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 unattes ...

of the

Iranian languages The Iranian languages or 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 languages are groupe ...

branch of Indo-European language family and thus the ancestor of the

such as

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, Sogdian,

Zazaki Zaza or Zazaki (), is an Iranian language spoken primarily in eastern Turkey by the Zazas. The language is a part of the Zaza–Gorani language group of the northwestern group of the Iranian branch. The glossonym Zaza originated as a pejorativ ...

, Ossetian, Mazandarani,

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

Talysh Talysh may refer to: *Talysh people * History of Talysh *Talysh language *Talysh Khanate, in existence from 1747 to 1828 *Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic, a self-declared autonomy, which existed briefly in the south of Azerbaijan in 1993 *Talysh ...

and others. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the

2nd millennium BC The 2nd millennium BC spanned the years 2000 BC to 1001 BC. In the Ancient Near East, it marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. The Ancient Near Eastern cultures are well within the historical era: The first half of the mil ...

and are usually connected with the Andronovo archaeological horizon (see

Indo-Iranians Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Indo-Iranic peoples by scholars, and sometimes as Arya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European l ...

). Proto-Iranian was a satem language descended from the Proto-Indo-Iranian language, 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. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...

. It was likely removed less than a millennium from the Avestan 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 Avestan and Median, ancestor of most modern Iranian languages) # ''Old Southwest Iranian'' (attested, includes Old Persian, ancestor of

modern Persian New Persian ( fa, فارسی نو), also known as Modern Persian () and Dari (), 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 thre ...

) 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 South Caucasian langua ...

Phonological correspondences

Development into Old Iranian

The term

Old Iranian The Iranian languages or 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 languages are grouped ...

refers to the stage in Iranian history represented by the earliest written languages: Avestan and Old Persian. 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. ; *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 was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid- 2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preser ...

. 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,

and

. 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 This change occurs in all Iranian languages, but is regardless sometimes thought to be later than Proto-Iranian, based on the Old Persian name ''Huša'', thought to refer to Susa. ;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 retained in

Parachi Parachi (''Parāčī'') is an Iranian languages, Iranian language. Parachi is spoken by some 600 individuals of the Parachi ethnic group in eastern Afghanistan, mainly in the upper part of Nijrab District, northeast of Kabul province, Kabul, ou ...

, varieties of Kurdish, and the Saka languages (Khotanese, Tumshuqese and Wakhi); 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 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 or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle ...

.) — The change *c > *s must be also newer than the development *s > *h, since this new *s was not affected by the previous change. ; *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

References

Further reading