The Avesta ( / ə ˈ v ɛ s t ə / ) is the primary collection of religious literature of Zoroastrianism . It was compiled and redacted during the late Sassanian period (ca. 6th century CE) although its individual texts were ″probably″ produced during the Old Iranian period (ca. 15th century BCE - 4th century BCE). Before their compilation, these texts had been passed down orally for centuries. All texts in the Avesta are composed in the Avestan language and are written in the Avestan alphabet . The oldest surviving fragment of a text dates to 1323 CE.
177-660: The Avesta texts fall into several different categories, arranged either by dialect , or by usage. The principal text in the liturgical group is the Yasna , which takes its name from the Yasna ceremony, Zoroastrianism's primary act of worship, at which the Yasna text is recited. The most important portion of the Yasna texts are the five Gathas , consisting of seventeen hymns attributed to Zoroaster himself. These hymns, together with five other short Old Avestan texts that are also part of
354-453: A dialect of a language defined in this way. In these terms, Danish and Norwegian , though mutually intelligible to a large degree, are considered separate languages. In the framework of Heinz Kloss , these are described as languages by ausbau (development) rather than by abstand (separation). In other situations, a closely related group of varieties possess considerable (though incomplete) mutual intelligibility, but none dominates
531-508: A dialect cluster is defined as a central variety together with a collection of varieties whose speakers can understand the central variety at a specified threshold level (usually between 70% and 85%) or higher. It is not required that peripheral varieties be understood by speakers of the central variety or of other peripheral varieties. A minimal set of central varieties providing coverage of a dialect continuum may be selected algorithmically from intelligibility data. In many societies, however,
708-513: A "dialect", as it is the dominant language in a particular state, be it in terms of linguistic prestige , social or political (e.g. official ) status, predominance or prevalence, or all of the above. The term "dialect" used this way implies a political connotation, being mostly used to refer to low-prestige languages (regardless of their actual degree of distance from the national language), languages lacking institutional support, or those perceived as "unsuitable for writing". The designation "dialect"
885-518: A "dialect", including standardized ones . A second usage, which refers to colloquial settings, typically diglossic , in a few countries like Italy , such as dialetto , patois in France , much of East Central Europe, and the Philippines , may carry a pejorative undertone and underlines the politically and socially subordinated status of an autochthonous non-national language to
1062-644: A Sicilian-speaking person would have a greater degree of mutual intelligibility with a speaker of the more closely related Neapolitan language, but far less mutual intelligibility with a person speaking Sicilian Gallo-Italic, a language that developed in isolated Lombard emigrant communities on the same island as the Sicilian language. Today, the majority of Italian nationals are able to speak Italian, though many Italians still speak their regional language regularly or as their primary day-to-day language, especially at home with family or when communicating with Italians from
1239-465: A Yiddish speaker would consult a Yiddish dictionary rather than a German dictionary in such a case, and is classified as its own language. Within this framework, W. A. Stewart defined a language as an autonomous variety in addition to all the varieties that are heteronomous with respect to it, noting that an essentially equivalent definition had been stated by Charles A. Ferguson and John J. Gumperz in 1960. A heteronomous variety may be considered
1416-456: A central variety together with all those varieties whose speakers understand the central variety at a specified threshold level or higher. If the threshold level is high, usually between 70% and 85%, the cluster is designated as a language . Another occasionally used criterion for discriminating dialects from languages is the sociolinguistic notion of linguistic authority . According to this definition, two varieties are considered dialects of
1593-412: A dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class or ethnicity . A dialect associated with a particular social class is called a sociolect ; one associated with a particular ethnic group is an ethnolect ; and a geographical or regional dialect is a regiolect (alternative terms include 'regionalect', 'geolect', and 'topolect' ). Any variety of a given language can be classified as
1770-533: A distinct language from Arabic and not merely a dialect thereof. During the civil war , Christians often used Lebanese Arabic officially, and sporadically used the Latin script to write Lebanese, thus further distinguishing it from Arabic. All Lebanese laws are written in the standard literary form of Arabic, though parliamentary debate may be conducted in Lebanese Arabic. In Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco,
1947-894: A fragment of a much larger literature of sacred texts. Anquetil-Duperron's manuscripts are at the Bibliothèque nationale de France ('P'-series manuscripts), while Rask's collection now lies in the Royal Library, Denmark ('K'-series). Other large Avestan language manuscript collections are those of the British Museum ('L'-series), the K. R. Cama Oriental Library in Mumbai , the Meherji Rana library in Navsari , and at various university and national libraries in Europe. In
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#17327657657752124-626: A general revision of the canon and continued to ensure its orthodoxy ( Dk 4F, AVN 1.12–1.16). A final revision was supposedly undertaken in the 6th century CE under Khosrow I ( Dk 4G). Texts of the Avesta became available to European scholarship comparatively late, thus the study of Zoroastrianism in Western countries dates back to only the 18th century. Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron travelled to India in 1755, and discovered
2301-402: A given language can be classified as "a dialect", including any standardized varieties . In this case, the distinction between the "standard language" (i.e. the "standard" dialect of a particular language) and the " nonstandard " (vernacular) dialects of the same language is often arbitrary and based on social, political, cultural, or historical considerations or prevalence and prominence. In
2478-555: A great army. Eventually in 194, Severus won the quest for power in Rome , and he invaded Western Mesopotamia in order to retake the lost regions. The accurate details of the invasion is not known, but Osroene and Nusaybin were retaken anyway. Then Severus returned to Rome due to Clodius Albinus 's rebellion; during Severus's return from Mesopotamia, the Parthian Empire was in disarray. In 197, Severus initiated hostilities with
2655-415: A language with a writing system will operate at different degrees of distance from the standardized written form. Some dialects of a language are not mutually intelligible in spoken form, leading to debate as to whether they are regiolects or separate languages. A standard dialect , also known as a "standardized language", is supported by institutions. Such institutional support may include any or all of
2832-510: A limited time frame. Most scholars today consider a time between 1500 and 900 BCE to be possible, with a date close to 1000 BCE being considered likely by many. They must have crystallized early on, meaning their transmission became fixed shortly after their composition. During their long history, the Gathic texts seem to have been transmitted with the highest accuracy. Most of the Avestan corpus
3009-466: A matter of dispute. Macedonian , which is largely mutually intelligible with Bulgarian and certain dialects of Serbo-Croatian ( Torlakian ), is considered by Bulgarian linguists to be a Bulgarian dialect, while in North Macedonia , it is regarded as a language in its own right. Before the establishment of a literary standard of Macedonian in 1944, in most sources in and out of Bulgaria before
3186-546: A military conquest" in Caracalla and stimulated him towards successes larger than those of his father's (Septimius Severus) in fighting the Parthians. At the time while Emperor Caracalla had already been formulating a plan to start a new war with the Parthians, he sent a request for extradition of two fugitives, a philosopher named Antiochus and an unknown man called Tiridates, to Vologases searching for an excuse to start
3363-461: A much larger Avestan corpus was still available during the Sassanian period than exists today. Only about one-quarter of the Avestan sentences or verses referred to by the 9th/10th century commentators can be found in the surviving texts. This suggests that three-quarters of Avestan material, including an indeterminable number of juridical, historical and legendary texts have been lost since then. On
3540-425: A noble house, he would have insisted on a report; while various stories show that he intended to gain legitimacy from all Iranian traditions and perhaps foreign tribes." In sources, Ardashir's religious relations and his father being a cleric are mentioned; so it can be deduced that Ardashir had no connections with royal houses and was only a cleric's son who knew about religion, but was not a cleric himself; and that
3717-513: A nobleman and Papak as a king. There are opinions about the validity and authenticity of each of the mentioned narratives. Some have considered Al-Tabari's report suspicious since he presents an elaborate family tree of Ardashir that relates his generation to mythical and mighty ancient Iranian kings. Some consider the reports of Karnamag and Shahnameh more justifiable, since Ardashir being Sasan's son and his adoption by Papak aligns with Zoroastrian norms and customs. However, some have questioned
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#17327657657753894-787: A number of different families follow the last two major groups: the Gallo-Romance languages ( French , Occitan and its Vivaro-Alpine dialect , Franco-Provençal ); the Rhaeto-Romance languages ( Friulian and Ladin ); the Ibero-Romance languages ( Sardinia 's Algherese ); the Germanic Cimbrian , Southern Bavarian , Walser German and the Mòcheno language ; the Albanian Arbëresh language ;
4071-587: A number of distinct stages, during which different parts of the Avestan corpus were composed, transmitted in either fluid or fixed form, as well as edited and redacted. A small portion of the Avestan corpus is composed in a more archaic language than the rest. These so called Old Avestan texts are the Gathas , the Yasna Haptanghaiti , and a number of short mantras . They are linguistically very similar and are therefore considered to have been composed over
4248-478: A particular dialect, often the sociolect of the elite class, comes to be identified as the "standard" or "proper" version of a language by those seeking to make a social distinction and is contrasted with other varieties. As a result of this, in some contexts, the term "dialect" refers specifically to varieties with low social status . In this secondary sense of "dialect", language varieties are often called dialects rather than languages : The status of "language"
4425-458: A peace treaty in 218 according to which the Romans paid 50 million dinars to the Parthians and kept Armenia and Northern Mesopotamia. It was probably in about 220 that the local Persian governors (Ardashir I) started taking far and close lands. At the time, Artabanus did not pay much attention to his actions and decided to fight him when it had become too late. Eventually, Ardashir ended the life of
4602-410: A rebellion. Papak did it and rebelled against Gochihr and killed him. Daryaee believes that Papak was a local governor who dreamed of conquering Istakhr and was eventually able to achieve it by the help of his older son Shapur; that means in contrast to Al-Tabari's report, it was not Ardashir's request and order that caused Papak's rebellion against Gochihr, governor of Istakhr, and it can be implied from
4779-528: A ruin while assaulting Darabgard and a stone suddenly separated from the ceiling and hit his head and Shapur succumbed immediately. After the incident, the brothers relinquished the Persian throne and crown to Ardashir, who became the Persian Shah thereafter. Ardashir and his followers could be considered the main suspects of Shapur's mysterious death, since they "benefitted from the accidental death"; but
4956-438: A separate and parallel way and may thus better fit various parties' criteria for a separate language. Despite this, these "dialects" may often be historically cognate and share genetic roots in the same subfamily as the dominant national language and may even, to a varying degree, share some mutual intelligibility with the latter. In this sense, unlike in the first usage, the national language would not itself be considered
5133-742: A separate language, because Literary Arabic is the liturgical language of Islam and the language of the Islamic sacred book, the Qur'an . Although, especially since the 1960s, the Darijas are occupying an increasing use and influence in the cultural life of these countries. Examples of cultural elements where Darijas' use became dominant include: theatre, film, music, television, advertisement, social media, folk-tale books and companies' names. Ardashir I Ardashir I ( Middle Persian : 𐭠𐭥𐭲𐭧𐭱𐭲𐭥 , romanized: Ardašīr ), also known as Ardashir
5310-430: A sequence of varieties, where each mutually intelligible with the next, but may not be mutually intelligible with distant varieties. Others have argued that mutual intelligibility occurs in varying degrees, and the potential difficulty in distinguishing between intelligibility and prior familiarity with the other variety. However, recent research suggests that there is some empirical evidence in favor of using some form of
5487-399: A similar way, the definitions of the terms "language" and "dialect" may overlap and are often subject to debate, with the differentiation between the two classifications often grounded in arbitrary or sociopolitical motives, and the term "dialect" is sometimes restricted to mean "non-standard variety", particularly in non-specialist settings and non-English linguistic traditions. The term
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5664-441: A similar way, the definitions of the terms "language" and "dialect" may overlap and are often subject to debate, with the differentiation between the two classifications often grounded in arbitrary or sociopolitical motives. The term "dialect" is however sometimes restricted to mean "non-standard variety", particularly in non-specialist settings and non-English linguistic traditions. Conversely, some dialectologists have reserved
5841-582: A socio-cultural approach, is possible. This is illustrated by the frequency with which the army-navy aphorism is cited. By the definition most commonly used by linguists, any linguistic variety can be considered a "dialect" of some language—"everybody speaks a dialect". According to that interpretation, the criteria above merely serve to distinguish whether two varieties are dialects of the same language or dialects of different languages. The terms "language" and "dialect" are not necessarily mutually exclusive, although they are often perceived to be. Thus there
6018-649: A speaker of purely Eastern Lombard , a language in Northern Italy 's Lombardy region that includes the Bergamasque dialect , would have severely limited mutual intelligibility with a purely Italian speaker and would be nearly completely unintelligible to a Sicilian -speaking individual. Due to Eastern Lombard's status as a Gallo-Italic language, an Eastern Lombard speaker may, in fact, have more mutual intelligibility with an Occitan, Catalan , or French speaker than with an Italian or Sicilian speaker. Meanwhile,
6195-663: A village named "Tirudeh" in the country "Khir" around Istakhr , Pars in an established family. His grandfather, Sasan , was the trustee of the Temple of Anahita in Istakhr and his grandmother was Rambehesht from Bazrangi House. Al-Tabari added that when Ardashir was seven years old, Papak , Ardashir's father, asked Gochihr , local shah in Pars, to send Ardashir to Tiri, commander of Fort Darabgard, for raising, which Gochihr did. After Tiri's death, Ardashir took over for him and became
6372-490: A war in 214 or early 215; Vologases returned the two fugitives; but Caracalla invaded Armenia anyway. It can be deduced from Caracalla's request from Vologases for returning the two fugitives that the Romans considered Vologases the actual Parthian power and great shah at the time. About one year later in 216, Caracalla made another excuse to attack Parthia; that time he demanded Artabanus (not Vologases) to give him his daughter for marriage, which Artabanus did not accept and
6549-512: A while. It is not probable that Papak's kingdom was beyond the Persian land. According to Arabic - Persian sources, Ardashir started his uprising when he was the commander of Fort Darabgard in eastern Pars. The oldest archaeological proofs of the period of Ardashir's reign are acquired from Ardashir-Khwarrah (Gor or current Firuzabad ) in south border of Pars. Therefore, Ardashir rose up in his war in Ardashir-Khwarrah , far from
6726-525: A wig similar to those of local Persian shahs in contrast to his picture in Shapur-Papak coins. According to the descriptions given on Papak's pictures on the coins, it is probable that the determining role of Ardashir depicted in leading the rebellion against the central government is the product of later historical studies. It is probable that Papak had united most of Pars under his rule by the time; since his picture exists on Ardashir's coins too. In
6903-551: Is Papak who is granting the royal ring to Shapur wearing like priests. Lokonin believed that the carving of Papak granting the royal medal to his sone shows that the Sasanians took the power by force in Pars and wished to show their independence from the Parthian emperors; that was why Papak personally grants the royal medal to his son in the mentioned picture. Lokonin also believes that the religious clothes and medals of Papak on
7080-527: Is a book written in 540 and includes chronicles from 132 BC until 540. Chronicles of Karakh Beit Solug , is a short but important source that presents valuable information about the early Sasanian period. Kār-Nāmag ī Ardašīr ī Pābagān is an epic story about Ardashir I and the procedure of his ascension to the throne of Iran. The text was written in about 600 AD and in the end of Sasanian era in Middle Persian language . Ferdowsi's Shahnameh
7257-642: Is a ceremony called the Vendidad , in which the Yasna is recited with all the chapters of both the Visparad and the Vendidad inserted at appropriate points. This ceremony is only performed at night. The Yasht s (from yešti , "worship by praise") are a collection of 21 hymns, each dedicated to a particular divinity or divine concept. Three hymns of the Yasna liturgy that "worship by praise" are—in tradition—also nominally called yasht s, but are not counted among
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7434-473: Is adapted from the religious concept of justice known as Ṛta or Asha and the second part is related to the concept "city" and "kingdom". Three of Achaemenid kings of kings and four of the local Shahs of Pars—known as Frataraka and Kings of Persis —were named Ardashir, and Ardashir I has been Ardashir V in the chain of local Shahs. The primary references of the Sassanian era can be divided to
7611-559: Is almost as old as the Gathas , consists of prayers and hymns in honor of Ahura Mazda, the Yazatas , the Fravashi , Fire, Water, and Earth. The younger Yasna , though handed down in prose, may once have been metrical, as the Gathas still are. The Visperad (from vîspe ratavo , "(prayer to) all patrons") is a collection of supplements to the Yasna . The Visparad is subdivided into 23 or 24 kardo (sections) that are interleaved into
7788-503: Is also used popularly to refer to the unwritten or non-codified languages of developing countries or isolated areas, where the term " vernacular language " would be preferred by linguists. John Lyons writes that "Many linguists [...] subsume differences of accent under differences of dialect." In general, accent refers to variations in pronunciation, while dialect also encompasses specific variations in grammar and vocabulary . There are three geographical zones in which Arabic
7965-432: Is an ecclesiastical code, not a liturgical manual, and there is a degree of moral relativism apparent in the codes of conduct. The Vendidad ' s different parts vary widely in character and in age. Some parts may be comparatively recent in origin although the greater part is very old. The Vendidad, unlike the Yasna and the Visparad, is a book of moral laws rather than the record of a liturgical ceremony. However, there
8142-599: Is another source about the Sasanian history. There are different historical reports about Ardashir's ancestry and lineage. According to Al-Tabari 's report, Ardashir was son of Papak , son of Sasan . Another statement that exists in Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan and is told the same way in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh , states that Ardashir was born as a result of the marriage of Sasan, a descendant of Darius III , with
8319-504: Is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class or ethnicity . A dialect that is associated with a particular social class can be termed a sociolect . A dialect that is associated with a particular ethnic group can be termed an ethnolect . A geographical/regional dialect may be termed a regiolect (alternative terms include 'regionalect', 'geolect', and 'topolect' ). According to this definition, any variety of
8496-643: Is composed in Young Avestan. These texts originated in a later stage of the Avestan period separated from the Old Avestan time by several centuries. Due to a number of geographical references , there is a wide consensus that they were composed in the eastern portion of Greater Iran . These texts appear to have been handed down during this time in a more fluid oral tradition and were partly composed afresh with each generation of poet-priests, sometimes with
8673-466: Is emphasized in religious Sasanian statements and his noble lineage is emphasized in royal reports and then they are linked to religious statements about him. Anyway, whoever Sasan was and wherever he lived, he was not a native Persian and the eastern and western Iranian Plateau are mentioned as his origins in the references. Most of foreign sources are unanimous in considering an unknown lineage for Ardashir; for example, Agathias has stated that Papak
8850-542: Is heavily based on the Florentine dialect of Tuscan . The Tuscan-based language that would eventually become modern Italian had been used in poetry and literature since at least the 12th century , and it first spread outside the Tuscan linguistic borders through the works of the so-called tre corone ("three crowns"): Dante Alighieri , Petrarch , and Giovanni Boccaccio . Florentine thus gradually rose to prominence as
9027-486: Is most prevalent. Italy is in fact home to a vast array of separate languages , most of which lack mutual intelligibility with one another and have their own local varieties; twelve of them ( Albanian , Catalan , German , Greek , Slovene , Croatian , French , Franco-Provençal , Friulian , Ladin , Occitan and Sardinian ) underwent Italianization to a varying degree (ranging from the currently endangered state displayed by Sardinian and southern Italian Greek to
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#17327657657759204-613: Is not solely determined by linguistic criteria, but it is also the result of a historical and political development. Romansh came to be a written language, and therefore it is recognized as a language, even though it is very close to the Lombardic alpine dialects and classical Latin. An opposite example is Chinese , whose variations such as Mandarin and Cantonese are often called dialects and not languages in China, despite their mutual unintelligibility. National boundaries sometimes make
9381-778: Is nothing contradictory in the statement "the language of the Pennsylvania Dutch is a dialect of German ". There are various terms that linguists may use to avoid taking a position on whether the speech of a community is an independent language in its own right or a dialect of another language. Perhaps the most common is " variety "; " lect " is another. A more general term is " languoid ", which does not distinguish between dialects, languages, and groups of languages, whether genealogically related or not. The colloquial meaning of dialect can be understood by example, e.g. in Italy (see dialetto ), France (see patois ) and
9558-454: Is often considered to be purely linguistic, is that of mutual intelligibility : two varieties are said to be dialects of the same language if being a speaker of one variety has sufficient knowledge to understand and be understood by a speaker of the other dialect; otherwise, they are said to be different languages. However, this definition has often been criticized, especially in the case of a dialect continuum (or dialect chain), which contains
9735-405: Is only used for the traditional regional varieties. That allows them to be distinguished from the regional varieties of modern standard German. The German dialects show a wide spectrum of variation. Some of them are not mutually intelligible. German dialectology traditionally names the major dialect groups after Germanic tribes from which they were assumed to have descended. The extent to which
9912-410: Is probable that the determining role that is stated about Ardashir in leading the rebellion against the central government is the product of the later historical studies. Papak had probably united most of Pars under his rule by then. Ardashir had an outstanding role in developing the royal ideology. He tried to show himself as a worshiper of Mazda related to god and possessing khvarenah . The claim of
10089-518: Is said to be autonomous. In contrast, speakers in the Netherlands of Low Saxon varieties similar to Westphalian would instead consult a dictionary of Standard Dutch , and hence is categorized as a dialect of Dutch instead. Similarly, although Yiddish is classified by linguists as a language in the High German group of languages and has some degree of mutual intelligibility with German,
10266-641: Is spoken (Jastrow 2002). Zone I is categorized as the area in which Arabic was spoken before the rise of Islam. It is the Arabian Peninsula, excluding the areas where southern Arabian was spoken. Zone II is categorized as the areas to which Arabic speaking peoples moved as a result of the conquests of Islam. Included in Zone II are the Levant , Egypt , North Africa , Iraq , and some parts of Iran . The Egyptian, Sudanese, and Levantine dialects (including
10443-496: Is supported by the Académie Française institution. A nonstandard dialect also has a complete grammar and vocabulary, but is usually not the beneficiary of institutional support. The distinction between the "standard" dialect and the " nonstandard " (vernacular) dialects of the same language is often arbitrary and based on social, political, cultural, or historical considerations or prevalence and prominence. In
10620-512: Is the largest and most important reference about the reports related to the national Iranian history . It presents helpful information about the Sasanian organizations and civilization. Bal'ami's History , which is a Persian rewrite of Tabari's History , is one of the most important Persian prose works about the Sasanians. Apart from the Arabic text, the work is valuable, since it provides
10797-488: Is the only nask that has survived in its entirety. The text consists of 22 Fargard s, fragments arranged as discussions between Ahura Mazda and Zoroaster. The first fargard is a dualistic creation myth , followed by the description of a destructive winter (compare Fimbulvetr ) on the lines of the Flood myth . The second fargard recounts the legend of Yima . The remaining fargard s deal primarily with hygiene (care of
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#173276576577510974-476: Is written in the book. Mojmal al-tawarikh is a text with limited value, since most of its reports are mentioned extensively in other sources. Ardasgir's Oath is a letter or preach by Ardashir I about government rituals that is named in Mojmal al-tawarikh . Tabari's History is a book series in Arabic that is the main and essential source about Sasanian history. Al-Masudi 's The Meadows of Gold
11151-576: Is written on coins found in Taxila ; it is probable to be related to "Sasan", since the symbols on the mentioned coins are similar to the coins of Shapur I . It is remarked in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh about Sasan's Oriental lineage that might imply that his house had come from the Orient. After all and considering all the difficulties, it can be said that Ardashir claimed his lineage to be belonging to gods and
11328-570: The Kushti , the sacred thread worn by Zoroastrians, represent these sections. The central portion of the Yasna is the Gathas , the oldest and most sacred portion of the Avesta, believed to have been composed by Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) himself. The Gathas are structurally interrupted by the Yasna Haptanghaiti ("seven-chapter Yasna "), which makes up chapters 35–42 of the Yasna and
11505-546: The Aramaic alphabet -derived Pahlavi scripts . The search for the 'Arsacid archetype' was increasingly criticized in the 1940s and was eventually abandoned in the 1950s after Karl Hoffmann demonstrated that the inconsistencies noted by Andreas were actually due to unconscious alterations introduced by oral transmission. Hoffmann identifies these changes to be due, in part, to modifications introduced through recitation; in part to influences from other Iranian languages picked up on
11682-542: The Avesta that is not already present in one of the other categories is placed in a "fragments" category, which – as the name suggests – includes incomplete texts. There are altogether more than 20 fragment collections, many of which have no name (and are then named after their owner/collator) or only a Middle Persian name. The more important of the fragment collections are the Nirangistan fragments (18 of which constitute
11859-587: The Centro-Southern and Centro-Northern dialects. Though mostly mutually unintelligible, the exact degree to which all the Italian languages are mutually unintelligible varies, often correlating with geographical distance or geographical barriers between the languages; some regional Italian languages that are closer in geographical proximity to each other or closer to each other on the dialect continuum are more or less mutually intelligible. For instance,
12036-572: The Darijas translated as literally meaning Dialect in Arabic (spoken North African languages) are sometimes considered more different from other Arabic dialects. Officially, North African countries prefer to give preference to the Literary Arabic and conduct much of their political and religious life in it (adherence to Islam ), and refrain from declaring each country's specific variety to be
12213-627: The Ehrbadistan ); the Pursishniha "questions," also known as "Fragments Tahmuras "; and the Hadokht Nask "volume of the scriptures" with two fragments of eschatological significance. Dialect A dialect is a variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. It can also refer to a language subordinate in status to a dominant language, and is sometimes used to mean a vernacular language. The more common usage of
12390-603: The Hellenic Griko language and Calabrian Greek ; the Serbo-Croatian Slavomolisano dialect ; and the various Slovene languages , including the Gail Valley dialect and Istrian dialect . The language indigenous to Sardinia , while being Romance in nature, is considered to be a specific linguistic family of its own, separate from the other Neo-Latin groups; it is often subdivided into
12567-609: The Middle Ages . However, all these languages evolved from Vulgar Latin in parallel with Italian, long prior to the popular diffusion of the latter throughout what is now Italy . During the Risorgimento , Italian still existed mainly as a literary language, and only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak Italian. Proponents of Italian nationalism , like the Lombard Alessandro Manzoni , stressed
12744-604: The Persian Gulf shores. At that time, Ardashir constructed a palace and fire temple in Gor (current Firuzabad ) that its ruins still remain and is called the Palace of Ardashir . He appointed one of his sons named Ardashir as the governor of Kerman. Artabanus, the Parthian emperor, ordered the governor of Susa to attack Ardashir, suppress his rebellion and send him to Ctesiphon. After Ardashir killed and terminated Shadh-Shapur ,
12921-422: The Philippines , carries a pejorative undertone and underlines the politically and socially subordinated status of a non-national language to the country's single official language. In other words, these "dialects" are not actual dialects in the same sense as in the first usage, as they do not derive from the politically dominant language and are therefore not one of its varieties , but instead they evolved in
13098-558: The Vendidad is a mixed collection of prose texts mostly dealing with purity laws. Even today, the Vendidad is the only liturgical text that is not recited entirely from memory. Some of the materials of the extended Yasna are from the Yashts , which are hymns to the individual yazata s. Unlike the Yasna , Visperad and Vendidad , the Yasht s and the other lesser texts of the Avesta are no longer used liturgically in high rituals. Aside from
13275-429: The Yasht collection since the three are a part of the primary liturgy. The Yasht s vary greatly in style, quality and extent. In their present form, they are all in prose but analysis suggests that they may at one time have been in verse. The Siroza ("thirty days") is an enumeration and invocation of the 30 divinities presiding over the days of the month. (cf. Zoroastrian calendar ). The Siroza exists in two forms,
13452-600: The Yasht s, these other lesser texts include the Nyayesh texts, the Gah texts, the Siroza and various other fragments. Together, these lesser texts are conventionally called Khordeh Avesta or "Little Avesta" texts. When the first Khordeh Avesta editions were printed in the 19th century, these texts (together with some non-Avestan language prayers) became a book of common prayer for lay people. The term Avesta originates from
13629-642: The Yasna , are in the Old (or 'Gathic') Avestan language. The remainder of the Yasna 's texts are in Younger Avestan, which is not only from a later stage of the language, but also from a different geographic region. Extensions to the Yasna ceremony include the texts of the Vendidad and the Visperad . The Visperad extensions consist mainly of additional invocations of the divinities ( yazata s), while
13806-420: The conscription of Italian men from all throughout Italy during World War I is credited with having facilitated the diffusion of Italian among the less educated conscripted soldiers, as these men, who had been speaking various regional languages up until then, found themselves forced to communicate with each other in a common tongue while serving in the Italian military. With the popular spread of Italian out of
13983-508: The epigraphic form "Ssn" on potterywares and other documents imply that Sasan was a Zoroastrian deity, though he is not mentioned in Avesta or other ancient Iranian texts. Martin Schwartz has recently shown that the deity shown on the potterywares is not related to Sasan, but shows Ssn, an old Semitic goddess that was worshiped in Ugarit in the second millennium B.C . The word "Sasa"
14160-455: The nask s are divided into three groups, of seven volumes per group. Originally, each volume had a word of the prayer as its name, which so marked a volume's position relative to the other volumes. Only about a quarter of the text from the nask s has survived to the present day. The contents of the Avesta are divided topically (even though the organization of the nask s is not), but these are not fixed or canonical. Some scholars prefer to place
14337-678: The volgare of the literate and upper class in Italy, and it spread throughout the peninsula and Sicily as the lingua franca among the Italian educated class as well as Italian travelling merchants. The economic prowess and cultural and artistic importance of Tuscany in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance further encouraged the diffusion of the Florentine-Tuscan Italian throughout Italy and among
14514-425: The 9th/10th-century works of Zoroastrian tradition in which the word appears as Middle Persian abestāg , Book Pahlavi ʾp(y)stʾkʼ . In that context, abestāg texts are portrayed as received knowledge and are distinguished from the exegetical commentaries (the zand ) thereof. The literal meaning of the word abestāg is uncertain; it is generally acknowledged to be a learned borrowing from Avestan, but none of
14691-455: The Avesta is a compilation from various sources, and its different parts date from different periods and vary widely in character. Only texts in the Avestan language are considered part of the Avesta. According to the Denkard , the 21 nask s (books) mirror the structure of the 21-word-long Ahuna Vairya prayer: each of the three lines of the prayer consists of seven words. Correspondingly,
14868-478: The Avesta, as they exist today, derive from a single master copy produced by that collation. That master copy, now lost, is known as the 'Sassanian archetype'. The oldest surviving manuscript ( K1 ) of an Avestan language text is dated 1323 CE. The post-Sassanian phase saw a pronounced deterioration of the Avestan corpus. Summaries in the texts of the Zoroastrian tradition from the 9th/10th century indicate that
15045-481: The Caribbean coast of Costa Rica (Central America) by descendants of Jamaican people. The position that Costa Rican linguists support depends upon which university they represent. Another example is Scanian , which even, for a time, had its own ISO code. An important criterion for categorizing varieties of language is linguistic distance . For a variety to be considered a dialect, the linguistic distance between
15222-575: The Great . Another class of Sasanian history references is the books written by Christians in Syriac language . Arbella's Chronicles is a text written in mid-sixth century AD and includes the history of Christian regions of Mesopotamia from the second century until 550. The book is very valuable for the period of the downfall of the Parthians and the rise of the Sasanians. History of Odessa
15399-569: The House of Arsaces in the Battle of Hormozdgan and founded the Sasanian dynasty . However, the end of the Parthian dynasty did not mean an endpoint for all Parthian houses. Movses Khorenatsi , Armenian historian, has quoted some reports of the roles and aids of some Parthian houses, like Suren and Ispahbudhan , in Ardashir's uprising. According to Al-Tabari 's report, Ardashir was born in
15576-416: The Parthian Empire then. During the time that Artabanus was dealing with a more important challenge, he could not pay much attention to the rise of a newcomer in Pars. After a while, Papak died in an unknown date and Shapur ascended to the throne; afterward, the contest and fight started between the two brothers (Shapur and Ardashir), but Shapur died in an accidental way. According to sources, Shapur stopped at
15753-471: The Parthian Empire. During the time, the Persian governors called themselves "Frataraka", which probably meant "governor" based on its synonym achieved from the Aramaic documents of the Achaemenid era. Afterwards, the titles of local governors altered and they named themselves "Shahs". There have been royal crowns and symbols, temple pictures, fireboxes with aflame fires, and symbols of the moon, stars and
15930-641: The Parthians. Meanwhile, Vologases suppressed a rebellion in the east of the Empire. Narses, governor of Adiabene (a region to the west of current Lake Urmia ), disobeyed to accompany Vologases to invade the East to suppress the rebellion. The noncompliance and also Narses's friendly relations with Rome caused Vologases to attack Adiabene, to destroy multiple cities there and to also kill Narses. Vologases later proceeded towards Nusaybin and laid siege to it, but aborted it due to Roman reinforcements and failed to capture
16107-495: The Persian equals of Arabic expressions in Tabari's History. Farsnameh is one of the helpful Persian references about Sasanian history that presents valuable information about the status and the rankings of grand appointed governors and their positions, while they were considered part of the public relative to the kings. Ibn Isfandiyar 's History of Tabaristan is another one of Sasanian history sources. The Letter of Tansar
16284-448: The Persian version was Shahnameh. Today, none of the direct translations of Khwaday-Namag or its original Persian text are available. Cassius Dio is one of the resources of Parthian history that has given a report about the downfall of the Parthians and the rise of Ardashir I. Herodian's History has also extensively explained the procedure of the change of monarchy from Parthian to Sassanian . Although Agathias lived during
16461-415: The Sasanians may have raised Sasan's rank to a god's. The primary Islamic sources, which are adapted from Sasanian statements, have emphasized on Sasan being a mysticist and hermit and have actually stated India, which is the center of asceticism , as Sasan's origin. That was the only way for Ardashir to forge himself a double noble-religious lineage. It is not strange that Ardashir's religious lineage
16638-595: The Second World War, the South Slavic dialect continuum covering the area of today's North Macedonia were referred to as Bulgarian dialects . Sociolinguists agree that the question of whether Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian or a language is a political one and cannot be resolved on a purely linguistic basis. In Lebanon , a part of the Christian population considers "Lebanese" to be in some sense
16815-517: The Seleucid era, the Frataraka (local Persian shahs) ruled Pars at the time of the rebellion of Alexander , Molon's brother, against Antiochus III . That shows those local shahs shared power with Seleucid satraps or each of them ruled part of Pars separately. Also in the Parthian era, the local Persian shahs were entitled to mint coins with their own names like some other semi-dependent shahs of
16992-506: The Syrian dialect) are well documented, and widely spoken and studied. Zone III comprises the areas in which Arabic is spoken outside of the continuous Arabic Language area. Spoken dialects of the Arabic language share the same writing system and share Modern Standard Arabic as their common prestige dialect used in writing. When talking about the German language, the term German dialects
17169-699: The Unifier (180–242 AD), was the founder of the Iranian Sasanian Empire . He was also Ardashir V of the Kings of Persis , until he founded the new empire. After defeating the last Parthian shahanshah Artabanus IV on the Hormozdgan plain in 224, he overthrew the Arsacid dynasty and established the Sasanian dynasty . Afterwards, Ardashir called himself "shahanshah" and began conquering
17346-704: The West-Germanic language group. Some language siblings are closer to each other in terms of linguistic distance than to other linguistic siblings. French and Spanish, siblings in the Romance Branch of the Indo-European group, are closer to each other than they are to any of the languages of the West-Germanic group. When languages are close in terms of linguistic distance, they resemble one another, hence why dialects are not considered linguistically distant to their parent language. One criterion, which
17523-471: The Yasna during a Visperad service (which is an extended Yasna service). The Visperad collection has no unity of its own, and is never recited separately from the Yasna. The Vendidad (or Vidēvdāt , a corruption of Avestan Vī-Daēvō-Dāta , "Given Against the Demons") is an enumeration of various manifestations of evil spirits, and ways to confound them. The Vendidad includes all of the 19th nask , which
17700-646: The accusation is not provable. Papak's picture has been drawn on both Shapur's coins and later Ardashir's; in the picture of the Papak drawn on Shapur's coins, he wears a wig dissimilar to normal Parthian and local Persian shahs and only Shapur has worn a royal wig. According to royal reports, it was Papak who overthrew Gochihr and appointed Shapur instead of him. Ardashir refused to accept Shapur's appointment and removed his brother and whoever stood against him and then minted coins with his face drawn on them and Papak's behind them. Papak's picture on Ardashir-Papak coins, wears
17877-772: The addition of new material. Most scholars assume that this phase corresponds to a time frame from ca. 900-400 BCE. At some time, however, this fluid phase must have stopped as well and the process of transmission of the Young Avestan texts became fixed similar to the Old Avestan material. This second crystallization must have taken place during the Old Iranian period, as Young Avestan does not show any characteristics of Middle Iranian. The subsequent transmission took place in Western Iran as evidenced by alterations introduced by native Persian speakers. Scholars like Skjærvø and Kreyenbroek correlate this second crystallization with
18054-534: The adoption of Zoroastrianism by the Achaemenids . As a result, Persian - and Median -speaking priests would have become the primary group to transmit these texts. Having no longer an active command of Avestan, they choose to preserve both Old and Young Avestan text as faithfully as possible. Some Young Avestan texts, like the Vendidad , show non-Avestan influence and are therefore considered to have been redacted or otherwise altered by non-Avestan speakers after
18231-468: The adventures of Iranian kings of kings , but show the status of Iran-Armenia relations . Armenian History by Agathangelos is one of Armenian resources about the early Sassanian era. Movses Khorenatsi , known as the Armenian Herodotus , an historian of the fifth century AD has stated a story about Ardashir I that is relatively similar to the adapted story from the biography of Cyrus
18408-587: The carved picture of Shapur and Papak in Takht-e Jamshid shows the importance of the Achaemenid structure for the Sasanians. After the demise of Commodus , Roman emperor , in 192 AD, a rivalry between his generals, Pescennius Niger and Septimius Severus , arose, and Vologases V , Parthian emperor, decided to support Niger against Severus. According to Herodian 's History, the Parthian emperor only managed to request his local following governors to send troops to aid Niger, as Vologases V did not possess
18585-471: The categories in two groups, one liturgical, and the other general. The following categorization is as described by Jean Kellens (see bibliography , below). The Yasna (from yazišn "worship, oblations", cognate with Sanskrit yajña ), is the primary liturgical collection, named after the ceremony at which it is recited. It consists of 72 sections called the Ha-iti or Ha . The 72 threads of lamb's wool in
18762-585: The city. Afterwards, Severus started marching toward Euphrates and to South and took Seleucia and Babylon without resistance, although the Romans contended heavily in late 198 during the fall of Ctesiphon . However, the Romans did not manage to hold the captured regions; they had to retreat due to lack of provisions. The Romans decided to take Hatra while returning, but failed and tried once more in spring 199 to conquer Hatra, and were forced to cede control of Syria with heavy casualties. It must have been that "highly disruptive period of Vologases V's reign" and
18939-496: The commander of Fort Darabgard. According to the current sources, Papak was the priest of the Fire Temple of Anahita. He managed to assemble local Persian warriors who believed in the deity. At the time, Vologases V 's reign was disrupted due to the invasion of Septimius Severus , Roman emperor , on Mesopotamia . It is probable that Vologases defeated Papak after he rebelled and forced him to submit to Parthian rule for
19116-498: The common coins of Papak and Shapur. Later, Papak wrote a letter to Artabanus IV and requested permission to appoint Shapur instead of the "overthrown" Gochihr in power; in response, Artabanus announced Papak and Ardashir outlaws. Although Artabanus had defeated the Romans , he faced the problem of the defiance of Vologases VI , who had minted coins in his own name between 221 and 222; and this shows that no powerful emperor controlled
19293-461: The concept of a geographical collection of lands. "Ardashir" is the New Persian form of the Middle Persian name [REDACTED] , which is ultimately from Old Iranian *Artaxšaθra- , equivalent to Greek Artaxérxēs ( Αρταξέρξης ), and Armenian Artašēs ( Արտաշէս ). Literally, Ardashir means "the one whose reign is based on honesty and justice". The first part of *Arta-xšaθra-
19470-533: The corpses of Artabanus and Ahriman are visualized under the hooves of the horses of Ardashir and Ahura Mazda. It can be deduced from the picture that Ardashir assumed or wished for others to assume that his rule over the land that was called "Iran" in the inscriptions was designated by the lord. The word "Iran" was previously used in Avesta and as "the name of the mythical land of the Aryans ". In Ardashir's period,
19647-470: The country's official language(s). Dialects in this sense do not derive from a dominant language, are therefore not one of its varieties , but they evolved in a separate and parallel way. While they may be historically cognate with and share genetic roots in the same subfamily as the dominant national language and may, to a varying degree, share some mutual intelligibility with the latter, "dialects" under this second definition are separate languages from
19824-408: The daughter of Papak, a local governor in the province of Pars . In Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan , which was written after him, Ardashir is announced "a Papakan king with a paternal line from Sasan and a maternal line from Darius III". Daryaee intends to say that according to that line in the text, it can be deduced that Ardashir has claimed his lineage to whoever he could. Relating Ardashir to
20001-617: The daughter of Papak, a local governor in Pars . According to Al-Tabari's report, Ardashir was born in the outskirts of Istakhr , Pars. Al-Tabari adds that Ardashir was sent to the lord of Fort Darabgard when he was seven years old. After the lord's death, Ardashir succeeded him and became the commander of Fort Darabgard. Al-Tabari continues that afterward, Papak overthrew the local Persian shah named Gochihr and appointed his son, Shapur , instead of him. According to Al-Tabari's report, Shapur and his father, Papak, suddenly died and Ardashir became
20178-691: The day and the month. The five Nyayesh es, abbreviated Ny. , are prayers for regular recitation by both priests and laity. They are addressed to the Sun and Mithra (recited together thrice a day), to the Moon (recited thrice a month), and to the Waters and to Fire . The Nyayesh es are composite texts containing selections from the Gathas and the Yashts, as well as later material. The five gāh s are invocations to
20355-411: The dead in particular) [ fargard 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 16, 17, 19] as well as disease and spells to fight it [7, 10, 11, 13, 20, 21, 22]. Fargard s 4 and 15 discuss the dignity of wealth and charity, of marriage and of physical effort and the indignity of unacceptable social behaviour such as assault and breach of contract , and specify the penances required to atone for violations thereof. The Vendidad
20532-454: The default everyday language in virtually every situation, whereas standard German is only spoken in education, partially in media, and with foreigners not possessing knowledge of Swiss German. Most Swiss German speakers perceive standard German to be a foreign language. The Low German and Low Franconian varieties spoken in Germany are often counted among the German dialects. This reflects
20709-594: The dialects are spoken varies according to a number of factors: In Northern Germany, dialects are less common than in the South. In cities, dialects are less common than in the countryside. In a public environment, dialects are less common than in a familiar environment. The situation in Switzerland and Liechtenstein is different from the rest of the German-speaking countries. The Swiss German dialects are
20886-440: The distinction between "language" and "dialect" an issue of political importance. A group speaking a separate "language" may be seen as having a greater claim to being a separate "people", and thus to be more deserving of its own independent state, while a group speaking a "dialect" may be seen as a sub-group, part of a bigger people, which must content itself with regional autonomy. The Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich published
21063-498: The early 20th century, the legend of the Parthian-era collation engendered a search for a 'Parthian archetype' of the Avesta. According to the theory of Friedrich Carl Andreas (1902), the archaic nature of the Avestan texts was assumed to be due to preservation via written transmission, and unusual or unexpected spellings in the surviving texts were assumed to be reflections of errors introduced by Sasanian-era transcription from
21240-606: The educated and powerful, though local and regional languages remained the main languages of the common people. Aside from the Italo-Dalmatian languages , the second most widespread family in Italy is the Gallo-Italic group , spanning throughout much of Northern Italy 's languages and dialects (such as Piedmontese , Emilian-Romagnol , Ligurian , Lombard , Venetian , Sicily's and Basilicata's Gallo-Italic in southern Italy , etc.). Finally, other languages from
21417-461: The expression, A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot ( "אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמײ און פֿלאָט" : " A language is a dialect with an army and navy ") in YIVO Bleter 25.1, 1945, p. 13. The significance of the political factors in any attempt at answering the question "what is a language?" is great enough to cast doubt on whether any strictly linguistic definition, without
21594-401: The first linguistic definition of the term, as they are in fact derived from Italian, with some degree of influence from the local or regional native languages and accents. The most widely spoken languages of Italy, which are not to be confused with regional Italian, fall within a family of which even Italian is part, the Italo-Dalmatian group . This wide category includes: Modern Italian
21771-435: The five divinities that watch over the five divisions ( gāh s) of the day . Gāh s are similar in structure and content to the five Nyayesh es. The Afrinagan s are four "blessing" texts recited on a particular occasion: the first in honor of the dead, the second on the five epagomenal days that end the year, the third is recited at the six seasonal feasts, and the fourth at the beginning and end of summer. All material in
21948-475: The following: government recognition or designation; formal presentation in schooling as the "correct" form of a language; informal monitoring of everyday usage ; published grammars, dictionaries, and textbooks that set forth a normative spoken and written form; and an extensive formal literature (be it prose, poetry, non-fiction, etc.) that uses it. An example of a standardized language is the French language which
22125-537: The fortress of local Persian shahs in Istakhr and farther from the Parthian Empire. The beginning of Ardashir's uprising may be related to his first inscription in Firuzabad; in the inscription, he is shown acquiring the royal ring from Ahura Mazda in front of his henchmen. Ardashir began the procedure of extending his reign by killing some local kings and taking their domains. According to Al-Tabari's report, Ardashir then asked Papak to stand against Gochihr and start
22302-464: The governor of a land northeast of Ctesiphon called " Beth Garmai " in Syriac and its center was today Kirkuk , along with Sharat, who was the governor of Adiabene , aided Ardashir in his rebellion against the Parthians. In order to consolidate his power, Ardashir killed some of the important figures in Darabgard; then he invaded Kerman and took it too and took control of whole Pars, including
22479-413: The importance of establishing a uniform national language in order to better create an Italian national identity . With the unification of Italy in the 1860s, Italian became the official national language of the new Italian state, while the other ones came to be institutionally regarded as "dialects" subordinate to Italian, and negatively associated with a lack of education. In the early 20th century,
22656-544: The intellectual circles, because of the mass-media and the establishment of public education , Italians from all regions were increasingly exposed to Italian. While dialect levelling has increased the number of Italian speakers and decreased the number of speakers of other languages native to Italy, Italians in different regions have developed variations of standard Italian specific to their region. These variations of standard Italian, known as " regional Italian ", would thus more appropriately be called dialects in accordance with
22833-590: The intelligibility criterion to distinguish between languages and dialects, though mutuality may not be as relevant as initially thought. The requirement for mutuality is abandoned by the Language Survey Reference Guide of SIL International , publishers of the Ethnologue and the registration authority for the ISO 639-3 standard for language codes . They define a dialect cluster as
23010-539: The land that he called Iran . There are various historical reports about Ardashir's lineage and ancestry. According to Al-Tabari 's History of the Prophets and Kings , Ardashir was son of Papak , son of Sasan . Another narrative that exists in Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan and Ferdowsi's Shahnameh also states it says that Ardashir was born from the marriage of Sasan , a descendant of Darius III , with
23187-503: The land. In Rome, Caracalla rose to power after the death of Septimius Severus, his father. Although the information about the contest between Artabanus and Vologases is trace, the Latin sources say that Caracalla gave special attention to the internal contest of Parthians and reported the disruption of the Parthians' status to the Roman Senate . Knowledge about the civil war in the Parthian Empire might have encouraged "the idea of
23364-469: The legendary Kayanians with the nickname Kay beside connecting himself to Sasan, who has been a guardian and mysterious deity and also to Dara, which is a combination of Darius I and II the Achaemenid with local Persian shahs Dara I and II, shows the former's fake lineage. Since Ardashir had claimed his royal lineage to Sasan, it is important to inspect who Sasan was. First it was composed that
23541-549: The legitimacy of his reign as a rightful newcomer from the line of the mythical Iranian shahs and the propagations attributed to Ardashir against the legitimacy and role of the Parthians in the Iranian history sequence show the valuable place that the Achaemenid legacy had in the minds of the first Sasanian shahanshahs; though the current belief is that the Sasanians did not know much about the Achaemenids and their status. On
23718-456: The local semi-dependent kings; based on the existent information on the Persian coins, at least one local king ruled in Persian lands slightly after the demise of Alexander III. Even if the existence of the names of kings like Dara and Ardashir on the coins of local shahs of the land does not prove that a subsidiary house of the Achaemenids still ruled in Pars, it at least shows the continuance of some of Achaemenid traditions in that land. During
23895-431: The main corpus became fixed. Regardless of such changes and redactions, the main Avestan corpus was passed on orally until its compilation and redaction during the Sassanian period. It was not until around the 5th or 6th century CE that Avestan corpus was committed to written form. This is seen as a turning point in the Avestan tradition since it separates the purely oral from the written transmission. The surviving texts of
24072-405: The modern situation where they are roofed by standard German. This is different from the situation in the Middle Ages when Low German had strong tendencies towards an ausbau language . The Frisian languages spoken in Germany and the Netherlands are excluded from the German dialects. Italy is an often quoted example of a country where the second definition of the word "dialect" ( dialetto )
24249-585: The national language) of limited geographic distribution, languages lacking institutional support, or even those considered to be "unsuitable for writing". Occasionally, in a third usage, dialect refers to the unwritten or non-codified languages of developing countries or isolated areas, where the term " vernacular language " would be preferred by linguists. Features that distinguish dialects from each other can be found in lexicon ( vocabulary ) and grammar ( morphology , syntax ) as well as in pronunciation ( phonology , including prosody ). In instances where
24426-412: The other hand, it appears that the most valuable portions of the canon, including all of the oldest texts, have survived. The likely reason for this is that the surviving materials represent those portions of the Avesta that were in regular liturgical use and therefore known by heart by the priests and not dependent for their preservation on the survival of particular manuscripts. In its present form,
24603-827: The other hand, some historians believe that the first Sasanian shahanshahs were familiar with the Achaemenids and their succeeding shahanshahs deliberately turned to the Kayanians . They knowingly ignored the Achaemenids in order to attribute their past to the Kayanians; and that was where they applied holy historiography . In order to remark his victories, Ardashir carved petroglyphs in Firuzabad (the city of Gor or Ardashir-Khwarrah), Naqsh-e Rajab and Naqsh-e Rustam . In his petroglyph in Naqsh-e Rustam, Ardashir and Ahura Mazda are opposite to each other on horsebacks and
24780-509: The other hand, with his son Shapur taking the royal ring from him. In other pictures of granting the royal medal during the time, meaning granting Khwasak , the mayor of Susa, which is discovered there, and the picture of granting the medal to the governor of Elymais, discovered in Bardneshandeh, the Parthian emperor is granting the royal medal to local shahs; while in the mentioned picture of Papak and his son Shapur in Takht-e Jamshid, it
24957-459: The others. To describe this situation, the editors of the Handbook of African Languages introduced the term dialect cluster as a classificatory unit at the same level as a language. A similar situation, but with a greater degree of mutual unintelligibility, has been termed a language cluster . In the Language Survey Reference Guide issued by SIL International , who produce Ethnologue ,
25134-481: The past magnificence of Pars; though the knowledge about the existence of a large empire was almost forgotten. As of now, not much knowledge is gained about the four hundred-year history of that state, which was once part of the Seleucid Kingdom and then of Parthian Empire, and almost all the knowledge about the political status of Pars—before the rise of Ardashir, depends on the coins which were minted by
25311-427: The pictures and cois of Shapur (his son), show the separation of religious and royal rule -at the time; Papak was the grand priest and his son Shapur was the land's shah. Daryaee believes that the picture shows multiple things; first that the House of Sasan had both the religious and irreligious powers together in Pars; second that the fire creed, related to Zoroastrianism, lived on before the rise of Ardashir; third that
25488-491: The portrait of Ahura Mazda minted on coins of the Frataraka that shows the holy fire was adored and the Zoroastrian gods were worshiped and the old creed was permanent in Pars in contrast to other regions. In a portrait of Papak and his son Shapur carved on Takht-e Jamshid, Papak, while dressed as a priest, squeezes the hilt of his sword by one hand and manipulates the fire of the hearth and adds more firewood to it by
25665-445: The procedure of extending his domain and power, Ardashir made many Parthian-dependent local shahs and landlords follow him. In the first phase of rebellion, Ardashir challenged the Parthians' central power by actions like minting coins and constructing new cities. After all, a sight of victory was not imaginable for Ardashir without a public dissatisfaction and interest in rebellion against the Parthians. For example, according to sources,
25842-463: The raid and destruction of Mesopotamia by Severus when Papak probably united most of Pars under his rule. Apparently a peace treaty was then formed between the two powers, though the ancient historians have had no mention of it. Until Vologases' death in 206 or 207 and also Severus's in 211, the Parthian-Roman relations were peaceful. After Vologases V's death, his son Vologases VI rose to
26019-478: The realm of legend and myth. The oldest surviving versions of these tales are found in the ninth to 11th century texts of Zoroastrian tradition (i.e. in the so-called " Pahlavi books "). The legends run as follows: The twenty-one nask s ("books") of the Avesta were created by Ahura Mazda and brought by Zoroaster to his patron Vishtaspa ( Denkard 4A, 3A). Supposedly, Vishtaspa ( Dk 3A) or another Kayanian , Daray ( Dk 4B), then had two copies made, one of which
26196-430: The reports of Karnamag and Shahnameh , considered them mythical and intended to legitimize the founder of the Sasanian dynasty. Due to the high number of reports about Ardashir's lineage, it is not easy to accept any; though it should not be ignored that most of the founders of dynasties claimed to be descendants of ancient kings in order to become legitimate. About that, Daryaee says: "If Ardashir had been evolved from
26373-570: The route of transmission from somewhere in eastern Iran (i.e. Central Asia) via Arachosia and Sistan through to Persia; and in part due to the influence of phonetic developments in the Avestan language itself. The notion of an Arsacid-era collation and recension is generally rejected by modern scholarship. Instead, there is a now wide consensus that for most of their long history the Avesta's various texts were handed down orally and independently of one another. Based on linguistic aspects, scholars like Kellens , Skjærvø and Hoffman have also identified
26550-484: The royal cemetery of Erbil", knowing of having the upper hand. Macrinus refused the extensive demands of the Parthians and war was restarted and its peak was in a three-day battle in Nusaybin. Although there is controversy about the result of the battle in the views of the ancient world's historians, the aftermath of the battle was obviously Roman defeat. After the end of the war, peace negotiations began and resulted in
26727-572: The ruler of Pars. Tension rose between Ardashir and the Parthian empire and eventually on April 28, 224, Ardashir faced the army of Artabanus IV in the Hormozdgan plain and Artabanus, the Parthian shahanshah, was killed during the battle. According to the royal reports, it was Papak who overthrew Gochihr , the local Persian shah, and appointed his son, Shapur, instead of him; Ardashir refused to accept Shapur's appointment and removed his brother and whosoever stood against him and then minted coins with his face drawn on and his father, Papak's behind. It
26904-731: The salient distinctions are only or mostly to be observed in pronunciation, the more specific term accent may be used instead of dialect . Differences that are largely concentrated in lexicon may be classified as creoles . When lexical differences are mostly concentrated in the specialized vocabulary of a profession or other organization, they are jargons . Differences in vocabulary that are deliberately cultivated to exclude outsiders or to serve as shibboleths are known as cryptolects or cant, and include slangs and argots . The particular speech patterns used by an individual are referred to as that person's idiolect . Languages are classified as dialects based on linguistic distance . The dialects of
27081-486: The same language if (under at least some circumstances) they would defer to the same authority regarding some questions about their language. For instance, to learn the name of a new invention, or an obscure foreign species of plant, speakers of Westphalian and East Franconian German might each consult a German dictionary or ask a German-speaking expert in the subject. Thus these varieties are said to be dependent on, or heteronomous with respect to, Standard German , which
27258-476: The same language. A number of rough measures exist, sometimes leading to contradictory results. The distinction between dialect and language is therefore subjective and depends upon the user's preferred frame of reference. For example, there has been discussion about whether or not the Limón Creole English should be considered "a kind" of English or a different language. This creole is spoken in
27435-813: The same town or region. The classification of speech varieties as dialects or languages and their relationship to other varieties of speech can be controversial and the verdicts inconsistent. Serbo-Croatian illustrates this point. Serbo-Croatian has two major formal variants ( Serbian and Croatian ). Both are based on the Shtokavian dialect and therefore mutually intelligible with differences found mostly in their respective local vocabularies and minor grammatical differences. Certain dialects of Serbia ( Torlakian ) and Croatia ( Kajkavian and Chakavian ), however, are not mutually intelligible even though they are usually subsumed under Serbo-Croatian. How these dialects should be classified in relation to Shtokavian remains
27612-412: The shorter ("little Siroza ") is a brief enumeration of the divinities with their epithets in the genitive. The longer ("great Siroza ") has complete sentences and sections, with the yazata s being addressed in the accusative. The Siroza is never recited as a whole, but is a source for individual sentences devoted to particular divinities, to be inserted at appropriate points in the liturgy depending on
27789-474: The standard or national language. Under this definition, the standard or national language would not itself be considered a dialect, as it is the dominant language in terms of linguistic prestige , social or political (e.g. official ) status, predominance or prevalence, or all of the above. Dialect used this way implies a political connotation, often being used to refer to non-standardized "low-prestige" languages (regardless of their actual degree of distance from
27966-435: The state in which the movement of establishing the new Sasanian government began, had lost its fame by third century AD. Since old times, a new city named Istakhr had risen beside the ruins of Persepolis , an Achaemenid capital which was burnt by troops of Alexander III of Macedon . Although the land's local shahs picked themselves Achaemenid names like Dara (Darius) and Ardashir in order to preserve old traditions, that
28143-418: The suggested etymologies have been universally accepted. The widely repeated derivation from * upa-stavaka is from Christian Bartholomae ( Altiranisches Wörterbuch , 1904), who interpreted abestāg as a descendant of a hypothetical reconstructed Old Iranian word for "praise-song" (Bartholomae: Lobgesang ); but this word is not actually attested in any text. The Zoroastrian history of the Avesta, lies in
28320-584: The term "dialect" for forms that they believed (sometimes wrongly) to be purer forms of the older languages, as in how early dialectologists of English did not consider the Brummie of Birmingham or the Scouse of Liverpool to be real dialects, as they had arisen fairly recently in time and partly as a result of influences from Irish migrants. There is no universally accepted criterion for distinguishing two different languages from two dialects (i.e. varieties) of
28497-479: The term in English refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The dialects or varieties of a particular language are closely related and, despite their differences, are most often largely mutually intelligible , especially if geographically close to one another in a dialect continuum . The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but
28674-486: The texts among Indian Zoroastrian ( Parsi ) communities. He published a set of French translations in 1771, based on translations provided by a Parsi priest. Anquetil-Duperron's translations were at first dismissed as a forgery in poor Sanskrit , but he was vindicated in the 1820s following Rasmus Rask 's examination of the Avestan language ( A Dissertation on the Authenticity of the Zend Language , Bombay, 1821). Rask also established that Anquetil-Duperron's manuscripts were
28851-498: The throne; but shortly afterward, his reign was challenged by his brother Artabanus IV . In about 213, Artabanus launched a rebellion against his brother Vologases and took the rule of a large part of the Parthian Empire; it can be deduced from the coins found in Hamadan that he ruled the Median land. According to an inscription of his in Susa , the control of the region is considered to have been Artabanus's. Elsewhere, Vologases VI's coins found in Seleucia show his control over
29028-416: The time of Khosrow I , due to his access to the royal yearbooks in Ctesiphon archives, his history book is one of the main sources. However, he has used colloquial statements in reporting the story of Ardashir's youth. The Armenian history in the Sassanian era is completely connected with Iranian royal history; thus, not only do the writings of then Armenian historians provide important matters about
29205-479: The title "Iran" was chosen for the region under the Sasanian rule. The idea of "Iran" was accepted for both the Zoroastrian and non-Zoroastrian societies in the whole kingdom and the Iranians ' collective memory continued and lived on in the various stages and different layers of the Iranian society until the modern period today. What is clear is that the concept of "Iran" previously had a religious and ethnic application and then ended up creating its political face and
29382-447: The transmission of the Avesta. In this story, credit for collation and recension is given to the early Sasanian-era priest Tansar ( high priest under Ardashir I , r. 224–242 CE, and Shapur I , 240/242–272 CE), who had the scattered works collected – of which he approved only a part as authoritative ( Dk 3C, 4D, 4E). Tansar's work was then supposedly completed by Adurbad Mahraspandan (high priest of Shapur II , r. 309–379 CE) who made
29559-420: The two categories "text remnants" and "reports": Text remnants include inscriptions , leather writings, papyri and crockeries written in multiple languages and scripts. Examples of text remnants related to Ardashir I include his short inscription in Nagsh-e Rajab and also Shapur I's inscription at the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht . Reports are texts that are written in various languages and periods. The basis of
29736-621: The two varieties must be low. Linguistic distance between spoken or written forms of language increases as the differences between the forms are characterized. For example, two languages with completely different syntactical structures would have a high linguistic distance, while a language with very few differences from another may be considered a dialect or a sibling of that language. Linguistic distance may be used to determine language families and language siblings. For example, languages with little linguistic distance, like Dutch and German , are considered siblings. Dutch and German are siblings in
29913-502: The vigorous promotion of Germanic Tyrolean ), but have been officially recognized as minority languages ( minoranze linguistiche storiche ), in light of their distinctive historical development. Yet, most of the regional languages spoken across the peninsula are often colloquially referred to in non-linguistic circles as Italian dialetti , since most of them, including the prestigious Neapolitan , Sicilian and Venetian , have adopted vulgar Tuscan as their reference language since
30090-495: The war started in summer 216. According to that request of Caracalla from Artabanus, it is assumed that Aratabanus gained "the upper hand" in his internal contest with Vologases then, though Vologases' coins were minted until 221–222 in Seleucia. Although the exact path of the Romans' invasion is not known, they certainly conquered Erbil , center of Adiabene; apparently the Parthians avoided a large confrontation; but they applied an offensive policy toward Mesopotamia in early 217. That
30267-404: The writings of all Muslim historians ( Arabic and Persian histories), has been the official Khwaday-Namag of the Sassanian court that have utilized the recorded diaries in the official calendars of the court as references. Khwaday-Namag was prepared at the ends of the Sassanian era in Middle Persian language. The title of the Arabic translation of the book was Seir-ol Moluk-el Ajam and
30444-503: Was a shoemaker who found out from astronomic proofs that Sasan would have a great son; thus Papak allowed Sasan to sleep with the former's wife and the result was Ardashir. Shakki considered Agathias's narrative a useless and vulgar story by the familiar Sergeus, Surianian translator of Khosrow I 's court, ordered by the opponents and foes of Sasanians. Shakki said it was obvious Sergeus the Christian had induced that nonsense to Agathias. Like he had cleared Ardashir's family tree, and it
30621-420: Was adapted from the imaginations of Christians and the materialist and atheist league. Shakki's reasoning is based on the current norm in marital customs that the children resulting from a woman's marriage with a second spouse (after divorcing her first spouse) will belong to the first spouse. In the three-language inscription of Shapur I's on Ka'ba-ye Zartosht in Naqsh-e Rustam , Sasan is introduced only as
30798-506: Was almost the only remaining instance of the ancient magnificence and greatness. The local governors of Pars that considered themselves the rightful heirs of the Achaemenids, had accepted submitting to the Arsacids during the four and a half century of the latters' reign and always waited for a chance to retake their old glory. They considered the Parthians primordial usurpers who had taken the formers' right by force. The remnants of Pasargadae and Persepolis could be permanent memorials of
30975-413: Was how he, by his religious knowledge, found the chance to be the first person in his inscriptions receiving the royal ring from Ahura Mazda , something a Persian nobleman did not need and only a newcomer had to claim to be from the line of gods. It should be mentioned that it was not precedent to Ardashir to take a royal ring from Ahura Mazda, and it is not seen even in Achaemenid inscriptions. Persis,
31152-600: Was stored in the treasury and the other in the royal archives ( Dk 4B, 5). Following Alexander's conquest, the Avesta was then supposedly destroyed or dispersed by the Greeks, after they had translated any scientific passages of which they could make use ( AVN 7–9, Dk 3B, 8). Several centuries later, one of the Parthian emperors named Valaksh (one of the Vologases ) supposedly then had the fragments collected, not only of those that had previously been written down, but also of those that had only been orally transmitted ( Dk 4C). The Denkard also records another legend related to
31329-425: Was the time Caracalla, who was heading to Harran , was killed by head of his security detail Macrinus , who showed his inclination towards peace with the Parthians by "putting the blame of starting the war on Caracalla" and "freeing Parthian prisoners"; but Artabanus demanded the Romans' "relinquishing of the whole Mesopotamia", "rebuilding the destroyed cities and fortresses" and "paying compensations for destroying
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