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Avestan language
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Avestan is a Eastern Iranian language that was used to compose the sacred hymns and canon of the Zoroastrian Avesta. Iranian languages are part of the hypothetical Indo-Iranian Language group. The Indo-Iranian language group is a branch of the Indo-European language family.
Despite this modern linguistic classification of Avestan language, the determination of the geographical location of Avestan language is however by no means complete.
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Encyclopedia
Avestan is a Eastern Iranian language that was used to compose the sacred hymns and canon of the Zoroastrian Avesta. Iranian languages are part of the hypothetical Indo-Iranian Language group. The Indo-Iranian language group is a branch of the Indo-European language family.
Despite this modern linguistic classification of Avestan language, the determination of the geographical location of Avestan language is however by no means complete. Although modern scholars are increasingly pointing to eastern Iran as the origins of the Avestan language, there is evidence of an Avestan homeland in north-western Iran.
The Avestan language, as reflected in the Avesta, is divided into two different forms:
- Old Avestan or Gathic Avestan: This form of the language was used to compose the Gathas and other more ancient portions of the Yasna. Gathic Avestan is an archaic language with a complicated grammar which consists of eight case forms and a highly inflected noun system. It is closely related to the Vedic Sanskrit, and indeed shares many cognates with it. Like Zoroaster's lifetime, widely differing dates for Avestan have been proposed; scholarly consensus floats around 1000 BCE.
- Young Avestan: the language used for composing the greater part of the Avesta, including many of the Yashts, the Visperad, Vendidad and some sections of the Yasna. Young Avestan itself has two forms, one called Original Young Avestan, and the other, Artificial Young Avestan. The first form was probably a natural development of Old Avestan and was most likely also a spoken language up to the 8th century BCE. The Artificial Young Avestan however is a corrupt form of the language, a form that was never spoken and was used by the priesthood in later times in order to compose new texts. The Vendidad is the most significant collection of texts that were composed in Artificial Young Avestan.
Alphabet
The script used for writing Avestan developed during the 3rd or 4th century. By then the language had been extinct for many centuries, and remained in use only as a liturgical language of the Avesta canon (cf. language extinction). 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 – through the addition of various loops and flourishes – 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. Avestan also has one letter that is not used for Avestan; 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 zara?uštra 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 Din Dabireh, the one adopted for this article being:
Vowels:
-
Consonants:
-
The glides y and w are often transcribed as ii and uu, imitating Din Dabireh orthography.
Consonants
Vowels
Grammar
Nouns
| Case | "normal" endings | a-stems: (masc. neut.) |
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| Singular | Dual | Plural | Singular | Dual | Plural |
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| Nominative | -s | -a | -o (-as), -a | -o (yasn-o) | -a (vir-a) | -a (-yasna) | | Vocative | - | -a | -o (-as), -a | -a (ahur-a) | -a (yasn-a), -ĺngho | | Accusative | -em | -a | -o (-as, -ns), -a | -em (ahur-em) | -a (vir-a) | -a (haom-a) | | Instrumental | -a | -bya | -biš | -a (ahur-a) | -aeibya (vir-aeibya) | -aiš (yasn-aiš) | | Dative | -e | -bya | -byo (-byas) | -ai (ahur-ai) | -aeibya (vir-aeibya) | -aeibyo (yasn-aeibyo) | | Ablative | -at | -bya | -byo | -at (yasn-at) | -aeibya (vir-aeibya) | -aeibyo (yasn-aeibyo) | | Genitive | -o (-as) | -ĺ | -am | -ahe (ahur-ahe) | -ayĺ (vir-ayĺ) | -anam (yasn-anam) | | Locative | -i | -o, -yo | -su, -hu, -šva | -e (yesn-e) | -ayo (zast-ayo) | -aešu (vir-aešu), -aešva | |
Verbs
Primary active endings | Person | Sg. | Du. | Pl. |
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| 1. | -mi | -vahi | -mahi |
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| 2. | -hi | -tha | -tha |
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| 3. | -ti | -to, -tho | -ngti |
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See also
External links
- : Avestan lessons, Grammar, Dictionaries, etc.
- : Grammars of Old and Young Avestan.
- (contains suggestion for Avestan encoding)
- Avesta Corpus, Titus text collection. On the basis of the editions by K. F. Geldner, Avesta. The Sacred Books of the Parsis, Stuttgart 1889-96; N. L. Westgaard, Zendavesta or The Religious Books of the Zoroastrians, Copenhagen 1852-54, and others. Digitized text: .
- M. Boyce, Avestan people, Encyclopaedia Iranica, .
- G. Gnoli, Avestan geography, Encyclopaedia Iranica, .
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