Old Persian

Old Persian
Region	Ancient Iran
Era	Ancestor of Middle Persian
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Southwestern Old Persian
Writing system	Old Persian cuneiform
Language codes
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3
Linguist list	`peo`
Glottolog	`oldp1254`
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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, Romania (Gherla),Armenia, Bahrain, 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.

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.

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