycian 𐊋𐊆𐊈𐊈𐊀𐊓𐊕𐊑𐊏𐊀 Kizzaprñna ~ 𐊈𐊆𐊖𐊀𐊓𐊕𐊑𐊏𐊀 Zisaprñna for (genuine) Old Persian *Ciçafarnā (besides

306-509: A good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash (along with Matai , presumably Medians) are first mentioned in the area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III . The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from

357-615: A group of Indo-European speaking peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages to major parts of Eurasia in waves from the first part of the 2nd millennium BC onwards. They eventually branched out into the Iranian peoples and Indo-Aryan peoples . The term Aryan has long been used to denote the Indo-Iranians , because Ā́rya was the self-designation of the ancient speakers of the Indo-Iranian languages , specifically

408-515: A sculptured figure of myself I made. Also, the analysis of certain Old Persian inscriptions are "supposed or claimed" to predate Darius the Great. Although it is true that the oldest attested Old Persian inscriptions are found on the Behistun monument from Darius, the creation of this "new type of writing" seems, according to Schmitt, "to have begun already under Cyrus the Great ". The script shows

459-765: A similar way. Voices Active, Middle (them. pres. -aiy- , -ataiy- ), Passive ( -ya- ). Mostly the forms of first and third persons are attested. The only preserved Dual form is ajīva tam 'both lived'. Proto-Indo-Iranians Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Indo-Iranian peoples , also known as Ā́rya or Aryans from their self-designation, were

510-412: A somewhat confusing and inconsistent look: 'horse,' for instance, is [attested in Old Persian as] both asa (OPers.) and aspa (Med.)." Old Persian texts were written from left to right in the syllabic Old Persian cuneiform script and had 36 phonetic characters and 8 logograms . The usage of logograms is not obligatory. The script was surprisingly not a result of evolution of the script used in

561-596: A tribe called Parsuwash , who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province . Their language, Old Persian, became the official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give

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612-488: Is a direct descendant of Alanic , and by that the only surviving Sarmatian language of the once wide-ranging East Iranian dialect continuum that stretched from Eastern Europe to the eastern parts of Central Asia. Archaeological cultures associated with Indo-Iranian expansion include: Parpola (1999) suggests the following identifications: The Indo-European language spoken by the Proto-Indo-Iranians in

663-496: Is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian. Old Persian "presumably" has a Median language substrate . The Median element is readily identifiable because it did not share in the developments that were peculiar to Old Persian. Median forms "are found only in personal or geographical names [...] and some are typically from religious vocabulary and so could in principle also be influenced by Avestan ." "Sometimes, both Median and Old Persian forms are found, which gave Old Persian

714-709: Is an archaic offshoot of Indo-European religion . From the various and dispersed Indo-Iranian cultures, a set of common ideas may be reconstructed from which a common, unattested proto-Indo-Iranian source may be deduced. The pre-Islamic religion of the Nuristani people and extant religion of the Kalash people is significantly influenced by the original religion of the Indo-Iranians, infused with accretions developed locally. Michael Witzel theorises that these religions might share some elements with Shinto , one of

765-678: Is assumed that this expansion spread from the Proto-Indo-European homeland north of the Caspian Sea south to the Caucasus , Central Asia , the Iranian plateau , and the Indian subcontinent . The Mitanni, a people known in eastern Anatolia from about 1500 BC, were of possibly of mixed origins: An indigenous non Indo-European Hurrian -speaking majority was supposedly dominated by a non-Anatolian, Indo-Aryan elite. There

816-415: Is differentiated by dialectical features, still easily recognizable from the dialect prevailing in north-western and eastern Iran. Middle Persian , also sometimes called Pahlavi, is a direct continuation of Old Persian and was used as the written official language of the country. Comparison of the evolution at each stage of the language shows great simplification in grammar and syntax. However, New Persian

867-549: Is from the Behistun Inscriptions . Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages which are attested in original texts. The oldest date of use of Old Persian as a spoken language is not precisely known. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by

918-579: Is linguistic evidence for such a superstrate , in the form of: In particular, Kikkuli's text includes words such as aika "one" (i.e. a cognate of the Indo-Aryan eka ), tera "three" ( tri ), panza "five" ( pancha ), satta "seven", ( sapta ), na "nine" ( nava ), and vartana "turn around", in the context of a horse race (Indo-Aryan vartana ). In a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni,

969-519: Is linguistically and functionally cognate with Avestan *Haraxvaitī Ārəduuī Sūrā Anāhitā . Both are described as world rivers. Vedic Saraswati is described as "Best of Mothers, Best of Rivers, Best of Goddesses". Similarly, in early portions of the Avesta, Iranian *Harahvati is the world-river that flows down from the mythical central Mount Hara. She is blocked by an obstacle (Avestan for obstacle: vərəθra ) placed there by Angra Mainyu . The following

1020-617: Is rendered in Elamite as Mirkānu- , rendering transcriptions such as V(a)rakāna , Varkāna or even Vurkāna questionable and making Vrkāna or Virkāna much more realistic (and equally for vrka- "wolf", Brdiya and other Old Persian words and names with syllabic /r/ ). While v usually became /v/ in Middle Persian, it became /b/ word-initially in New Persian, except before [u] (including

1071-826: The Alani (Alans), followed the Scythians westwards into Europe in the late centuries BC and the 1st and 2nd centuries AD (The Age of Migrations ). The populous Sarmatian tribe of the Massagetae , dwelling near the Caspian Sea, were known to the early rulers of Persia in the Achaemenid Period. At their greatest reported extent, around 1st century AD, the Sarmatian tribes ranged from the Vistula River to

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1122-636: The Ashvin deities Mitra , Varuna , Indra , and Nasatya are invoked. These loanwords tend to connect the Mitanni superstrate to Indo-Aryan rather than Iranian languages – i.e. the early Iranian word for "one" was aiva . The standard model for the entry of the Indo-European languages into the Indian subcontinent is that this first wave went over the Hindu Kush, either into the headwaters of

1173-794: The Caucasus ( Ossetian , Tat and Talysh ), down to Mesopotamia ( Kurdish languages , Zaza–Gorani and Kurmanji Dialect continuum ) and Iran ( Persian ), eastward to Xinjiang ( Sarikoli ) and Assam ( Assamese ), and south to Sri Lanka ( Sinhala ) and the Maldives ( Maldivian ), with branches stretching as far out as Oceania and the Caribbean for Fiji Hindi and Caribbean Hindustani respectively. Furthermore, there are large diaspora communities of Indo-Iranian speakers in northwestern Europe (the United Kingdom ), North America ( United States , Canada ), Australia , South Africa , and

1224-693: The Indus and later the Ganges . The earliest stratum of Vedic Sanskrit , preserved only in the Rigveda , is assigned to roughly 1500 BC. From the Indus, the Indo-Aryan languages spread from c.  1500 BC  – c.  500 BC , over the northern and central parts of the subcontinent, sparing the extreme south. The Indo-Aryans in these areas established several powerful kingdoms and principalities in

1275-418: The Iranian and the Indo-Aryan peoples , collectively known as the Indo-Iranians. Despite this, some scholars use the term Indo-Iranian to refer to this group, though the term "Aryan" remains widely used by most scholars, such as Josef Wiesehofer , Will Durant , and Jaakko Häkkinen. Population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza , in his 1994 book The History and Geography of Human Genes , also uses

1326-737: The Maldives . The second wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave. The first Iranians to reach the Black Sea 'may' have been the Cimmerians in the 8th century BC, although their linguistic affiliation to Iranians is uncertain. They were followed by the Scythians , who are considered a western branch of the Central Asian Sakas . Sarmatian tribes, of whom the best known are the Roxolani (Rhoxolani), Iazyges (Jazyges) and

1377-590: The Median form *Ciθrafarnah ) = Tissaphernes suggests /t͡s/ as the pronunciation of ç (compare [1] and Kloekhorst 2008, p. 125 in [2] for this example, who, however, mistakenly writes Çiçafarnā , which contradicts the etymology [ PIIr. *Čitra-swarnas- ] and the Middle Persian form Čehrfar [ ç gives Middle Persian s ]). The phoneme /l/ does not occur in native Iranian vocabulary, only in borrowings from Akkadian (a new /l/ develops in Middle Persian from Old Persian /rd/ and

1428-759: The Iranians were eventually decisively assimilated (e.g. Slavicisation ) and absorbed by the Proto-Slavic population of the region, while in Central Asia, the Turkic languages marginalized the Iranian languages as a result of the Turkic expansion of the early centuries AD. Extant major Iranian languages are Persian , Pashto , Kurdish , and Balochi besides numerous smaller ones. Ossetian , primarily spoken in North Ossetia and South Ossetia ,

1479-636: The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago unearthed Old Persian tablets, which suggest Old Persian was a written language in use for practical recording and not only for royal display. As a written language , Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. It is an Iranian language and as such a member of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family . The oldest known text written in Old Persian

1530-629: The Persian Gulf Region ( United Arab Emirates , Saudi Arabia ). Despite the introduction of later Vedic and Zoroastrian scriptures, Indo-Iranians shared a common inheritance of concepts including the universal force *Hṛta- ( Sanskrit rta , Avestan asha ), the sacred plant and drink *sawHma- (Sanskrit Soma , Avestan Haoma ) and gods of social order such as * mitra - (Sanskrit Mitra , Avestan and Old Persian Mithra , Miθra ) and *bʰaga- (Sanskrit Bhaga , Avestan and Old Persian Baga ). Proto-Indo-Iranian religion

1581-674: The area occupied by the earlier Afanasevo culture ), and Transoxiana and the Hindu Kush on the south. Based on its use by Indo-Aryans in Mitanni and Vedic India, its prior absence in the Near East and Harappan India, and its 19th–20th century BC attestation at the Andronovo site of Sintashta , Kuzmina (1994) argues that the chariot corroborates the identification of Andronovo as Indo-Iranian. Anthony & Vinogradov (1995) dated

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1632-486: The change of /rθ/ to /hl/ ). The phoneme /r/ can also form a syllable peak; both the way Persian names with syllabic /r/ (such as Brdiya ) are rendered in Elamite and its further development in Middle Persian suggest that before the syllabic /r/ , an epenthetic vowel [i] had developed already in the Old Persian period, which later became [u] after labials. For example, Old Persian Vᵃ-rᵃ-kᵃ-a-nᵃ /wr̩kaːna/

1683-413: The common Proto-Indo-Iranian language . The origin and earliest relationship between the Nuristani languages and that of the Iranian and Indo-Aryan groups is not completely clear. Two-wave models of Indo-Iranian expansion have been proposed by Burrow (1973) and Parpola (1999) . The Indo-Iranians and their expansion are strongly associated with the Proto-Indo-European invention of the chariot . It

1734-506: The consensus difficult are, among others, the difficult passage DB (IV lines 88–92) from Darius the Great who speaks of a new "form of writing" being made by himself which is said to be "in Aryan ": King Darius says: By the grace of Ahuramazda this is the inscription which I have made. Besides, it was in Aryan (" ariyâ ") script, and it was composed on clay tablets and on parchment. Besides,

1785-408: The epenthetic vowel mentioned above), where it became /ɡ/ . This suggests that it was really pronounced as [w] . Old Persian has 3 types of grammatical number: singular, dual and plural. Old Persian has three grammatical genders : masculine, feminine and neuter. In contrast, Modern Persian (as well as Middle Persian ) is a genderless language . Old Persian stems: Adjectives are declined in

1836-565: The inscriptions, clay tablets and seals of the Achaemenid era ( c.  600 BCE to 300 BCE). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey and Egypt , with the most important attestation by far being the contents of the Behistun Inscription (dated to 525 BCE). In 2007, research into the vast Persepolis Fortification Archive at

1887-407: The large family of Indo-European languages . The common ancestors of Indo-Iranians came from Central Asia sometime in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE . The extinct and unattested Median language is another Old Iranian language related to Old Persian; both are classified as Western Iranian languages , and many Median names appear in Old Persian texts. The group of Old Iranian languages

1938-577: The late 3rd millennium BC was a Satem language still not removed very far from the Proto-Indo-European language , and in turn only removed by a few centuries from Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda . The main phonological change separating Proto-Indo-Iranian from Proto–Indo-European is the collapse of the ablauting vowels *e, *o, *a into a single vowel, Proto–Indo-Iranian *a (but see Brugmann's law ). Grassmann's law and Bartholomae's law were also complete in Proto-Indo-Iranian, as well as

1989-670: The loss of the labiovelars (kw, etc.) to k, and the Eastern Indo-European (Satem) shift from palatized k' to ć, as in Proto–Indo-European *k'ṃto- > Indo-Iran. *ćata- > Sanskrit śata-, Old Iran. sata "100". Among the sound changes from Proto-Indo-Iranian to Indo-Aryan is the loss of the voiced sibilant *z , among those to Iranian is the de-aspiration of the PIE voiced aspirates. The regions where Indo-Iranian languages are spoken extend from Europe ( Romani ) and

2040-539: The most powerful of the Asuras, does not directly correspond to Ahura Mazda but shares several traits in common with him, particularly in terms of his role as king among the lesser gods and arbiter of law and morality among mortals. Even as Ahura Mazda rules by and upholds asha, the cosmic moral order, in the Avesta, so too do Varuna and the Asuras uphold the analogous concept of rta in the Vedas . The Rig-Vedic Sarasvati

2091-747: The mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga , bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian seas as well as the Caucasus to the south. In the east, the Saka occupied several areas in Xinjiang, from Khotan to Tumshuq. The Medians , Persians and Parthians begin to appear on the Iranian plateau from c.  800 BC , and the Achaemenids replaced the language isolate speaking Elamites rule over

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2142-508: The national religions of Japan , which according to him may contain some Indo-Iranian influence owing to contact presumably in the steppes of Central Asia at around 2000 BC. In Shinto, traces of these can be seen in the myth of the storm god Susanoo slaying a serpent Yamata-no-Orochi and in the myth of the dawn goddess Ame-no-Uzume . Most Indo-Iranians today follow Abrahamic and Indian religions. Some beliefs developed in different ways as cultures separated and evolved. For example,

2193-492: The nearby civilisation of Mesopotamia . Despite the fact that Old Persian was written in cuneiform script, the script was not a direct continuation of Mesopotamian tradition and in fact, according to Schmitt, was a "deliberate creation of the sixth century BCE". The origin of the Old Persian cuneiform script and the identification of the date and process of introduction are a matter of debate among Iranian scholars with no general agreement having been reached. The factors making

2244-511: The older word *pārćwa . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median , according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before the formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Old Persian belongs to the Iranian language family , a branch of the Indo-Iranian language family, itself within

2295-510: The region from 559 BC, although the Iranic peoples were largely subject to the Semitic speaking Assyrian Empire until the 6th century BC. Around the first millennium AD, Iranian groups began to settle on the eastern edge of the Iranian plateau, on the mountainous frontier of northwestern and western Indian subcontinent , displacing the earlier Indo-Aryans from the area. In Eastern Europe ,

2346-623: The region, from south eastern Afghanistan to the doorstep of Bengal . The most powerful of these kingdoms were the post-Rigvedic Kuru (in Kurukshetra and the Delhi area) and their allies the Pañcālas further east, as well as Gandhara and later on, about the time of the Buddha , the kingdom of Kosala and the quickly expanding realm of Magadha . The latter lasted until the 4th century BC, when it

2397-703: The term Aryan to describe the Indo-Iranians. The Proto-Indo-Iranians are commonly identified with the descendants of the Indo-Europeans known as the Sintashta culture and the subsequent Andronovo culture within the broader Andronovo horizon, and their homeland with an area of the Eurasian steppe that borders the Ural River on the west, the Tian Shan on the east (where the Indo-Iranians took over

2448-406: The traditional Zoroastrian confession of faith as recorded in the Avesta , the rejection of the daevas is one of the most significant qualifiers for a follower of the tradition, alongside worshipping Ahura Mazda and following the teachings of Zarathustra . Similarly, the parallels between the malevolent Vedic Asuras and benevolent Zoroastrian Ahuras are particularly obvious and striking. Varuna ,

2499-436: The word ' daeva ,' which appears in the Avesta, also bears a linguistic relationship to the Sanskrit word ' deva ,' referring to one of the principal classes of gods, as well as other related words throughout the Indo-European traditions. Indeed, Indra , the greatest of the devas from Vedic literature, is often listed in Zoroastrian texts as one of the greatest of the evil forces, sometimes second only to Angra Mainyu himself. In

2550-458: Was conquered by Chandragupta Maurya and formed the center of the Maurya Empire . In eastern Afghanistan and some western regions of Pakistan , Indo-Aryan languages were eventually replaced by Eastern Iranian languages . Most Indo-Aryan languages, however, were and still are prominent in the rest of the Indian subcontinent . Today, Indo-Aryan languages are spoken in India , Pakistan , Bangladesh , Nepal , Sri Lanka , Fiji, Suriname and

2601-439: Was presumably large; however, knowledge of it is restricted mainly to Old Persian, Avestan , and Median. The first two are the only languages in that group to have left written original texts, while Median is known mostly from loanwords in Old Persian. By the 4th century BCE, the late Achaemenid period , the inscriptions of Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III differ enough from the language of Darius' inscriptions to be called

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