Proto-Iranian or Proto-Iranic is the reconstructed

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unatte ...

of the

Iranian languages The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian langu ...

branch of

Indo-European language The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia ( ...

family and thus the ancestor of the

such as Persian,

Pashto Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...

, Sogdian, Zazaki, Ossetian, Mazandarani, Kurdish, Talysh and others. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the

2nd millennium BC File:2nd millennium BC montage.jpg, 400x400px, From top left clockwise: Hammurabi, Babylonian king, best known for his Code of Hammurabi, code of laws; The gold Mask of Tutankhamun, funerary mask of Tutankhamun has become a symbol of ancient Egypt ...

and are usually connected with the Andronovo archaeological horizon (see

Indo-Iranians The Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Ā́rya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European speaking peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages to parts of Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia in waves from the f ...

). Proto-Iranian was a satem language descended from the

Proto-Indo-Iranian language Proto-Indo-Iranian, also called Proto-Indo-Iranic or Proto-Aryan, is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd ...

, which in turn, came from the

Proto-Indo-European language Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Eu ...

. It was likely removed less than a millennium from the

Avestan Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...

language, and less than two millennia from Proto-Indo-European.

Dialects

Skjærvø postulates that there were at least four dialects that initially developed out of Proto-Iranian, two of which are attested by texts: # ''Old Northwest Iranian'' (unattested, ancestor of Ossetian) # ''Old Northeast Iranian'' (unattested, ancestor of Middle Iranian Khotanese and modern Wakhi) # ''Old Central Iranian'' (attested, includes

and

Median The median of a set of numbers is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a Sample (statistics), data sample, a statistical population, population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as the “ ...

, ancestor of most modern Iranian languages) # ''Old Southwest Iranian'' (attested, includes

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 (I ...

, ancestor of

modern Persian New Persian (), also known as Modern Persian () is the current stage of the Persian language spoken since the 8th to 9th centuries until now in Greater Iran and surroundings. It is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian (8th/ ...

) Note that different terminology is used for the modern languages: Ossetian has often been classified as a "Northeast Iranian" language, while "Northwest Iranian" usually refers to languages to the northwest of Persian, such as Zaza or the

Caspian languages The Caspian languages are a branch of Northwestern Iranian languages spoken in northern Iran and south-eastern Azerbaijan, south of the Caspian Sea. They are unique in that they share certain typological features with Kartvelian languages ...

Phonological correspondences

Development into Old Iranian

The term

Old Iranian The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian language ...

refers to the stage in Iranian history represented by the earliest written languages:

and

. These two languages are usually considered to belong to different main branches of Iranian, and many of their similarities are found also in the other Iranian languages. Regardless, there are many arguments that many of these Old Iranian features may not have occurred yet in Proto-Iranian, and they may have instead spread across an Old Iranian dialect continuum already separated in dialects (see Wave theory). Additionally, most Iranian languages cannot be derived from either attested Old Iranian language: numerous unwritten Old Iranian dialects must have existed, whose descendants surface in the written record only later. ; Vocalization of laryngeals The Proto-Indo-European laryngeal consonants are likely to have been retained quite late in the Indo-Iranian languages in at least some positions. However, the syllabic laryngeal (''*H̥'') was deleted in non-initial syllables. ; *l > *r This change is found widely across the Iranian languages, indeed Indo-Iranian as a whole: it appears also in

Vedic Sanskrit Vedic Sanskrit, also simply referred as the Vedic language, is the most ancient known precursor to Sanskrit, a language in the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is atteste ...

. Avestan has no **/l/ phoneme at all. Regardless many words, for which the other Indo-European languages indicate original *l, still show /l/ in several Iranian languages, including New Persian, Kurdish and Zazaki. These include e.g. Persian ''lab'' 'lip', ''līz-'' 'to lick', ''gulū'' 'throat' (compare e.g. Latin ); Zazaki ''lü'' 'fox' (compare e.g. Latin ). This preservation is however not systematic, and likely has been mostly diminished through interdialectal loaning of ''r''-forms, and in some cases extended by the loaning of words from smaller western Iranian languages into Persian. ; *s > *h Exactly, this

debuccalization Debuccalization or deoralization is a sound change or alternation in which an oral consonant loses its original place of articulation and moves it to the glottis (, , or ). The pronunciation of a consonant as is sometimes called aspiration ...

occurred when not preceded ''*k'', ''*n'', ''*p'', ''*t'' or followed ''*t'' (which otherwise retained as ''*s''). This change occurs in all Iranian languages. ;Aspirated stops The Proto-Indo-Iranian aspirated stops *pʰ, *tʰ and *kʰ were spirantized into *f, *θ and *x in most Iranian languages. However, they appear to be reverted into aspirates in Parachi, varieties of Kurdish, and the Saka languages (Khotanese and Tumshuqese, but not Wakhi which retains the fricatives); and to have merged with the voiceless aspirated stops in Balochi. In the case of Saka, secondary influence from Gāndhārī Prakrit is likely. ; *c, *dz > *s, *z The Proto-Indo-European palatovelars *ḱ, *ǵ (and *ǵʰ) were fronted to affricates *ć, *dź in Proto-Indo-Iranian (the affricate stage being preserved in the

Nuristani languages The Nuristani languages are one of the three groups within the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian language family, alongside the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages, Iranian languages. They have approximately 214,000 speakers ...

). The development in the Old Iranian period shows divergences: Avestan, as also most newer Iranian languages, show /s/ and /z/, while Old Persian shows /θ/ and /d/. (Word-initially, the former develops also into /s/ by

Middle Persian Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...

.) — The change *c > *s must be also newer than the development *s > *h, since this new *s was not affected by the previous change. The consonant cluster ''*ts'' (as in Proto-Indo-Iranian ''*matsya-'' "fish") has merged to ''*c'', since both were identical in Iranian. ; *cw > *sp This change also clearly fails to apply to all Iranian languages. Old Persian with its descendants shows /s/, possibly likewise Kurdish and Balochi. The Saka languages show /š/. All other Iranian languages have /sp/, or a further descendant (e.g. /fs/ in Ossetian). ; *θr > *c This change is typical for Old Persian and its descendants, as opposed to Avestan and most languages first attested in the Middle or New Iranian periods. Kurdish and Balochi may again have shared this change as well.

Dialects

Phonological correspondences

Development into Old Iranian

Notes

References

Further reading