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Avestan ( ) entry "Avestan" is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family and was originally spoken during the Avestan period ( – 400 BCE) by the Iranians living in eastern Greater Iran as evidenced from names in Avestan geography.
After Avestan Language death, its were transmitted Oral literature, then collected and Sasanian Avesta during the Sasanian empire ( – 500 CE). The Avesta falls into two groups: Old Avestan ( – 900 BCE) and Younger Avestan ( – 400 BCE). The immediate ancestor of Old Avestan was the Proto-Iranian language, a sister language to the Proto-Indo-Aryan language, with both having developed from the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian language. As such, Old Avestan is quite close in both grammar and lexicon to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language.
The modern name Avestan is instead derived from the Avesta, which is the name of the written collection of the Avestan texts. This collection was created during the Sasanian empire to complement the, up to then, purely oral tradition. Like Vedic Sanskrit, Avestan is therefore a language which is named after the text corpus in which it is used and simply means language of the Avesta. The name Avesta comes from Persian language (avestâ) itself derived from Middle Persian abestāg. It might originate from a hypothetical Avestan term *upastāvaka (praise song). The language was sometimes called Zend in older works, stemming from a misunderstanding of the Zend (commentaries and interpretations of Zoroastrian scripture) as synonymous with the Avesta itself, due to both often being bundled together as Zend-Avesta.
Avestan is an Old Iranian language and, together with Old Persian, one of the two languages from that period for which longer texts are available. Other known Old Iranian languages, like Median language and early Scythian, are only known from isolated words and personal names. Young Avestan shows morphological and syntactical similarities with Old Persian, which may indicate that both were spoken around the same time. On the other hand, Old Avestan is substantially more archaic than either of these and largely agrees morphologically with Vedic Sanskrit, i.e., the oldest known Indo-Aryan language. This suggests that only a limited period of time has elapsed since the two separated from their common Indo-Iranian ancestor.
Scholars traditionally classify Iranian languages as Eastern or Western according to certain grammatical features, and within this framework Avestan is sometimes classified as Eastern Old Iranian. However, as for instance Sims-Williams and Schmitt have pointed out, the east–west distinction is of limited meaning for Avestan, as the linguistic developments that later distinguish Eastern from Western Iranian had not yet occurred. Due to some shared developments with Median, Scholars like Skjaervo and Windfuhr have classified Avestan as a Central Iranian language.
However, more recent scholarship has increasingly shifted to an earlier dating. The literature presents a number of reasons for this shift, based on both the Old Avestan and the Young Avestan material. As regards Old Avestan, the Gathas show strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the Rigveda, which in turn is assumed to represent the second half of the second millennium BCE. As regards Young Avestan, texts like the and the Vendidad are situated in the eastern parts of Greater Iran and lack any discernible Persian or Median Empire influence from Western Iran. This is interpreted such that the bulk of this material, which has been produced several centuries after Zarathustra, must still predate the sixth century BCE. As a result, more recent scholarship often assumes that the major parts of the Young Avestan texts mainly reflect the first half of the first millennium BCE, whereas the Old Avestan texts of Zarathustra may have been composed around 1000 BCE or even as early as 1500 BCE.
It is not known at what point Avestan Language death. Even the Young Avestan texts are still quite archaic and show no signs of evolving into a hypothetical Middle Iranian stage of development. In addition, none of the known Middle Iranian languages are the successor of Avestan. The Zend, i.e., the Middle Persian commentaries of the Avesta show that Avestan was no longer fully understood by the Zoroastrian commentators, indicating that it was no longer a living language by the late Sasanian empire. It has been suggested that the ancestor of Pashto was close to Old Avestan.
Due to this geographical uncertainty, as well as the lack of any dateable historical events within the texts themselves, linking any given archeological culture with the speakers of Avestan has remained difficult. Among possible candidates, the Yaz culture has been named as likely.Mallory, J. P. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture. page 653. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. . entry "Yazd culture". This is due to the fact that it is connected with the southward spread of steppe-derived Iranic groups, the presence of farming practices consisted with the Young Avestan society and the lack of burial sites, indicating the Zoroastrian practice of open air excarnation.
In the first stage, Old Avestan would have become the liturgical language of the early Zoroastrian community as described in the Young Avestan texts. Karl Hoffmann for instance identifies changes introduced due to slow Cantillation, the insertion of Young Avestan phonetic features into the material, attempts at standardizations as well as other editorial changes. The Young Avestan texts, however, were still produced, recomposed, and handed down during this time in a fluid oral tradition.
In the next stage, the Young Avestan texts crystallized as well meaning that both the Young and Old Avestan texts became the fixed, liturgical literature of non-Avestan Zoroastrian communities. The transmission of this literature largely took place in Western Iran as evidenced by alterations introduced by native Persian speakers. In addition, different scholars have tried to identify other dialects that may have impacted the pronunciation of certain Avestan features during the transmission, possibly before they reached Persis. Some Young Avestan texts, like the Vendidad, show ungrammatical features and may have been partly recomposed by non-Avestan speakers.
The purely oral transmission came to an end during the 5th or 6th century CE, when the Avestan corpus was committed to written form. This was achieved through the creation of the Avestan alphabet resulting in the Sasanian Avesta. Despite this, the post Sasanian written transmission saw a further deterioration of the Avestan texts. A large portion of the literature was lost after the 10th century CE and the surviving texts show signs of incorrect pronunciations and copying errors.
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 Sasanid Empire".
The script devised to render Avestan was natively known as Avestan alphabet "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 Pahlavi scripts (i.e. Book Pahlavi) that is known from the post-Sasanian 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 (a sound that Avestan does not have) was added to write Pazend texts.
The Avestan script is , 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 texts of Neryosang Dhaval and other Parsi Sanskritist theologians of that era, which are roughly contemporary with the oldest surviving manuscripts in Avestan script. Today, Avestan is most commonly typeset in the 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 in zaraθuštra is written with j with a dot below.
Vowels:
The glides y and w are often transcribed as < ii> and < uu>. The letter transcribed < t̰> indicates an allophone of with no audible release at the end of a word and before certain .
According to Beekes, and are allophones of and respectively (in Old Avestan).
| + Primary active endings |
| With outspread hands in petition for that help, O Mazda, I will pray for the works of the holy spirit, O thou the Right, whereby I may please the will of Good Thought and the Ox-Soul. |
| Can also mean "he is hot" or "she is hot" (in temperature) |
| Literally: "You let me understand" |
| Present tense |
| Present tense |
| Present tense |
| Literally: "They let them follow" |
| Literally: "I let thee rest" |
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