Old Avestan
| Avestan | |
|---|---|
| Region | Eastern Iranian Plateau |
| Ethnicity | Airya |
| Era | Iron Age, Late Bronze Age |
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Indo-European
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No native script Avestan alphabet (Pahlavi script; independent ad-hoc development) Gujarati script (used by the Indian Zoroastrians) |
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| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ae |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | aves1237 |
| Linguasphere | 58-ABA-a |
Yasna 28.1, Ahunavaiti Gatha (Bodleian MS J2)
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Avestan /əˈvɛstən/, formerly also known as "Zend", is one of the Eastern Iranian languages within the Indo-European language family known only from its use as the language of Zoroastrian scripture, i.e. the Avesta, from which it derives its name. Its area of composition comprised ancient Arachosia, Aria, Bactria, and Margiana, corresponding to the entirety of present-day Afghanistan, and parts of Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Yaz culture of Bactria-Margiana has been regarded as a likely archaeological reflection of the early Eastern Iranian culture described in the Avesta.
Avestan's status as a sacred language has ensured its continuing use for new compositions long after the language had ceased to be a living language. It is closely related to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language.
"Avestan, which is associated with northeastern Iran, and Old Persian, which belongs to the southwest, together constitute what is called Old Iranian." The Old Iranian language group is a branch of the Indo-Iranian language group. Iranian languages are traditionally classified as "eastern" or "western", and within this framework Avestan is classified as eastern. But this distinction is of limited meaning for Avestan, as the linguistic developments that later distinguish Eastern from Western Iranian had not yet occurred. Avestan does not display some typical (South-)Western Iranian innovations already visible in Old Persian, and so in this sense, "eastern" only means "non-western". That is not to say that Avestan does not display any characteristic innovations of its own – e.g., the sibilant pronunciation of the consonant in aša, corresponding to original /rt/ that is preserved in the Old Persian form (arta), as well as Sanskrit (ṛta).
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