Avestan alphabetThe Avestan alphabet (Middle Persian: transliteration: dyn' dpywryh, transcription: dēn dēbīrē, دین دبیره) is a writing system developed during Iran's Sasanian era (226–651 CE) to render the Avestan language. As a side effect of its development, the script was also used for Pazend, a method of writing Middle Persian that was used primarily for Zend commentaries on the texts of the Avesta. In the texts of Zoroastrian tradition, the alphabet is referred to as "the religion's script" (dēn dibīrih in Middle Persian and din dabireh in New Persian).
Sasanian EmpireThe Sasanian Empire (səˈsɑːniən,_səˈseɪniən), officially known as Eranshahr ("Land/Empire of the Iranians"), was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th–8th centuries AD. Named after the House of Sasan, it endured for over four centuries, from 224 to 651 AD, making it the longest-lived Persian imperial dynasty. The Sasanian Empire succeeded the Parthian Empire, and re-established the Persians as a major power in late antiquity alongside its neighbouring arch-rival, the Roman Empire (after 395 the Byzantine Empire).
Proto-Sinaitic scriptProto-Sinaitic (also referred to as Proto-Canaanite when found in Canaan, or Early Alphabetic) is found in a small corpus of 40 inscriptions and fragments, the vast majority from Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai Peninsula, dating to the Middle Bronze Age. They are considered the earliest trace of alphabetic writing and the common ancestor of both the Ancient South Arabian script and the Phoenician alphabet, which led to many modern alphabets including the Greek alphabet.
Iranian languagesThe Iranian languages, also called 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 in three stages: Old Iranian (until 400 BCE), Middle Iranian (400 BCE – 900 CE) and New Iranian (since 900 CE). The two directly-attested Old Iranian languages are Old Persian (from the Achaemenid Empire) and Old Avestan (the language of the Avesta).
Sogdian languageThe Sogdian language was an Eastern Iranian language spoken mainly in the Central Asian region of Sogdia (capital: Samarkand; other chief cities: Panjakent, Fergana, Khujand, and Bukhara), located in modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan; it was also spoken by some Sogdian immigrant communities in ancient China. Sogdian is one of the most important Middle Iranian languages, along with Bactrian, Khotanese Saka, Middle Persian, and Parthian. It possesses a large literary corpus.
AvestanAvestan (əˈvɛstən) is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (c. 1500 – c. 1000 BCE) and Younger Avestan (c. 1000 – c. 500 BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scriptural language of Zoroastrianism, and the Avesta likewise serves as their namesake. Both are early Eastern Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian language branch of the Indo-European language family.
Khwarezmian languageKhwārezmian (Khwarezmian: زڨاکای خوارزم, zβ'k 'y xw'rzm; also transliterated Khwarazmian, Chorasmian, Khorezmian) is an extinct East Iranian language closely related to Sogdian. The language was spoken in the area of Khwarezm (Chorasmia), centered in the lower Amu Darya south of the Aral Sea (the northern part of the modern Republic of Uzbekistan and the adjacent areas of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan). Knowledge of Khwarezmian is limited to its Middle Iranian stage and, as with Sogdian, little is known of its ancient form.
Bactrian languageBactrian (Bactrian: Αριαο, , [arjaː], meaning "Iranian") is an extinct Eastern Iranian language formerly spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria (in present-day Afghanistan) and used as the official language of the Kushan and the Hephthalite empires. It was long thought that Avestan represented "Old Bactrian", but this notion had "rightly fallen into discredit by the end of the 19th century". Bactrian, which was written predominantly in an alphabet based on the Greek script, was known natively as αριαο [arjaː] ("Arya"; an endonym common amongst Indo-Iranian peoples).
Parthian EmpireThe Parthian Empire (ˈpɑrθiən), also known as the Arsacid Empire (ˈɑrsəsɪd), was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe in conquering the region of Parthia in Iran's northeast, then a satrapy (province) under Andragoras, who was rebelling against the Seleucid Empire. Mithridates I (171-132 BC) greatly expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids.
Middle PersianMiddle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg (𐭯𐭠𐭫𐭮𐭩𐭪) 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 Persian continued to function as a prestige language. It descended from Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenid Empire and is the linguistic ancestor of Modern Persian, an official language of Iran, Afghanistan (Dari) and Tajikistan (Tajik).
