![Iranian languages distribution](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Iranian_languages_distribution.png)
The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup 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 grouped ...
emerging in
Middle 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 groupe ...
times (from c. the 4th century BC). The
Avestan language
Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...
is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. As opposed to the Middle Western Iranian dialects, the Middle Eastern Iranian preserves word-final syllables.
The largest living Eastern Iranian language is
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 languages ...
, with some 40-60 million speakers between the
Oxus River in
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
and the
Indus River
The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...
in
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
. The second-largest language is
Ossetic
Ossetian (, , ), commonly referred to as Ossetic and rarely as Ossete (), is an Eastern Iranian language that is spoken predominantly in Ossetia, a region situated on both sides of the Greater Caucasus. It is the native language of the Ossetia ...
with roughly 600,000 speakers. All other languages have fewer than 200,000 speakers combined.
Most living Eastern Iranian languages are spoken in a contiguous area, in southern and eastern Afghanistan as well as the adjacent parts of western Pakistan,
Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province
Gorno-Badakhshan, officially the Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region,, abbr. / is an autonomous region in eastern Tajikistan, in the Pamir Mountains. It makes up nearly forty-five percent of the country's land area, but only two percen ...
of eastern
Tajikistan
Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
, and the far west of
Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
region
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...
of
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. There are also two living members in widely separated areas: the
Yaghnobi language
Yaghnobi is an Eastern Iranian language spoken in the upper valley of the Yaghnob River in the Zarafshan area of Tajikistan by the Yaghnobi people. It is considered to be a direct descendant of Sogdian and has sometimes been called Neo-Sog ...
of northwestern Tajikistan (descended from
Sogdian), and the
Ossetic language
Ossetian (, , ), commonly referred to as Ossetic and rarely as Ossete (), is an Eastern Iranian language that is spoken predominantly in Ossetia, a region situated on both sides of the Greater Caucasus. It is the native language of the Osseti ...
of the
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...
(descended from
Scytho-Sarmatian
The Scythian languages are a group of Eastern Iranian languages of the classical and late antique period (the Middle Iranian period), spoken in a vast region of Eurasia by the populations belonging to the Scythian cultures and their descend ...
). These are remnants of a vast ethno-linguistic continuum that stretched over most of
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
,
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
, and parts of the Caucasus, and
West Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...
in the 1st millennium BC, otherwise known as
Scythia
Scythia (Scythian: ; Old Persian: ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) or Scythica (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ), also known as Pontic Scythia, was a kingdom created by the Scythians during the 6th to 3rd centuries BC in the Pontic–Caspian steppe.
Hi ...
. The large Eastern Iranian continuum in Eastern Europe would continue up to including the 4th century AD, with the successors of the Scythians, namely the
Sarmatians
The Sarmatians (; grc, Σαρμαται, Sarmatai; Latin: ) were a large confederation of Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern Iranian peoples, Iranian Eurasian nomads, equestrian nomadic peoples of classical ant ...
.
[J.Harmatta: "Scythians" in ]UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
Collection of History of Humanity {{COI, date=July 2011
The ''History of Humanity'' is part of UNESCO's General and Regional Histories Collection. The publication seeks to contribute to mutual understanding and dialogue between cultures and civilizations. This series seeks to il ...
– Volume III: From the Seventh Century BC to the Seventh Century AD. Routledge/UNESCO. 1996. pg. 182
History
Western Iranian
The Western Iranic languages are a branch of the Iranic languages, attested from the time of Old Persian (6th century BC) and Median.
Languages
The traditional Northwestern branch is a convention for non-Southwestern languages, rather than a g ...
is thought to have separated from
Proto-Iranian in the course of the later 2nd millennium BC not long after
Avestan
Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...
, possibly occurring in the
Yaz culture
The Yaz culture (named after the type site Yaz-Tappe, Yaz Tepe, or Yaz Depe, near Baýramaly, Turkmenistan) was an early Iron Age culture of Margiana, Bactria and Sogdia (ca. 1500–500 BC, or ca. 1500–330 BC). It emerges at the top of late Bro ...
. Eastern Iranian followed suit, and developed in place of Proto-Iranian, spoken within the
Andronovo horizon.
With
Greek presence in Central Asia, some of the easternmost of these languages were recorded in their
Middle 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 groupe ...
stage (hence the "Eastern" classification), while almost no records of the Scytho-Sarmatian continuum stretching from
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
west across the
Pontic steppe
Pontic, from the Greek ''pontos'' (, ), or "sea", may refer to:
The Black Sea Places
* The Pontic colonies, on its northern shores
* Pontus (region), a region on its southern shores
* The Pontic–Caspian steppe, steppelands stretching from no ...
to
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
have survived. Some authors find that the Eastern Iranian people had an influence on Russian folk culture.
Middle Persian/Dari spread around the Oxus River region, Afghanistan, and
Khorasan
Khorasan may refer to:
* Greater Khorasan, a historical region which lies mostly in modern-day northern/northwestern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan
* Khorasan Province, a pre-2004 province of Ira ...
after the Arab conquests and during Islamic-Arab rule.
The replacement of the Pahlavi script with the Arabic script in order to write the Persian language was done by the Tahirids in 9th century Khorasan. The Persian Dari language spread and led to the extinction of Eastern Iranic languages like
Bactrian and
Khorezmian, with only a tiny amount of
Sogdian descended
Yaghnobi speakers remaining among the now Persian speaking Tajik population of Central Asia, due to the fact that the Arab-Islamic army which invaded Central Asia also included some Persians who later governed the region like the Samanids.
Persian was rooted into Central Asia by the Samanids.
Classification
Eastern Iranian remains in large part a dialect continuum subject to common innovation. Traditional branches, such as "Northeastern", as well as Eastern Iranian itself, are better considered
language area
A sprachbund (, lit. "language federation"), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The lang ...
s rather than genetic groups.
[Nicholas Sims-Williams]
Eastern Iranian languages
in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, 2008[Antje Wendtland (2009), ''The position of the Pamir languages within East Iranian'']
Orientalia Suecana LVIII
/ref>
The languages are as follows:[Gernot Windfuhr, 2009, "Dialectology and Topics", ''The Iranian Languages'', Routledge]
;Old Iranian period
*Northeast: Scythian
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Centra ...
, Old Saka,† etc.
*Central Iranian: Avestan
Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...
† (c. 1000 – 7th century BC)
Avestan is sometimes classified as Eastern Iranian, but is not assigned to a branch in recent classifications.
;Middle Iranian period
* Bactrian†, c. 4th century BC – 9th century AD
* Khwarezmian† (Chorasmian) c. 4th century BC – 13th century AD
* Sogdian†, from c. the 4th century AD
* Scytho-Khotanese (Saka)† (c. 5th century – 10th century AD) and Tumshuqese
Saka, or Sakan, was a variety of Eastern Iranian languages, attested from the ancient Buddhist kingdoms of Khotan, Kashgar and Tumshuq in the Tarim Basin, in what is now southern Xinjiang, China. It is a Middle Iranian language. The two ...
† (formerly Maralbashi, 7th century AD)
* Scytho-Sarmatian
The Scythian languages are a group of Eastern Iranian languages of the classical and late antique period (the Middle Iranian period), spoken in a vast region of Eurasia by the populations belonging to the Scythian cultures and their descend ...
†, from c. the 8th century BC
;Modern languages (Neo-Iranian)
* 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 languages ...
(dialects: Northern, Southern, Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
, and others)
** Wanetsi
Waṇetsi ( wne, وڼېڅي), commonly called Tarīno ( wne, links=no, ترينو), and sometimes Tsalgari ( wne, links=no, څلګري), is a distinct variety of Pashto and is considered by some to be a different language. In some cases, Wanet ...
* Pamir languages
** North Pamir
*** Yazgulami, Old Wanji (Vanji)†
*** Shughni, Roshorvi, Bajuwi, Barwozi, Roshani, Khufi, Bartangi, Sarikoli
** Sanglechi-Ishkashimi (dialects: Sanglechi, Ishkashimi, Zebaki
Sanglechi is an Iranian language spoken in villages in the Zebak District of Afghanistan: Dashte Rubat, Esketul, Faruq, Flaxmadek, Sar-Sanglech, and Takya. It is also spoken in Tajikistan, where it is called Sanglich. The name comes from the San ...
)
** Wakhi
* Munji-Yidgha
** Munji
** Yidgha
* Ormuri-Parachi
** Ormuri
Ormuri (Pashto: ارموری ژبه) fa, زبان ارموری; literally, "Ormuri language") also known as ''Baraki, Ormur, Ormui or Bargista '' is an Eastern Iranian language spoken in Southeast Afghanistan and Waziristan. It is primarily spo ...
** 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 ...
* Northern
** Yaghnobi
** Ossetian (dialects: Iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...
, Digor, Jassic†)
Characteristics
The Eastern Iranian area has been affected by widespread sound changes, e.g. t͡ʃ > ts.
# The initial syllable was in this word lost entirely in Yaghnobi due to a stress shift.
Lenition of voiced stops
Common to most Eastern Iranian languages is a particularly widespread lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonority hierarchy, sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronic analysis, s ...
of the voiced stops *b, *d, *g. Between vowels, these have been lenited also in most Western Iranian languages, but in Eastern Iranian, spirantization also generally occurs in the word-initial position. This phenomenon is however not apparent in Avestan, and remains absent from Ormuri-Parachi.
A series of spirant
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
consonants can be assumed to have been the first stage: *b > *β, *d > *ð, *g > *ɣ. The voiced velar fricative
The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in various spoken languages. It is not found in Modern English but existed in Old English. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , ...
has mostly been preserved. The labial member has been well-preserved too, but in most languages has shifted from a voiced bilabial fricative
The voiced bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is B. The official symbol is the ...
to the voiced labiodental fricative
The voiced labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is v.
The sound is similar to vo ...
. The dental member has proved the most unstable: while a voiced dental fricative
The voiced dental fricative is a consonant sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the ''th'' sound in ''father''. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is eth, or and was taken from the Old Engli ...
is preserved in some Pamir languages, it has in e.g. Pashto and Munji lenited further to . On the other hand, in Yaghnobi and Ossetian, the development appears to have been reversed, leading to the reappearance of a voiced stop . (Both languages have also shifted earlier *θ > .)
The consonant clusters *ft and *xt have also been widely lenited, though again excluding Ormuri-Parachi, and possibly Yaghnobi.
External influences
The neighboring Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...
have exerted a pervasive external influence on the closest neighbouring Eastern Iranian, as it is evident in the development in the retroflex consonant
A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the har ...
s (in Pashto, Wakhi, Sanglechi, Khotanese, etc.) and aspirates (in Khotanese, Parachi and Ormuri). A more localized sound change is the backing of the former retroflex fricative ''ṣ̌'' , to ''x̌'' or to ''x'' , found in the Shughni–Yazgulyam branch and certain dialects of Pashto. E.g. "meat": ''ɡuṣ̌t'' in Wakhi and ''γwaṣ̌a'' in Southern Pashto, but changes to in Shughni, ''γwax̌a'' in Central and Northern Pashto.
Notes
* Munji ''dā'' is a borrowing from 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 ...
but Yidgha still uses ''los''.
* Ormuri ''marzā'' has a different etymological origin, but generally Ormuri ''bis preserved unchanged, e.g. ''*bastra-'' > ''bēš'', Ormuri for "cord" (cf. Avestan ''band-'' "to tie").
* Ossetic ''ærvad'' means "relative". The word for "brother" ''æfsymær'' is of a different etymological source.
See also
* Western Iranian languages
The Western Iranic languages are a branch of the Iranic languages, attested from the time of Old Persian (6th century BC) and Median.
Languages
The traditional Northwestern branch is a convention for non-Southwestern languages, rather than a g ...
* Dari (Eastern Persian)
Dari (, , ), also known as Dari Persian (, ), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,Lazard, G.Darī ...
, a dialect of a Western Iranian language, despite the name
* Sakan language
References
External links
* ''Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum'', ed. Schmitt (1989), p. 100.
{{Iranian languages