Avestan /əˈvɛstən/, formerly also known as "Zend", is an Iranian language of the Eastern Iranian division, known only from its use as the language of Zoroastrian scripture, i.e. the Avesta, from which it derives its name. Its area of composition comprised ancient Sistan/Arachosia, Aria, Margiana, and Bactria, corresponding to parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Yaz culture of Bactria-Margiana has been regarded as a likely archaeological reflection of the early Eastern Iranian culture described in the Avesta.
Avestan's status as a sacred language has ensured its continuing use for new compositions long after the language had ceased to be a living language. It is closely related to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language.
Genealogy
"Avestan, which is associated with northeastern Iran, and Old Persian, which belongs to the southwest, together constitute what is called Old Iranian." The Old Iranian language group is a branch of the Indo-Iranian language group. Iranian languages are traditionally classified as "eastern" or "western", and within this framework Avestan is classified as eastern. But this distinction is of limited meaning for Avestan, as the linguistic developments that later distinguish Eastern from Western Iranian had not yet occurred. Avestan does not display some typical (South-)Western Iranian innovations already visible in Old Persian, and so in this sense, "eastern" only means "non-western". That is not to say that Avestan does not display any characteristic innovations of its own â€" e.g., the sibilant pronunciation of the consonant in aÅ¡a, corresponding to original /rt/ that is preserved in the Old Persian form (arta), as well as Sanskrit (rta).
Old Avestan is closely related to Old Persian and also in some extent close in nature to Vedic Sanskrit. It is believed that it might be close to ancestor dialect of Pashto as well.
Christopher I. Beckwith claims, in Empires of the Silk Road, that Avestan is an Indo-Aryan language, with the Iranian linguistic traits found in the Avesta having been introduced by oral transmission among Iranian language speakers.
Forms and stages of development
The Avestan language is attested in roughly two forms, known as "Old Avestan" (or "Gathic Avestan") and "Younger Avestan". Younger Avestan did not evolve from Old Avestan; the two differ not only in time, but are also different dialects. Every Avestan text, regardless of whether originally composed in Old or Younger Avestan, underwent several transformations. Karl Hoffmann traced the following stages for Avestan as found in the extant texts. In roughly chronological order:
- The natural language of the composers of the Gathas, the Yasna Haptanghaiti, the four sacred prayers (Y. 27 and 54).
- Changes precipitated by slow chanting
- Changes to Old Avestan due to transmission by native speakers of Younger Avestan
- The natural language of the composers of grammatically correct Younger Avestan texts
- Deliberate changes introduced through "standardization"
- Changes introduced by transfer to regions where Avestan was not spoken
- Adaptions/Translations of portions of texts from other regions
- Composition of ungrammatical late Avestan texts
- Phonetic notation of the Avestan texts in the Sasanian archetype
- Post-Sasanian deterioration of the written transmission due to incorrect pronunciation
- Errors and corruptions introduced during copying
Many phonetic features cannot be ascribed with certainty to a particular stage since there may be more than one possibility. Every phonetic form that can be ascribed to the Sasanian archetype on the basis of critical assessment of the manuscript evidence must have gone through the stages mentioned above so that "Old Avestan" and "Young Avestan" really mean no more than "Old Avestan and Young Avestan of the Sasanian period."
Alphabet
The script used for writing Avestan developed during the 3rd or 4th century AD. By then the language had been extinct for many centuries, and remained in use only as a liturgical language of the Avesta canon. As is still the case today, the liturgies were memorized by the priesthood and recited by rote.
The script devised to render Avestan was natively known as Din dabireh "religion writing". It has 53 distinct characters and is written right-to-left. Among the 53 characters are about 30 letters that are â€" through the addition of various loops and flourishes â€" variations of the 13 graphemes of the cursive Pahlavi script (i.e. "Book" Pahlavi) that is known from the post-Sassanian texts of Zoroastrian tradition. These symbols, like those of all the Pahlavi scripts, are in turn based on Aramaic script symbols. Avestan also incorporates several letters from other writing systems, most notably the vowels, which are mostly derived from Greek minuscules. A few letters were free inventions, as were also the symbols used for punctuation. Also, the Avestan alphabet has one letter that has no corresponding sound in the Avestan language; the character for /l/ (a sound that Avestan does not have) was added to write Pazend texts.
Avestan script is alphabetic, and the large number of letters suggests that its design was due to the need to render the orally recited texts with high phonetic precision. The correct enunciation of the liturgies was (and still is) considered necessary for the prayers to be effective.
The Zoroastrians of India, who represent one of the largest surviving Zoroastrian communities worldwide, also transcribe Avestan in Brahmi-based scripts. This is a relatively recent development first seen in the ca. 12th century texts of Neryosang Dhaval and other Parsi Sanskritist theologians of that era, and which are roughly contemporary with the oldest surviving manuscripts in Avestan script. Today, Avestan is most commonly typeset in Gujarati script (Gujarati being the traditional language of the Indian Zoroastrians). Some Avestan letters with no corresponding symbol are synthesized with additional diacritical marks, for example, the /z/ in zaraÏ'uÅ¡tra is written with /j/ + dot below.
Phonology
Avestan has retained voiced sibilants, and has fricative rather than aspirate series. There are various conventions for transliteration of DÄ«n Dabireh, the one adopted for this article being:
Vowels:
- a Ä É™ ə̄ e Ä" o Šå Ä… i Ä« u Å«
Consonants:
- k g γ x xÊ· Ä Ç° t d δ Ï' tÌ° p b β f
- ŋ ŋʷ ṇ ń n m y w r s z š ṣ̌ ž h
The glides y and w are often transcribed as ii and uu, imitating DÄ«n Dabireh orthography. The letter transcribed tÌ° indicates an allophone of /t/ with no audible release at the end of a word and before certain obstruents.
Consonants
According to Beekes, [ð] and [ɣ] are allophones of /θ/ and /x/ respectively (in Old Avestan).
Vowels
Grammar
Nouns
Verbs
Sample text
See also
- Proto-Iranian language
- Proto-Indo-Iranian language
- Proto-Indo-European language
Notes
References
