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59-613: Gilaki ( گیلٚکي زٚوؤن romanized: Gilɵki Zɵvon ) is an Iranian language belonging to the Caspian subgroup of the Northwestern branch , spoken in south of Caspian Sea by Gilak people . Gilaki is closely related to Mazandarani . The two languages of Gilaki and Mazandarani have similar vocabularies. The Gilaki and Mazandarani languages (but not other Iranian languages) share certain typological features with Caucasian languages (specifically Kartvelian languages ), reflecting

118-421: 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

177-617: 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

236-522: A derivative of Proto-Indo-European language *ar-yo- , meaning "one who assembles (skilfully)". In the Iranic languages spoken on the plateau, the gentilic is attested as a self-identifier, included in ancient inscriptions and the literature of the Avesta , and remains also in other Iranian ethnic names Alan ( Ossetian : Ир Ir ) and Iron ( Ирон ). When used as a linguistic term Iranian

295-532: 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

354-515: 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

413-412: 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

472-578: A third separate language group of the Caspian area. In Mazandaran , Gilaki is spoken in the city of Ramsar and Tonekabon . Although the dialect is influenced by Mazandarani , it is still considered a Gilaki dialect. Furthermore, the eastern Gilaki dialect is spoken throughout the valley of the Chalus river. In Qazvin province , Gilaki is spoken in northern parts of the province, in Alamut . Gilaki,

531-513: A third-century inscription at Naqsh-e Rostam , with the accompanying Parthian inscription using the term Aryān , in reference to the Iranian peoples . The Middle-Iranian ērān and aryān are oblique plural forms of gentilic nouns ēr- (Middle Persian) and ary- (Parthian), both deriving from Proto-Iranian language *arya- (meaning " Aryan ", i.e. "of the Iranians"), recognized as

590-496: 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

649-622: 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 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

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708-512: Is an inflected and genderless language. It is considered SVO , although in sentences employing certain tenses the order may be SOV . Gilaki is the language of the majority of people in Gilan province and also a native and well-known language in Mazandaran , Qazvin and Alborz provinces. Gilaki is spoken in different regions with different dialects and accents. The number of Gilaki speakers

767-443: Is applied to any language which descends from the ancestral Proto-Iranian language . Some scholars such as John R. Perry prefer the term Iranic as the anthropological name for the linguistic family and ethnic groups of this category, and Iranian for anything about the modern country of Iran . He uses the same analogue as in differentiating German from Germanic or differentiating Turkish and Turkic . This use of

826-463: Is best attested in one of the three languages of the Behistun inscription, composed c.  520 BCE , and which is the last inscription (and only inscription of significant length) in which Old Persian is still grammatically correct. Later inscriptions are comparatively brief, and typically simply copies of words and phrases from earlier ones, often with grammatical errors, which suggests that by

885-415: 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

944-552: Is estimated at 3 to 4 million. Ethnologue reports that the use of Gilaki is decreasing as the speaker population is decreasing. Gilaki has the same consonants as Persian, but different vowels. Here is a table of correspondences for the Western Gilaki of Rasht , which will be the variety used in the remainder of the article: There are nine vowel phonemes in the Gilaki language: The consonants are: The verb system of Gilaki

1003-399: Is formed by adding the personal endings to this stem: The present subjunctive is formed with the prefix bí- , bú- , or bə- (depending on the vowel in the stem) added to the indicative forms. Final /e/ neutralizes to /ə/ in the 3rd singular and the plural invariably lacks final /i/. The negative of both the indicative and the subjunctive is formed in the same way, with n- instead of

1062-408: Is indistinguishable from effects due to other causes). In addition to Old Persian and Avestan, which are the only directly attested Old Iranian languages, all Middle Iranian languages must have had a predecessor "Old Iranian" form of that language, and thus can all be said to have had an (at least hypothetical) "Old" form. Such hypothetical Old Iranian languages include Old Parthian . Additionally,

1121-451: Is not known where that dialect (or dialects) was spoken either. Certain is only that Avestan (all forms) and Old Persian are distinct, and since Old Persian is "western", and Avestan was not Old Persian, Avestan acquired a default assignment to "eastern". Further confusing the issue is the introduction of a western Iranian substrate in later Avestan compositions and redactions undertaken at the centers of imperial power in western Iran (either in

1180-581: Is only "Eastern Iranian" in the sense that it is not Western. The Iranian languages all descend from a common ancestor: Proto-Iranian , which itself evolved from Proto-Indo-Iranian . This ancestor language is speculated to have origins in Central Asia , and the Andronovo culture of the Bronze Age is suggested as a candidate for the common Indo-Iranian culture around 2000 BCE. The language

1239-617: 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

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1298-551: Is very archaic, and at roughly the same stage of development as Rigvedic Sanskrit . On the other hand, Younger Avestan is at about the same linguistic stage as Old Persian, but by virtue of its use as a sacred language retained its "old" characteristics long after the Old Iranian languages had yielded to their Middle Iranian stage. Unlike Old Persian, which has Middle Persian as its known successor, Avestan has no clearly identifiable Middle Iranian stage (the effect of Middle Iranian

1357-401: Is very similar to that of Persian. All infinitives end in -tən/-dən , or in -V:n , where V: is a long vowel (from contraction of an original *-Vdən ). The present stem is usually related to the infinitive, and the past stem is just the infinitive without -ən or -n (in the case of vowel stems). From the infinitive dín , "to see", we get present stem din- . The present indicative

1416-1193: The Achaemenid Empire ) and Old Avestan (the language of the Avesta ). Of the Middle Iranian languages, the better understood and recorded ones are Middle Persian (from the Sasanian Empire ), Parthian (from the Parthian Empire ), and Bactrian (from the Kushan and Hephthalite empires). As of 2000s , Ethnologue estimates that there are 86 languages in the group. 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 term Iran derives directly from Middle Persian Ērān , first attested in

1475-590: 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

1534-608: The Rig Veda , the oldest form of the Sanskrit language. All three languages are highly inflected . Old Persian appears primarily in 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

1593-401: The b- of the subjunctive. From xurdən , "to eat", we get the perfect stem xurd . To this are added unaccented personal endings and the unaccented b- prefix (or accented n- for the negative): The imperfect is formed with what was originally a suffix -i : The pluperfect is paraphrastically formed with the verb bon , "to be", and the past participle , which is in turn formed with

1652-535: The genitive can be combined many postpositions . Examples: The personal pronouns have special forms with "-re": mere, tere, etc. Gilaki adjectives come before the noun they modify, and may have the genitive "case ending" -ə/-i . They do not agree with the nouns they modify. Iranian languages The Iranian languages are grouped in three stages: Old Iranian (until 400 BCE), Middle Iranian (400 BCE – 900 CE) and New Iranian (since 900 CE). The two directly-attested Old Iranian languages are Old Persian (from

1711-543: The genitive , and the (definite) accusative . The accusative form is often used to express the simple indirect object in addition to the direct object. A noun in the genitive comes before the word it modifies. These "cases" are in origin actually just particles, similar to Persian ra . For the word "per", father, we have: The genitive can change to -i , especially before some postpositions. The 1st and 2nd person pronouns have special forms: The 3rd person (demonstrative) pronouns are regular: /un/, /u.ˈʃan/, /i.ˈʃan/ With

1770-538: The perfect stem+ə (which can assimilate to become i or u ). The accent can fall on the last syllable of the participle or on the stem itself: A curious innovation of Western Gilaki is the past subjunctive , which is formed with the (artificial) imperfect of bon +past participle : This form is often found in the protasis and apodosis of unreal conditions, e.g., mən agə Əkbəra bidé bim, xušhal bubosti bim, "If I were to see/saw/had seen Akbar, I would be happy". There are two very common paraphrastic constructions for

1829-438: The present and past progressives . From the infinitive šon , "to go", we get: There are many compound verbs in Gilaki, whose forms differ slightly from simple verbs. Most notably, bV- is never prefixed onto the stem, and the negative prefix nV- can act like an infix -n- , coming between the prefix and the stem. So from fagiftən , "to get", we get present indicative fagirəm , but present subjunctive fágirəm , and

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1888-428: The 4th century BCE the transition from Old Persian to Middle Persian was already far advanced, but efforts were still being made to retain an "old" quality for official proclamations. The other directly attested Old Iranian dialects are the two forms of Avestan , which take their name from their use in the Avesta , the liturgical texts of indigenous Iranian religion that now goes by the name of Zoroastrianism but in

1947-464: The Avesta itself is simply known as vohu daena (later: behdin ). The language of the Avesta is subdivided into two dialects, conventionally known as "Old (or 'Gathic') Avestan", and "Younger Avestan". These terms, which date to the 19th century, are slightly misleading since 'Younger Avestan' is not only much younger than 'Old Avestan', but also from a different geographic region. The Old Avestan dialect

2006-610: The Eastern category. The two languages of the Western group were linguistically very close to each other, but quite distinct from their eastern counterparts. On the other hand, the Eastern group was an areal entity whose languages retained some similarity to Avestan. They were inscribed in various Aramaic -derived alphabets which had ultimately evolved from the Achaemenid Imperial Aramaic script , though Bactrian

2065-547: The Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from 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

2124-446: The ancient speakers of Iranian languages. Of that variety of languages/dialects, direct evidence of only two has survived. These are: Indirectly attested Old Iranian languages are discussed below . Old Persian was an Old Iranian dialect as it was spoken in southwestern Iran (the modern-day province of Fars ) by the inhabitants of Parsa , Persia, or Persis who also gave their name to their region and language. Genuine Old Persian

2183-486: 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/

2242-506: 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,

2301-620: The contents of the Behistun Inscription (dated to 525 BCE). In 2007, research into the vast Persepolis Fortification Archive at 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

2360-476: The earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give 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

2419-639: The early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by 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

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2478-408: 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

2537-409: The existence of unattested languages can sometimes be inferred from the impact they had on neighbouring languages. Such transfer is known to have occurred for Old Persian, which has (what is called) a " Median " substrate in some of its vocabulary. Also, foreign references to languages can also provide a hint to the existence of otherwise unattested languages, for example through toponyms/ethnonyms or in

2596-643: The far northwest; and the hypothetical "Old Parthian" (the Old Iranian ancestor of Parthian) in the near northwest, where original *dw > *b (paralleling the development of *ćw). What is known in Iranian linguistic history as the "Middle Iranian" era is thought to begin around the 4th century BCE lasting through the 9th century. Linguistically the Middle Iranian languages are conventionally classified into two main groups, Western and Eastern . The Western family includes Parthian ( Arsacid Pahlavi) and Middle Persian , while Bactrian , Sogdian , Khwarezmian , Saka , and Old Ossetic ( Scytho - Sarmatian ) fall under

2655-570: 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 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

2714-458: The following branches: According to modern scholarship, the Avestan languages are not considered to fall under these categories, and are instead sometimes classified as Central Iranian, since they diverged from Proto-Iranian before the east-west division rose to prominence. It has traditionally been viewed as Eastern Iranian; however, it lacks a large number of Eastern Iranian features and thus

2773-660: The history, ethnic identity, and close relatedness to the Caucasus region and Caucasian peoples of the Gilak people and Mazandarani people . The language is divided into three dialects: Western Gilaki , Eastern Gilaki and Galeshi/Deylami . The western and eastern dialects are separated by the Sefid River , while Galeshi is spoken in the mountains of eastern Gilan and western Mazandaran . There are three main dialects but larger cities in Gilan have slight variations to

2832-492: 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

2891-472: The negative of both, faángirəm or fanígirəm . The same applies to the negative of the past tenses : fángiftəm or fanígiftəm . Gilaki employs a combination of quasi-case endings and postpositions to do the work of many particles and prepositions in English and Persian. There are essentially three "cases" in Gilaki, the nominative (or, better, unmarked, as it can serve other grammatical functions),

2950-517: The reconstructed linguistic relationships of common Indo-European. Proto-Iranian thus dates to some time after the Proto-Indo-Iranian breakup, or the early-2nd millennium BCE, as the Old Iranian languages began to break off and evolve separately as the various Iranian tribes migrated and settled in vast areas of southeastern Europe , the Iranian Plateau , and Central Asia. Proto-Iranian innovations compared to Proto-Indo-Iranian include:

3009-472: The recording of vocabulary, as Herodotus did for what he called " Scythian " and in one instance, Median ( σπάκα "dog"). Conventionally, Iranian languages are grouped into "western" and "eastern" branches. These terms have little meaning with respect to Old Avestan as that stage of the language may predate the settling of the Iranian peoples into western and eastern groups. The geographic terms also have little meaning when applied to Younger Avestan since it

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3068-550: The south-west in Persia, or in the north-west in Nisa/Parthia and Ecbatana/Media). Two of the earliest dialectal divisions among Iranian indeed happen to not follow the later division into Western and Eastern blocks. These concern the fate of the Proto-Indo-Iranian first-series palatal consonants, *ć and *dź: As a common intermediate stage, it is possible to reconstruct depalatalized affricates: *c, *dz. (This coincides with

3127-454: The state of affairs in the neighboring Nuristani languages .) A further complication however concerns the consonant clusters *ćw and *dźw: A division of Iranian languages in at least three groups during the Old Iranian period is thus implied: It is possible that other distinct dialect groups were already in existence during this period. Good candidates are the hypothetical ancestor languages of Alanian/Scytho-Sarmatian subgroup of Scythian in

3186-456: The term for the Iranian language family was introduced in 1836 by Christian Lassen . Robert Needham Cust used the term Irano-Aryan in 1878, and Orientalists such as George Abraham Grierson and Max Müller contrasted Irano-Aryan ( Iranian ) and Indo-Aryan ( Indic ). Some recent scholarship, primarily in German, has revived this convention. The Iranian languages are divided into

3245-506: The turning of sibilant fricative *s into non-sibilant fricative glottal *h; the voiced aspirated plosives *bʰ, *dʰ, *gʰ yielding to the voiced unaspirated plosives *b, *d, *g resp.; the voiceless unaspirated stops *p, *t, *k before another consonant changing into fricatives *f, *θ, *x resp.; voiceless aspirated stops *pʰ, *tʰ, *kʰ turning into fricatives *f, *θ, *x, resp. The multitude of Middle Iranian languages and peoples indicate that great linguistic diversity must have existed among

3304-516: The way they speak. These "sub-dialects" are Rashti, Rudbari, Some’e Sarai, Lahijani, Langerudi, Rudesari, Bandar Anzali, Fumani, Alamouti and Taleghani. Progressing to the east, Gilaki gradually blends into Mazandarani . The intermediate dialects of the area between Tonokābon and Kalārdašt serve as a transition between Gilaki and Mazandarani . The differences in forms and vocabulary lead to a low mutual intelligibility with either Gilaki or Mazandarani , and so these dialects should probably be considered

3363-439: 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

3422-554: Was situated precisely in the western part of Central Asia that borders present-day Russia and Kazakhstan . It was thus in relative proximity to the other satem ethno-linguistic groups of the Indo-European family , such as Thracian , Balto-Slavic and others, and to common Indo-European's original homeland (more precisely, the Pontic-Caspian Steppe to the north of the Black Sea and the Caucasus ), according to

3481-402: Was written using an adapted Greek script . Old Persian Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan ) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire ). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as ariya (Iranian). Old Persian is close to both Avestan and the language of

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