Name	Old Persian
Region	Ancient Iran
Extinct	Ancestor of Middle Persian
Familycolor	Indo-European
Fam2	Indo-Iranian
Fam3	Iranian
Script	Old Persian cuneiform
Iso2	peo|iso3peo
Notice	IPA}}

The Old Persian language is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan). Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets, and seals of the Achaemenid era (c. 600 BCE to 300 BCE). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now present-day Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt the most important attestation by far being the contents of the Behistun Inscription (dated to 525 BCE). Recent research into the vast Persepolis Fortification Archive at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago have unearthed Old Persian tablets (2007). This new text shows that the Old Persian language was a written language in use for practical recording and not only for royal display.

Origin and overview

As a written language, Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. It is an Iranian language and as such a member of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscriptions. Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages which is attested in original texts.

The oldest date of use of Old Persian as a spoken language is not precisely known. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in south-western Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by a tribe called ''Parsuwash'' who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present day Fārs province and their language, i.e. Old Persian, became the official language of the Achaemenid kings. The exact identity of the Parsuwash is yet to be determined but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian ''pārsa'' itself coming directly from the older word ''*pārćwa''. The group of Old Iranian languages was presumably a large group; however our knowledge of it is restricted mainly to Old Persian, Avestan and Median. The former are the only languages in that group which have left written original texts while Median is known mostly from loanwords in Old Persian.

Language evolution

By the 4th century, the late Achaemenid period, the inscriptions of Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III differ enough from the language of Darius' inscriptions to be called a "pre-Middle Persian," or "post-Old Persian." Old Persian subsequently evolved into Middle Persian, which is in turn the genetic ancestor of New Persian. Professor Gilbert Lazard, a famous Iranologist and the author of the book ''Persian Grammar'' states:

The language known as New Persian, which usually is called at this period (early Islamic times) by the name of Parsi-Dari, can be classified linguistically as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanian Iran, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenids. Unlike the other languages and dialects, ancient and modern, of the Iranian group such as Avestan, Parthian, Soghdian, Kurdish, Pashto, etc., Old, Middle and New Persian represent one and the same language at three states of its history. It had its origin in Fars and is differentiated by dialectical features, still easily recognizable from the dialect prevailing in north-western and eastern Iran''.

Middle Persian, also sometimes called Pahlavi is a direct continuation of old Persian, and was used as the written official language of the country. Comparison of the evolution at each stage of the language shows great simplification in grammar and syntax. However, New Persian is a direct descendent of Middle and Old Persian.

Substrates

Old Persian "presumably" has a Median language substrate. The Median element is readily identifiable because it did not share in the developments that were peculiar to Old Persian. Median forms "are found only in personal or geographical names [...] and some are typically from religious vocabulary and so could in principle also be influenced by Avestan." "Sometimes, both Median and Old Persian forms are found, which gave Old Persian a somewhat confusing and inconsistent look: 'horse,' for instance, is [attested in Old Persian as] both ''asa'' (OPers.) and ''aspa'' (Med.)."

Script

Old Persian texts were written from left to right in the syllabic Old Persian cuneiform script and had 36 phonetic characters and 8 logograms. The usage of such characters are not obligatory. The script was surprisingly not a result of evolution of the script used in the nearby civilisation of Mesopotamia. Despite the fact that Old Persian was written in cuneiform script, the script was not a direct continuation of Mesopotamian tradition and in fact, according to Schmitt, was a "deliberate creation of the sixth century BCE".

The origin of the Old Persian cuneiform script and the identification of the date and process of introduction is a matter of discussion among Iranian scholars without general agreement being reached. The factors making the decision difficult are, among others, the difficult passage DB (IV lines 88–92) from Darius the Great who speaks of a new “form of writing” being made by himself which is said to be “in Aryan”, and analysis of certain Old Persian inscriptions that are "supposed or claimed" to predate Darius the Great. Although it is true that the oldest attested OP inscriptions are from Behistun monument from Darius, the creation of this "new type of writing" is seemingly, according to Schmitt, "to have begun already under Cyrus the Great".

The script shows a few changes in the shape of characters during the period it was used. This can be seen as a standardization of the heights of wedges which in the beginning (i.e. in DB) took only half the height of a line.

Phonology

The following phonemes are expressed in the Old Persian script:

Vowels

Long: Short:

Consonants

colspan="2"

Labial

[[Dental consonant

! colspan="2"

! colspan="2"

! colspan="2"

!

style="border-right-width: 0;">p

b <

d

style="border-right-width: 0;">c

j <

style="border-right-width: 0;">k

g <

style="border-right-width: 0;">

style="border-right-width: 0;">

m <

style="border-right-width: 0;">

n <

style="border-right-width: 0;">

style="border-right-width: 0;"

style="border-right-width: 0;"

style="border-right-width: 0;">f

style="border-right-width: 0;"

θ <

style="border-right-width: 0;">ç

style="border-right-width: 0;"

x <

style="border-right-width: 0;">h

style="border-right-width: 0;">

style="border-right-width: 0;"

s <

z

style="border-right-width: 0;">š

style="border-right-width: 0;"

style="border-right-width: 0;"

style="border-right-width: 0;">

style="border-right-width: 0;"

r <

style="border-right-width: 0;">

style="border-right-width: 0;"

style="border-right-width: 0;"

style="border-right-width: 0;">

style="border-right-width: 0;"

l <

style="border-right-width: 0;">

style="border-right-width: 0;"

style="border-right-width: 0;"

style="border-right-width: 0;">

v <

style="border-right-width: 0;">

style="border-right-width: 0;"

y <

style="border-right-width: 0;">

style="border-right-width: 0;"

Grammar

Nouns

Old Persian stems:

a-stems (-a, -am, -ā)

i-stems (-iš, iy)

u- (and au-) stems (-uš, -uv)

consonantal stems (n, r, h)

-ā, -āha rowspan="2" -ānām -aišuvā

	-a	-am	-ā
Singular !! Dual !! Plural !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural
Nominative	-a	-ā	|	-am	-ā	-ā	-ā	-ā	-ā
Vocative	-ā		-ā
Accusative	-am						-ām
Instrumental/ Ablative	-ā	|rowspan="2">-aibiš |
Dative		-ahyā, -ahya
Genitive			|	-āyā	-ānām	-āyā	-ānām
Locative	-aiy	|	-aiy		-aišuvā		-āšuvā

rowspan="2" -iš rowspan="2" rowspan="2" -īnām -išuvā

-iš

-iy

-uš

-uv

Singular !! Dual !! Plural !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural

Nominative

-iš

-īy

-iya ||

-iy

-in

-īn

-uš

-ūv

-uva

-uv

-un

-ūn

Vocative

-i

-u

Accusative

-im

|

-um

-ūn

Instrumental/ Ablative

-auš

-ībiyā ||

-ībiš

-auš

-ībiyā

-ībiš

-auv

-ūbiyā

-ūbiš

-auv

-ūbiyā

-ūbiš

Dative

-aiš ||

-auš

-auš

Genitive

|

-īyā

-īnām

-ūvā

-ūnām

-ūvā

-ūnām

Locative

-auv

|

-auv

-išuvā

-āvā

-ušuvā

-āvā

-ušuvā

Adjectives are declinable in similar way.

Verbs

Voices Active, Middle (them. pres. -aiy-, -ataiy-), Passive (-ya-).

Mostly the forms of first and third persons are attested. The only preserved Dual form is ''ajīvatam'' 'both lived'.

+ Present, Active
		!Athematic	!Thematic
'be' !! 'bring'
	1.pers.	aʰmiy	barāmiy
3.pers.	astiy
rowspan="2"	Pl.	1.pers.	aʰmahiy
3.pers.	hatiy

+ Imperfect, Active
		!Athematic	!Thematic
'do, make' !! 'be, become'
	1.pers.	akunavam	abavam
3.pers.	akunauš
rowspan="2"	Pl.	1.pers.	akumā
3.pers.	akunava

+ Present participle
!Active	!Middle
-''nt-''	-''amna-''

+ Past participle

-''ta-''

+ Infinitive

-''tanaiy''

Lexicon

!Proto-Indo-Iranian A^huramazda aspa kāma daiva drayah dasta bāji brātar būmi martya māha vāhara stūnā šiyātaashadruj

|	Old Persian	Middle Persian	Modern Persian	meaning
*asuras mazdhās	|	Ohrmazd	Ormazd اورمزد	Ahura Mazda
*ashva	aśwas	|	asp	asb اسب	horse
*kāma	|	kām	kām کام	benefit
*daiwas	|	dēw	div دیو	devil
	|	drayā	daryā دریا	sea
*źhasta-	|	dast	dast دست	hand
*bhaga	bhāgī	|	bāj	bāj باج/باژ	toll
*bhrātr-	|	brādar	barādar برادر	brother
*bhumi	bhūmiš	|	būm	būm بوم	region, land
*martya	|	mard	mard مرد	man
*māsa	|	māh	māh ماه	moon, month
*vāsara	|	Bahār	bahār بهار	spring
stūpā	|	stūn	sotūn ستون	stand (column)
	|	šād	šād شاد	happy
*ṛtam	arta ||	ard	ord اُرد	order
*drauźh-	droga ||	drōgh	dorōgh دروغ	lie

See also

Notes

Bibliography

: 238-245 : 56–85

Further reading

Persian Category:Southwestern Iranian languages

bg:Староперсийски език cs:Stará perština da:Oldpersisk (sprog) de:Altpersische Sprache el:Αρχαία περσική γλώσσα fa:زبان پارسی باستان fr:Vieux-perse id:Bahasa Persia Kuno is:Fornpersneska it:Lingua persiana antica la:Lingua Persica antiqua lv:Senpersu valoda ms:Bahasa Parsi kuno mdf:Сире персиень no:Gammelpersisk ps:لرغونې پاړسي pl:Język staroperski pt:Língua persa antiga ru:Древнеперсидский язык simple:Old Persian language ckb:زمانی فارسیی کۆن fi:Muinaispersian kieli sv:Fornpersiska th:ภาษาเปอร์เซียโบราณ zh:古波斯語

Name	Iranian
Region	Southwest Asia, Central Asia, and western South Asia
Familycolor	Indo-European
Fam2	Indo-Iranian
Protoname	Proto-Iranian
Child1	Western Iranian
Child2	Eastern Iranian
Iso2	ira
Iso5	ira }}

The Iranian languages (also called Iranic languages) form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn is a subgroup of Indo-European language family. They have been and are spoken by Iranian peoples.

The Iranian languages are considered in three stages of Old (beginning of 2nd millennium BC–400 BCE), Middle (400 BCE – 900 CE), and New (afterwards) stages. From the Old Iranian languages the better understood and recorded ones are Old Persian (a language of Achaemenid Iran) and Avestan (the language of Zarathushtra). Middle Iranian languages included Middle Persian] (a language of Sassanid Iran) and Parthian (a language of Arsacid Iran). There are many New Iranian languages, among which are modern Persian, Pashto and Kurdish.

Today, there are an estimated 150–200 million native speakers of Iranian languages. The Ethnologue lists 87 Iranian languages. Persian has about 65 million native speakers, Pashto about 50-60 million, Kurdish about 18 million, Lurish about 2.3 million, and Baluchi about 7 million.

The term

The term ''Iranian language'' is applied to any language which is "descended from a proto-Iranian parent language". As such these proto-languages were unattested and spoken first and presumably by people/tribes in Russia sometime in the late 3rd to early 2nd millennium BCE. The area in which Iranian languages, i.e. descendants of proto-Iranian language, have been spoken stretches from western China to western Europe. The proto-Iranian language was related to, also unattested, proto-Indo-Aryan language. The proto-Indo-Aryan gave birth to various Indic languages over the time.

The collection of all Iranian languages and all Indo-Aryan languages and "perhaps separate" Nuristani languages is called the Indo-Iranian (IIr.) branch of the Indo-European language family.

The term ''Iranian'' has been introduced 1836 by Christian Lassen, followed by Wilhelm Geiger and his ''Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie'' (1895) whereas Friedrich von Spiegel in 1859 prefers the term ''Eranian''. Robert Needham Cust, however, used the term ''Irano-Aryan'' as early as 1878. Orientalists such as George Abraham Grierson and Max Müller also differentiated between ''Irano-Aryan'' and ''Indo-Aryan.'' Grierson also uses the term ''Eranian''. Recent scholarship has seen a revival of the term ''Irano-Aryan'' in analogy to ''Indo-Aryan.'' The linguist Ahmad Hasan Dani uses the term and asserts Iranian is short for Irano-Aryan. The linguist Gilbert Lazard, specialist for Persian, has been using the term consequently in his publications, whereas Mohammad Djafar suggests to establish ''Aryan'' for the branch.

Classification

Soon after the formation of Indo-European family of languages in 19th century, the Iranian languages (Avestan, Old Persian, ...) together with the Indic languages (Sanskrit, ..) were recognized by works of the linguist Rasmus Rask in 1826 as the eastern branch of Indo-European languages. The Armenian language was also considered as an Iranian language but was very soon (in 1875 effectively) established as a separate language in the Indo-European group of languages.

Iranian languages are divided into Eastern and Western subfamilies, totalling about 84 languages (SIL estimate). Of the most widely-spoken Iranian languages, Kurdish, Persian, and Balochi are all Western Iranian languages, while Pashto is an Eastern Iranian language.

Proto-Iranian and Old Iranian languages

Together with the other Indo-Iranian languages, the Iranian languages are descended from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-Iranian. The Indo-Iranian languages are thought to have originated in southern Russia to the north of the Caucasus. The Andronovo culture is the suggested candidate for the common Indo-Iranian culture ''ca''. 2000 BC.

It was situated precisely in Black Sea Region that borders present-day Russia (and present-day Ukraine). It was in relative proximity to the other satem ethno-linguistic groups of the Indo-European family, like Thracian, Balto-Slavic and others, and to common Indo-European's original homeland (more precisely, the steppes of southern Russia to the north of the Caucasus), according to the reconstructed linguistic relationships of common Indo-European.

Proto-Iranian thus dates to some time after Proto-Indo-Iranian break-up, or the early second millennium BCE, as the Old Iranian languages began to break off and evolve separately as the various Iranian tribes migrated and settled in vast areas of southeastern Europe, the Iranian plateau, and Central Asia.

Avestan, mainly attested through the Avesta, a collection of sacred texts connected to the Zoroastrian religion, is considered to belong to a central Iranian group, where only peripheral groups such as southwestern (represented by Old Persian) and northeastern Sogdian and Sakan language (Scythian) had developed. Among the less known Old Iranian languages is Median, spoken in western and central Iran, which may have had an “official” status during the Median era (ca. 700–559 BC). Apart from place and personal names, some words reported in Herodotus' Histories and some preserved forms in Achaemenid inscriptions, there are numerous non-Persian words in the Old Persian texts that are commonly considered Median. Some of the modern Western and Central Iranian dialects are also likely to be descended from Median.

Other such languages are Carduchi (the predecessor to Kurdish) and Parthian (which evolved into the language of the later empire).

Middle Iranian languages

What is known in Iranian linguistic history as the "Middle Iranian" era is thought to begin around the 4th century BCE lasting through the 9th century. Linguistically and historically one can classify these into two main families, Western and Eastern.

The Western family includes Parthian (Arsacid Pahlavi) and Middle Persian, while Bactrian, Sogdian, Khwarezmian, Saka, and Old Ossetic (Scytho-Sarmatian) fall under the Eastern category. The two languages of the western group were linguistically very close to each other, but quite distinct from their eastern counterparts. On the other hand, the Eastern group retained some similarity to Avestan. They were inscribed in various Aramaic-derived alphabets, which had evolved from the Achaemenid Imperial Aramaic.

Middle Persian (Pahlavi) was the official language of the Sassanids. It was in use from the 3rd century CE until the beginning of the 10th century. Pahlavi and Parthian were also the languages of the Manichaeans, whose texts also survive in various non-Iranian languages, from Latin to Chinese. The ''Imperial Aramaic'' script used in this era underwent significant maturing.

New Iranian languages

Following the Islamic Conquest of Persia (Iran), there were important changes in the role of the different dialects within the Persian Empire. The old prestige form of Middle Iranian, also known as Pahlavi, was replaced by a new standard dialect called Dari as the official language of the court. The name Dari comes from the word ''darbâr'' (دربار), which refers to the royal court, where many of the poets, protagonists, and patrons of the literature flourished. The Saffarid dynasty in particular was the first in a line of many dynasties to officially adopt the new language in 875 CE. Dari may have been heavily influenced by regional dialects of eastern Iran, whereas the earlier Pahlavi standard was based more on western dialects. This new prestige dialect became the basis of Standard New Persian. Medieval Iranian scholars such as Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa (8th century) and Ibn al-Nadim (10th century) associated the term "Dari" with the eastern province of Khorasan, while they used the term "Pahlavi" to describe the dialects of the northwestern areas between Isfahan and Azerbaijan, and "Pârsi" ("Persian" proper) to describe the Dialects of Fars. They also noted that the unofficial language of the royalty itself was yet another dialect, "Khuzi", associated with the western province of Khuzestan.

The Islamic conquest also brought with it the adoption of Arabic script for writing Persian, Pashto and Balochi. All three were adapted to the writing by the addition of a few letters. This development probably occurred some time during the second half of the 8th century, when the old middle Persian script began dwindling in usage. The Arabic script remains in use in contemporary modern Persian. Tajik script was first Latinised in the 1920s under the then Soviet nationality policy. The script was however subsequently Cyrillicized in the 1930s by the Soviet government.

The geographical area in which Iranian languages were spoken was pushed back in several areas by newly neighbouring languages. Arabic spread into some parts of Western Iran (Khuzestan), and Turkic languages spread through much of Central Asia, displacing various Iranian languages such as Sogdian and Bactrian in parts of what is today Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Sogdian barely survives in a small area of the Zarafshan valley east of Samarkand, and Saka (as Sariqoli) in parts of southern Xinjiang as well as Ossetic in the Caucasus. Various small Iranian languages in the Pamirs survive that are derived from Eastern Iranian.

Comparison table

See also

Indo-Iranian languages

List of Iranian languages

Iranian peoples

Notes

References

Bailey, H. W. (1979). ''Dictionary of Khotan Saka''. Cambridge University Press. 1979. 1st Paperback edition 2010. ISBN 978-0-521-14250-2.

External links

Society for Iranian Linguistics

Iranian EFL Journal

Audio and video recordings for over 50 languages spoken in Iran

Category:Iranian peoples

ar:لغات إيرانية an:Luengas iranias ast:Llingües irániques az:İran dilləri bn:ইরানীয় ভাষাসমূহ br:Yezhoù iranek bg:Ирански езици ca:Llengües iràniques cv:Иран чĕлхисем cs:Íránské jazyky da:Iranske sprog de:Iranische Sprachen et:Iraani keeled es:Lenguas iranias eo:Irana lingvaro eu:Iraniar hizkuntzak fa:زبان‌های ایرانی fr:Langues iraniennes ga:Teangacha Iaránacha gl:Linguas iranias glk:ایرانی زوانؤن ko:이란어군 hy:Իրանական լեզուներ hi:ईरानी भाषा परिवार hsb:Iranske rěče hr:Iranski jezici os:Ирайнаг æвзæгтæ it:Lingue iraniche he:שפות איראניות ka:ირანული ენები ku:Zimanên îranî la:Linguae Iranicae lt:Iranėnų kalbos arz:لغات ايرانيه mzn:ایرانیج زوونون nl:Iraanse talen ja:イラン語群 no:Iranske språk nn:Iranske språk oc:Lengas iranianas pms:Lenghe iràniche pl:Języki irańskie pt:Línguas iranianas ro:Limbi iraniene qu:Iranu rimaykuna ru:Иранские языки sk:Iránske jazyky sr:Ирански језици sh:Ирански језици fi:Iranilaiset kielet sv:Iranska språk ta:ஈரானிய மொழிகள் th:กลุ่มภาษาอิหร่าน tg:Забонҳои эронӣ tr:İrani Diller uk:Іранські мови diq:Zıwanê İranki zh:伊朗语支

name	Maryam Massoumi
birth date	January 01, 1991
birth place	Iran
height
haircolor	Dark brown
eyecolor	Brown
agency	}}

Maryam Massoumi () (born 1991) is an Iranian-Canadian fashion model who competed on the reality TV show ''Canada's Next Top Model, Cycle 3'', which aired in 2009.

Personal life

Massoumi was born in Iran and emigrated to Canada a five years prior to her participation on the show. She had had some experience with local photographers before the show. She is currently pursuing her culinary studies in order to become a sous-chef as well as pursuing her modeling career part-time.

See also

Canada's Next Top Model

Canada's Next Top Model, Cycle 3

External links

Q&A; with Canada's Next Top Model reject Maryam Massoumi

Maryam Massoumi Filmography

The final exit Maryam

From Iran to the top 4

References

Category:1991 births Category:Canadian female models Category:Living people Category:People from Vancouver Category:Iranian expatriates in Canada Category:Canadian people of Iranian descent Category:Iranian female models Category:Canada's Next Top Model participants