Distribution of Iranian languages ​​among the languages ​​of the world. Caspian (Gilan, Mazanderan) dialects. Modern Iranian language family

In the USSR - in the Tajik SSR, North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and South Ossetian Autonomous Okrug, some other regions of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Previously, they existed in the form of separate foci also in the Northern Black Sea region, Turkmenistan, Eastern Turkestan, and the Eastern Pamirs. The total number of speakers is 81 million people.

The historical-genetic classification divides Iranian languages ​​into 2 main groups: western and eastern, with each of them divided into northern and southern subgroups (for the eastern group the division is not entirely clear). The northern Western Iranian languages ​​include: a) dead - Median, Parthian, b) living - Kurdish, Baluchi, Talysh, Gilan, Mazanderan, a number of small unwritten languages ​​of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and the languages ​​of Parachi and Ormuri; to the south: a) dead - Old Persian, Middle Persian, b) living - Persian, Tajik, Dari (Farsi-Kabuli), Khazar, Kumzari, a number of minor languages ​​and dialects of Iran. The northern eastern Iranian languages ​​include: a) dead - Scythian, Alan, Sogdian, Khorezmian, b) living - Ossetian, Yaghnobi; to the south: a) dead: Bactrian, Saka languages ​​(or dialects): Khotanese, Tumshuk, etc., b) living: Afghan (Pashto) and a number of languages ​​that make up the areal group known as the Pamir languages: the Shugnan-Rushan language group, Yazgulyam, Wakhan, Ishkashim (according to some characteristics, Munjan and Yidga are adjacent to them). Dead Avestan has a number of Western and Eastern characteristics.

Typologically, Iranian languages ​​are heterogeneous. In vocalism, the ancient Iranian languages ​​- Avestan and Old Persian - retain a correlation of duration, which in the languages ​​of subsequent periods loses its position, retaining only a part of phoneme pairs (in Balochi, Yaghnobi, Shugnan-Rushan group), turning into a correlation of stability (the main part of languages) or disappearing completely (Mazanderan). In consonantism there are 4 types of systems: 1st type - close to the proto-system (ancient languages, as well as Persian, Tajik, Tat, Gilan, Mazanderan, part of the Kurdish dialects); other types - with later correlations: 2nd - aspirations (northern Kurdish dialects, eastern Baluchi dialects, parachi); 3rd - cerebrality (Afghan, Munjan and Yidga, Wakhan, Ishkashim, Parachi, Ormuri, Baluchi, Khazar; conditionally also Yazgulyam and Shughnan-Rushan group); 4th - aruptiveness (Ossetian). In morphology, ancient Iranian languages ​​retain inflectional morphology and ablaut of roots and affixes; Declension and conjugation are multi-type. Trinity systems of number (singular, dual, plural), gender (masculine, feminine, neuter). The name has a multi-case inflectional paradigm. In the verb, person and number are expressed by inflection, the opposition active - medialis (version) is also expressed by inflection, active - passive (proper voice) is suffixed. Type characteristics (duration; one-time occurrence, completeness; effectiveness, state) are expressed by types of stems (presentative, aorist, perfect, respectively), the category of time - by type of inflection and augment. Moods are associated with types of stems and inflections. The beginnings of analytical constructions.

In later languages ​​- the unification of the types of formation in the name and verb, the withering away of ablaut. Binary systems of number (in all languages), gender (relics of the neuter gender only in Saka and Sogdian); in a number of languages ​​the gender is dying out (Persian, Tajik, etc.). Simplification of the case system with restructuring in many languages ​​according to the agglutinative principle (in Ossetian - under Caucasian influence; Gilyan, Mazanderan, Talysh, Baluchi, etc.). The extinction of cases (Persian, Tajik, Tat, etc.) with agglutination of the number affix. Postpositive (in Persian, Tajik, Sangisari, Gilan, Baluchi, Parachi, Kurdish, etc.) and prepositive (in several languages) indefinite article. The verb contains new analytical and secondary inflectional forms based on participles. Person and number are expressed by inflection (new and old), enclitics, separable indicators, connectives, auxiliary verbs; voice - by the presence of secondary forms of the passive, aspectual characteristics - by analytical forms, preverbs, complex verbs; category of tense - by types of stems, endings, construction of the form as a whole, less often by augment (Yagnob language).

The syntax of a number of languages ​​is characterized by an izafet construction with the preposition of the defined, formalized by a special indicator (Persian, Tajik, Kurdish, Avromani, etc.). In many languages ​​- ergative (or ergative-like) construction of sentences with transitive verbs in the past tense with objective (Afghan, Munjan, Kurdish, etc.) or subject (Yazgulyam, Rushan, etc.) verb agreement.

The periodization of Iranian languages ​​into ancient, middle and modern periods is based on extralinguistic features (cultural-historical, etc.). Based on linguistic characteristics, two periods are distinguished: ancient (Old Persian, Avestan, Median, Scythian languages) and subsequent (all other languages).

The first monuments of ancient Persian writing are cuneiform inscriptions (starting from the 6th century BC). Avestan hymns, transmitted orally for many centuries, were written down around the 4th century. AD a special alphabet based on Middle Persian. Monuments of the Middle Persian (from the 2nd-3rd centuries AD), Parthian (from the 1st century BC), Sogdian (from the 4th century AD) and partially Khorezmian (from the 3rd century BC). BC) languages ​​are written in varieties of Aramaic script (some of the Khorezmian texts survived in Arabic-language works of the 12th-13th centuries in the Arabic alphabet). The Khotanosak language (from the 7th century AD) used a variety of Brahmi, and the Bactrian language (around the 2nd century AD) used the Greek alphabet. Persian, Dari, Afghani, Balochi use varieties of the Arabic alphabet.; Tajik, Ossetian, Tat - alphabets based on Russian graphics. The Kurds of the USSR use Russian script, some of the Kurds of Syria and Iraq use Latin, the rest use Arabic. Other languages ​​are practically unwritten.

The study of living languages ​​began at the end of the 17th century, ancient languages ​​- from the 18th century. At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. The summary work “Grundriss der iranischen Philologie” summarizes previous research. In the 20th century new monuments of dead languages ​​(including previously unknown ones) were discovered, living languages ​​were studied (and discovered). A generalization of the material from a historical and genetic perspective is in the works of I.M. Oransky; from historical and typological ones - in “The Experience of Historical and Typological Research of Iranian Languages” (vol. 1-2, 1975).

Literature

Oransky I.M. Introduction to Iranian philology. M., 1960; 2nd ed., M., 1988.
Oransky I.M. Iranian languages. M., 1963.
Oransky I.M. Iranian languages ​​in historical coverage. M., 1979.
Essays on the history of the study of Iranian languages. M., 1962.
Iranian languages, in the book: Languages ​​of Asia and Africa, vol. 2. M., 1978.
Fundamentals of Iranian linguistics, book. 1. Ancient Iranian languages, book. 2. Central Iranian languages, book. 3. New Iranian languages: Western group, Caspian languages, book. 4. New Iranian languages: eastern group. M., 1979-1987.
Grundriss der iranischen Philologie. Bd. 1. Abt. 1-2. Strassburg, 1895-1904.
Handbuch der Orientalistik. Abt. 1. Bd. 4. Abschn. 1. Leiden - Köln, 1958.

D. I. Edelman

IRANIAN LANGUAGES

(Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary. - M., 1990. - P. 200-201)

IRANIAN LANGUAGES, a group of languages ​​belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Distributed in a continuous mass or with foreign language inclusions in the territory of Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, in the northeastern part of Iraq (Kurdistan), in the eastern part of Turkey (along the borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria, in the Russian Federation (Republic of North Ossetia - Alania), in Georgia (South Ossetia). There are separate Iranian-speaking areas in Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, India, Kyrgyzstan, China, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Syria, and Uzbekistan. The group of Iranian languages ​​includes more than 50 languages, dialects and dialect groups. The languages ​​have not been precisely established; according to an estimate in 1999, there are more than 100 million of them. The history of Iranian languages ​​is divided into three main periods: 1) ancient (from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC to the 4th–3rd centuries AD); 2) middle (from 4–3 centuries BC to 8–9 centuries AD); 3) new (from 8–9 centuries AD to the present). Based on the genetic classification, Iranian languages ​​are divided into two large groups - western (in which the northwestern and southwestern subgroups are clearly distinguished) and eastern (in which there is also a division into northeastern and southeastern subgroups, but it is not so clear , as in the Western group). The Western Iranian group of languages ​​continues the historical line of development of languages ​​and dialects of the western part of the Iranian Plateau, where they spread by the middle of the 1st millennium BC. The Eastern Iranian group of languages ​​goes back to the Iranian dialects of Central Asia and adjacent regions. The languages ​​of the southwestern group include: from the languages ​​of the ancient and middle periods - Old Persian and Middle Persian (Pahlavi); from modern languages ​​modern. Persian, Tajik, Dari, Tat, Khazar, Lur and Bakhtiyar group of dialects, Laristan dialect group, Fars, Kumzari dialects, Bashkardi dialect group, Char-aimag group of dialects. The northwestern languages ​​include: from the ancient period - Median; from the middle - Parthian; and modern - Baluchi, Kurdish, Gilan, Mazanderan, Talysh, Semnan, a group of dialects of Tati, Parachi, Ormuri, a group of dialects of Central Iran. The northeastern Iranian languages ​​include: from the ancient period - Scythian; from the middle period - Alan, Sogdian, Khorezmian; modern - Ossetian and Yaghnobi; the southeastern Iranian languages ​​include: from the middle period - Saka languages ​​(or dialects), Bactrian, Khotanese, Tumshuk, etc.; Modern ones include Pashto (Afghan), Pamir languages ​​(Shughnan-Rushan group, Wakhan, Yazgulyam, Ishkashim, Munjan and Yidga).

Typologically, Iranian languages ​​are heterogeneous. Ancient Iranian languages ​​are inflectional-synthetic in their morphological type with a developed system of declension and conjugation forms. In the Central Iranian languages, the inflectional-synthetic type already has noticeable traces of the decomposition of the ancient system. In the modern Iranian languages, the inflectional-analytical type was preserved in Pashto, but also in a greatly modified form compared to ancient Iranian. Most modern Iranian languages ​​are inflectional-analytical with elements of agglutination. The ratio of inflectional and analytical forms in different languages ​​is not the same. Most Iranian languages ​​(Old Persian, Avestan, Khotanosaks, Sogdian, Persian, Tajik, Dari, Tat, Gilan, Mazand, Ossetian, Yaghnobi, etc.) from a typological point of view belong to the languages ​​of the nominative system. Middle Persian, Parthian, Kurdish, Zaza, Gurani, Baluchi, Talysh, Semnan, Pashto, Ormuri, Parachi are languages ​​of mixed type (nominative construction with transitive verbs in all tenses and moods and with intransitive indicative and subjunctive moods in the present tense ; with transitive verbs in the past tenses the construction of the sentence is ergative or ergative). Iranian languages ​​had a great influence on the languages ​​and cultures of neighboring peoples.

Terminology

The term “Iranian languages” arose in Western science in the middle. XIX century to designate a group of languages ​​genetically related to Iran as an ethnocultural region and related, closely or very distantly, to the dominant language of Iran over the last millennium - Persian.

In the common consciousness, confusion between “Persian” and “Iranian” is still common. It should be remembered that the “Iranian language” does not mean the dominant language of Iran (Persian), but one of the many languages ​​of the Iranian group (which includes Persian). Moreover, one should not think that every Iranian language must be perceptibly similar to Persian. Due to the very early differentiation of the group for most Iranian languages, the relationship with Persian (or any other Iranian) can only be shown by means of comparative historical linguistics and is not obvious at a superficial glance.

Origin

Iranian languages ​​are descendants of the undocumented ancient Iranian (proto-Iranian) language, which existed within the 2nd millennium BC. e., which in turn emerged from the Proto-Aryan (common Aryan), a common ancestor with the Indo-Aryans approximately at the end of the 3rd - beginning of the 2nd millennium BC in the territory of Central Asia. Presumably, the Proto-Iranians inhabited the area of ​​Bronze Age cultures in the south of Central Asia: the late BMAC and Yaza.

The differentiation of Old Iranian from Common Aryan is characterized primarily by changes at the phonetic level, the main of which are:

History and classification

The recorded history of Iranian languages ​​goes back about 3 millennia. Traditionally, Iranian languages ​​are chronologically divided into three periods: ancient, middle and modern. Clear criteria exist only for the ancient Iranian languages: these are languages ​​of the “ancient type”, largely preserving the Aryan and, more deeply, the Indo-European inflectional synthetic system. Central Iranian languages ​​demonstrate, to varying degrees, the destruction of inflection and a movement towards analytism and agglutination. Modern Iranian languages ​​are the living Iranian languages, as well as languages ​​that have become extinct in recent times.

Relatively clear continuity at all three stages is demonstrated only by the chain Old Persian - Middle Persian - New Persian (Farsi). Many extinct languages ​​have no descendants, and most modern Iranian languages ​​have no recorded ancestors. All this greatly complicates the study of the history of Iranian languages ​​and their genetic connections, and, consequently, their classification. The latter is traditionally built on the dichotomy of Western Iranian and Eastern Iranian subgroups, each of which is in turn divided into a northern and southern zone.

Ancient Iranian languages

In the ancient Iranian era, defined approximately as the period before the 4th-3rd centuries. BC e. (based on Persian data), speakers of the Old Iranian language settled over vast territories from the Zagros in the southwest to western China and probably Altai in the northeast, and from the Northern Black Sea region in the northwest to the Hindu Kush in the southeast. This expansion caused the collapse of ancient Iranian unity and marked the beginning of the formation of separate Iranian languages.

We have two securely recorded ancient Iranian languages:

There is also information about two other ancient Iranian languages ​​that have come down to us in the foreign language transfer of names and ancient borrowings into non-Iranian languages:

• Median language- a partially reconstructed language of the Medes, the presumed ancestor of the northwestern languages ​​or their western part.
• Scythian language- demonstrating “Eastern Iranian features” the language of the Scythians who advanced in the 8th century. through the Central Asian steppes to the Caucasus and the Northern Black Sea region, known mainly in onomastics from Greek and Akkadian sources.

Based on the data of Iranian languages ​​recorded later, one should assume the existence of other ancient Iranian languages/dialect areas, restored by the methods of comparative historical linguistics. In ancient times, Iranian languages ​​were still very close to each other and represented mutually intelligible dialects. The isoglosses that divided the group into Western and Eastern languages ​​were just taking shape. In particular, the position of the Avestan language is not completely clear. Traditionally, it is interpreted as eastern, primarily on the basis of the area described in the Avesta (eastern Iran, Afghanistan, southern Central Asia), although it demonstrates quite a few differentiating features characteristic of later eastern Iranian languages. Therefore, some researchers define it as “central”.

The “central area”, as opposed to the marginal (peripheral) ones, can be traced on the basis of a number of characteristics. This is manifested primarily in the fact that the Western and Eastern languages ​​adjacent to the supposed original Avestan area demonstrate unity in phonetic development, contrasted by “deviations” on the periphery of the Western and Eastern subgroups. In particular, according to the development of the *ś and *ź reflexes, the following zones are distinguished:

1. Central (*ś > s, *ź > z, *śuV > spV, *źuV > zbV, where V is a vowel): Avestan, northwestern, northeastern and most southeastern 2. Southwestern / Persian (*ś > ϑ, *ź > δ (> d), *śuV > sV, *źuV > zV) 3. Scythian (also *ś > ϑ, *ź > δ) - obviously an independent development parallel to Persian. 4. Saka (*ś > s, *ź > z, but *śuV > šV, *źuV > žV): Saka and Wakhan (see below).

Essentially, some other phonetic features on which the West-East dichotomy is traditionally built are also “peripheral”. For example, the characteristic Eastern Iranian development of *č > s (ch > c) did not cover the Sogdian area in addition to the Avestan.

Actually, the Eastern Iranian characteristics are the innovative development of stops:

• initial *b- > β- (v-), *d- > δ-, *g- > γ- (not in Avestan)
• in combinations: *pt > βd, *xt > γd (in Avestan only in the archaic Gat dialect)

Other differentiating features of the western and eastern subgroups in phonetics (for example, *h > western h, eastern ø (zero), *ϑ > western h, eastern ϑ, t, s) obviously developed later than the ancient era and also bear statistical in nature, do not cover all languages ​​of their areas and vary greatly by position. Likewise, specific “Western” or “Eastern” morphemes and lexemes are often not limited to their area and can also be found in the language of another subgroup.

Central Iranian languages

The Middle Iranian era is defined in the range of the 4th century. BC e. - IX century n. e. This chronology is conditional and is based primarily on Persian data, while such a “Middle Iranian” language as Khorezm existed until the 14th century, but did not leave a New Iranian descendant that has survived to this day.

The middle era of the development of Iranian languages ​​is characterized by the destruction of Old Iranian inflection and the strengthening of analyticism. The inflectional system was destroyed most quickly and completely in Western Iranian languages ​​(although the verbal conjugation was preserved); eastern languages ​​retained for a long time and often still retain significant remnants of the inflectional system.

During this era, Iranian languages ​​continued to diverge, and while they remained relatively close, free understanding between them was essentially lost. The area of ​​Iranian languages ​​has already begun to be more clearly divided into western and eastern zones (along the line dividing Parthia and Bactria); one can also trace the differentiation of each zone into “south” and “north”. Monuments of 6 Central Iranian languages ​​have been preserved. There are also glosses, scant records or onomastic data for other Central Iranian dialects.

Non-Persian Iranian languages/dialects are preserved mainly in the peripheral regions of Greater Iran, primarily in the mountains (Pamir, Hindu Kush, Zagros, Suleiman Mountains), or territories separated by mountains (Caspian region, Azerbaijan), or desert and desert-adjacent areas. Some of these linguistic communities also experienced expansion in New Iranian times (Kurdish languages, Pashto, Balochi), although they were influenced by New Persian.

At the same time, the displacement of Iranian languages, including New Persian, was and is also observed, primarily from the Turkic languages. Particularly dramatic changes took place in the steppe part of the Iranian world, where its last remnant, the Alans, were finally disintegrated at the beginning. II millennium AD e. A descendant of the Alan language, the Ossetian language, is preserved in the Caucasus Mountains. Iranian languages ​​found themselves significantly displaced (from a number of regions completely) in Central Asia and Azerbaijan.

Classification of New Iranian languages

Ratio of speakers of Iranian languages ​​(millions)

Ratio of the number of speakers of languages ​​of the Persian-Tajik cluster (in millions)

The New Iranian era is characterized by the inclusion of all Iranian languages ​​(except Ossetian) into the general area of ​​Muslim culture. During this period, Arabic borrowings penetrated massively into Iranian languages, successfully covering, to one degree or another, all lexical layers, especially cultural vocabulary. At the same time, the sharp spread and rise of the Persian language, which had already begun in the Sasanian era, took place, becoming the language of culture, the city and the office and courts of rulers. All Iranian languages ​​of the region were subject to significant lexical influence from the closely or distantly related Persian, as well as from the Arabic vocabulary adopted by it. Most speakers of minor Iranian languages ​​remain bilingual today, so the number of Persianisms in such languages ​​is practically unlimited.

Also, in the last millennium there has been close lexical interaction between Iranian languages ​​and Turkic languages. In Persian itself, the number of Turkisms is quite significant. they cover primarily military and everyday vocabulary. Especially many Turkisms penetrate into the speech of Iranian-speaking residents of Turkic states (Kurdish, Zaza, Tat, northern dialects of Tajik).

From the point of view of the preferential ways of borrowing modern international vocabulary, Iranian languages ​​can be divided into three zones:

• French (languages ​​of Iran and Turkey)
• English (languages ​​of Afghanistan and Pakistan)
• Russian (CIS languages)

Writing

Throughout history, Iranian-speaking peoples have adapted a variety of writing systems from surrounding peoples to record their languages.

For the first time, the ancient Persian language (VI, possibly 7th century BC) received systematic writing, for which a syllabary was developed on the basis of Akkadian cuneiform, the principle of which is somewhat reminiscent of the structure of the Indian Brahmi syllabary.

Aramaic writing became much more widespread, adapted for recording Iranian languages ​​in the middle period not purposefully, but spontaneously, by saturating Aramaic texts with Iranian words and then reading Aramaic words in the form of heterograms, that is, in Iranian.

Scripts dating back to Aramaic were systematically used to record:

• Middle Persian
• Parthian
• Sogdian
• Khorezmian

Recordings of the Bactrian language in Aramaic script are also known.

Based on Middle Persian writing in the 4th century. a special expanded Avestan alphabet was developed to record the sacred texts of the Avesta, which received written form for the first time. In Zoroastrian communities, in addition to this, Middle Persian texts were transliterated using the Avestan alphabet, and original prayers were also written down (see pazend)

The long domination of the Greeks after the conquests of Alexander the Great on the territory of Bactria of the Greco-Bactrian kingdoms left a legacy in the form of a device for writing the Bactrian language using the Greek alphabet. Bactrian inscriptions in Greek writing are also known, reflecting rather the Middle Persian language. .

In the Northern Black Sea region, Greek writing was actively used for gravestone inscriptions of people of Sarmatian (and later Alan) origin

The Indian Brahmi script was used to write Buddhist texts in the Saka languages.

With the conquest of Iran by the Arabs, experiments began to adapt Iranian languages ​​to writing in Arabic writing. In addition to the one that developed in the 10th century. The richest New Persian literature is also known for recordings in Arabic writing in Mazandaran, Azeri, and Khorezm. Subsequently, the first literary monuments appeared in Kurdish, Pashto, Gurani. Currently, Arabic writing is used in the following languages:

• Persian
• pashto
• Kurdish (Kurmanji - in Iraq, Sorani)
• Balochi
• Gilyansky
• Mazandaran

The Latin alphabet in a specific form is used to write languages ​​under Turkish-Azerbaijani influence

• Kurdish
• zazaki

For Tat, the new Azerbaijani alphabet is used sporadically.

The spread of the Cyrillic alphabet is associated with Soviet nation-building, while all languages ​​using the Cyrillic alphabet experienced a “Latin” stage in the 1930s and 40s:

• Tajik
• Ossetian

There are known short-term or completely sporadic experiments in publishing books in Cyrillic in Yaghnobi, Shugnan, Kurdish, and Tat. For Tat, within the community of Mountain Jews, the Jewish square font was also used. All other Iranian languages ​​are unwritten.

Sociolinguistic situation

Different Iranian languages ​​are not equal in number of speakers, development of literature, official status and degree of prestige. If at one pole there will be Persian, the absolute hegemon in the Iranian-speaking space over the last millennium, the state language of a regional power with a rich literature, then at the other - Munjan, the unwritten everyday language of several thousand Hindu Kush mountaineers, who have lost even folklore in their native language.

The largest number of carriers have:

Confessional languages

A number of Iranian languages ​​have confessional significance. First of all, these are cult languages ​​or languages ​​of religious literature that are not used in everyday life and secular literature.

• Avestan language, the oldest recorded Iranian, still retains the significance of the language of sacred texts and prayers for Zoroastrians and in this way is similar to Sanskrit, Latin and Church Slavonic.
• Middle Persian language for a long time remained the language of religious literature among the Zoroastrians and in the New Persian era; its use has now ceased.
• Parthian language until the 13th century was used as the religious language of the Manichaean communities in Turfan.
• Gurani language is the language of religious literature of the Shia sect Ahl-ul-Haq, founded in the 15th century, with many members of this community having Kurdish or Turkmen as their native languages.

Some languages ​​are intra-confessional colloquial dialects:

• Dari (Central Iranian dialect) (not to be confused with Afghan Dari) is the spoken language of the Zoroastrians of Yazd and Kerman.
• Judeo-Iranian languages ​​are special spoken dialects of Jewish communities.

Iranian Wikipedias

• Persian Wikipedia (fa:)
• Kurdish Wikipedia (Kurmanji) in Latin and Arabic (ku:)
• Tajik Wikipedia (tg:)
• Gilan Wikipedia (glk:)
• Ossetian Wikipedia (os:)
• Zazaki Wikipedia (diq:)
• Mazandaran Wikipedia (mzn:)
• Sorani Wikipedia (ckb:)

Notes

Links

• Modern classification of Northwestern Iranian languages ​​(Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)

The Indo-European language family is the most widely spoken in the world. Its distribution area includes almost all of Europe, both Americas and continental Australia, as well as a significant part of Africa and Asia. More than 2.5 billion people speak Indo-European languages. All languages ​​of modern Europe belong to this family of languages, with the exception of Basque, Hungarian, Sami, Finnish, Estonian and Turkish, as well as several Altai and Uralic languages ​​of the European part of Russia.

The Indo-European family of languages ​​includes at least twelve groups of languages. In order of geographical location, moving clockwise from northwestern Europe, these are the following groups: Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Tocharian, Indian, Iranian, Armenian, Hittite-Luvian, Greek, Albanian, Italic (including Latin and the Romance languages ​​derived from it, which are sometimes classified as a separate group). Of these, three groups (Italic, Hittite-Luwian and Tocharian) consist entirely of dead languages.

Indo-Aryan languages ​​(Indian) - a group of related languages ​​dating back to the ancient Indian language. Included (together with the Iranian languages ​​and closely related Dardic languages) in the Indo-Iranian languages, one of the branches of the Indo-European languages. Distributed in South Asia: northern and central India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal; outside this region - Romani languages, Domari and Parya (Tajikistan). The total number of speakers is about 1 billion people. (Evaluation, 2007).

Ancient Indian languages.

Ancient Indian language. Indian languages ​​come from dialects of the ancient Indian language, which had two literary forms - Vedic (the language of the sacred “Vedas”) and Sanskrit (created by Brahman priests in the Ganges valley in the first half - mid-first millennium BC). The ancestors of the Indo-Aryans left the ancestral home of the “Aryan Expanse” at the end of the 3rd - beginning of the 2nd millennium. A language related to Indo-Aryan is reflected in proper names, theonyms and some lexical borrowings in the cuneiform texts of the Mitanni and Hittite states. Indo-Aryan writing in the Brahmi syllabary arose in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC.

The Central Indian period is represented by numerous languages ​​and dialects that were in use orally and then in written form from the Middle Ages. 1st millennium BC e. Of these, the most archaic is Pali (the language of the Buddhist Canon), followed by Prakrits (more archaic are the Prakrits of inscriptions) and Apabkhransha (dialects that developed by the mid-1st millennium AD as a result of the development of Prakrits and are a transitional link to the New Indian languages ).

The New Indian period begins after the 10th century. It is represented by approximately three dozen major languages ​​and a large number of dialects, sometimes very different from each other.

In the west and northwest they border with Iranian (Baluchi language, Pashto) and Dardic languages, in the north and northeast - with Tibeto-Burman languages, in the east - with a number of Tibeto-Burman and Mon-Khmer languages, in the south - with Dravidian languages ​​(Telugu, Kannada). In India, the array of Indo-Aryan languages ​​is interspersed with language islands of other linguistic groups (Munda, Mon-Khmer, Dravidian, etc.).

1. Hindi and Urdu (Hindustani) are two varieties of one modern Indian literary language; Urdu is the official language of Pakistan (Capital Islamabad), written in the Arabic alphabet; Hindi (the official language of India (New Delhi) - based on the Old Indian Devanagari script.

2. Bengali (state of India - West Bengal, Bangladesh (Kolkata)).

3. Punjabi (eastern part of Pakistan, Punjab state of India).

4. Lahnda.

5. Sindhi (Pakistan).

6. Rajasthani (northwest India).

7. Gujarati - southwest subgroup.

8. Marathi - Western subgroup.

9. Sinhala is an insular subgroup.

10. Nepali - Nepal (Kathmandu) - central subgroup.

11. Bihari - Indian state of Bihar - eastern subgroup.

12. Oriya - Indian state of Orissa - eastern subgroup.

13. Assamese - ind. State of Assam, Bangladesh, Bhutan (Thimphu) - eastern. subgroup.

14. Gypsy.

15. Kashmiri - Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan - Dardic group.

16. Vedic is the language of the most ancient sacred books of the Indians - the Vedas, which were formed in the first half of the second millennium BC.

17. Sanskrit is the literary language of the ancient Indians from the 3rd century BC. to 4th century AD

18. Pali - Central Indian literary and cult language of the medieval era.

19. Prakrits - various colloquial Central Indian dialects.

Iranian languages- a group of related languages ​​within the Aryan branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Distributed mainly in the Middle East, Central Asia and Pakistan.

The Iranian group was formed, according to the generally accepted version, as a result of the separation of languages ​​from the Indo-Iranian branch in the Volga region and southern Urals during the period of the Andronovo culture. There is also another version of the formation of Iranian languages, according to which they separated from the main body of Indo-Iranian languages ​​on the territory of the BMAC culture. The expansion of the Aryans in ancient times took place to the south and southeast. As a result of migrations, Iranian languages ​​spread to the 5th century BC. in large areas from the Northern Black Sea region to Eastern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Altai (Pazyryk culture), and from the Zagros mountains, eastern Mesopotamia and Azerbaijan to the Hindu Kush.

The most important milestone in the development of Iranian languages ​​was the identification of Western Iranian languages, which spread west from Dasht-Kevir across the Iranian plateau, and the Eastern Iranian languages ​​contrasted with them. The work of the Persian poet Ferdowsi Shahnameh reflects the confrontation between the ancient Persians and the nomadic (also semi-nomadic) Eastern Iranian tribes, nicknamed Turanians by the Persians, and their habitat Turan.

In the II - I centuries. BC The Great Central Asian Migration of Peoples takes place, as a result of which eastern Iranians populate the Pamirs, Xinjiang, Indian lands south of the Hindu Kush, and invade Sistan.

As a result of the expansion of Turkic-speaking nomads from the first half of the 1st millennium AD. Iranian languages ​​begin to be replaced by Turkic languages, first in the Great Steppe, and with the beginning of the 2nd millennium in Central Asia, Xinjiang, Azerbaijan and a number of regions of Iran. What remained from the steppe Iranian world was the relict Ossetian language (a descendant of the Alan-Sarmatian language) in the Caucasus mountains, as well as the descendants of the Saka languages, the languages ​​of the Pashtun tribes and the Pamir peoples.

The current state of the Iranian-speaking massif was largely determined by the expansion of Western Iranian languages, which began under the Sassanids, but gained full strength after the Arab invasion:

The spread of the Persian language throughout the entire territory of Iran, Afghanistan and the south of Central Asia and the massive displacement of local Iranian and sometimes non-Iranian languages ​​in the corresponding territories, as a result of which the modern Persian and Tajik communities were formed.

Expansion of the Kurds into Upper Mesopotamia and the Armenian Highlands.

Migration of the semi-nomads of Gorgan to the southeast and the formation of the Balochi language.

Phonetics of Iranian languages shares many similarities with Indo-Aryan languages ​​in development from an Indo-European state. The ancient Iranian languages ​​belong to the inflectional-synthetic type with a developed system of inflectional forms of declension and conjugation and are thus similar to Sanskrit, Latin and Old Church Slavonic. This is especially true of the Avestan language and, to a lesser extent, Old Persian. In Avestan there are eight cases, three numbers, three genders, inflectional-synthetic verbal forms of present, aorist, imperfect, perfect, injunctive, conjunctive, optative, imperative, and there is developed word formation.

1. Persian - writing based on the Arabic alphabet - Iran (Tehran), Afghanistan (Kabul), Tajikistan (Dushanbe) - southwestern Iranian group.

2. Dari is the literary language of Afghanistan.

3. Pashto - since the 30s the state language of Afghanistan - Afghanistan, Pakistan - an Eastern Iranian subgroup.

4. Baluchi - Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan (Ashgabat), Oman (Muscat), UAE (Abu Dhabi) - northwestern subgroup.

5. Tajik - Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan (Tashkent) - Western Iranian subgroup.

6. Kurdish - Turkey (Ankara), Iran, Iraq (Baghdad), Syria (Damascus), Armenia (Yerevan), Lebanon (Beirut) - Western Iranian subgroup.

7. Ossetian - Russia (North Ossetia), South Ossetia (Tskhinvali) - East Iranian subgroup.

8. Tatsky - Russia (Dagestan), Azerbaijan (Baku) - western subgroup.

9. Talysh - Iran, Azerbaijan - northwestern Iranian subgroup.

10. Caspian dialects.

11. Pamir languages ​​- unwritten languages ​​of the Pamirs.

12. Yagnob - the language of the Yagnobis, inhabitants of the Yagnob River valley in Tajikistan.

14. Avestan.

15. Pahlavi.

16. Median.

17. Parthian.

18. Sogdian.

19. Khorezmian.

20. Scythian.

21. Bactrian.

22. Saki.

Slavic group. Slavic languages ​​are a group of related languages ​​of the Indo-European family. Distributed throughout Europe and Asia. The total number of speakers is about 400-500 million [source not specified 101 days]. They are distinguished by a high degree of closeness to each other, which is found in the structure of the word, the use of grammatical categories, sentence structure, semantics, a system of regular sound correspondences, and morphonological alternations. This closeness is explained by the unity of origin of the Slavic languages ​​and their long and intensive contacts with each other at the level of literary languages ​​and dialects.

The long-term independent development of the Slavic peoples in different ethnic, geographical, historical and cultural conditions, their contacts with various ethnic groups led to the emergence of differences in material, functional, etc. Slavic languages ​​within the Indo-European family are most similar to the Baltic languages. The similarities between the two groups served as the basis for the theory of the “Balto-Slavic proto-language”, according to which the Balto-Slavic proto-language first emerged from the Indo-European proto-language, which later split into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. However, many scientists explain their special closeness by the long-term contact of the ancient Balts and Slavs, and deny the existence of the Balto-Slavic language.

It has not been established in what territory the separation of the Slavic language continuum from the Indo-European/Balto-Slavic occurred. It can be assumed that it occurred to the south of those territories that, according to various theories, belong to the territory of the Slavic ancestral homelands. From one of the Indo-European dialects (Proto-Slavic), the Proto-Slavic language was formed, which is the ancestor of all modern Slavic languages. The history of the Proto-Slavic language was longer than the history of individual Slavic languages.

For a long time it developed as a single dialect with an identical structure. Dialectal variants arose later. The process of transition of the Proto-Slavic language into independent languages ​​took place most actively in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium AD. e., during the period of formation of the early Slavic states in the territory of South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. During this period, the territory of Slavic settlements increased significantly. Areas of various geographical zones with different natural and climatic conditions were developed, the Slavs entered into relationships with the population of these territories, standing at different stages of cultural development. All this was reflected in the history of Slavic languages.

The history of the Proto-Slavic language is divided into 3 periods: the oldest - before the establishment of close Balto-Slavic linguistic contact, the period of the Balto-Slavic community and the period of dialect fragmentation and the beginning of the formation of independent Slavic languages.

Eastern subgroup:

1. Russian.

2. Ukrainian.

3. Belarusian.

Southern subgroup:

1. Bulgarian - Bulgaria (Sofia).

2. Macedonian - Macedonia (Skopje).

3. Serbo-Croatian - Serbia (Belgrade), Croatia (Zagreb).

4. Slovenian - Slovenia (Ljubljana).

Western subgroup:

1. Czech - Czech Republic (Prague).

2. Slovak - Slovakia (Bratislava).

3. Polish - Poland (Warsaw).

4. Kashubian is a dialect of Polish.

5. Lusatian - Germany.

Dead: Old Church Slavonic, Polabian, Pomeranian.

Baltic group.

The Baltic languages ​​are a language group that represents a special branch of the Indo-European group of languages.

The total number of speakers is over 4.5 million people. Distribution: Latvia, Lithuania, formerly the territories of (modern) northeastern Poland, Russia (Kaliningrad region) and northwestern Belarus; even earlier (before the 7th-9th, in some places the 12th centuries) up to the upper reaches of the Volga, the Oka basin, the middle Dnieper and Pripyat.

According to one theory, the Baltic languages ​​are not a genetic formation, but the result of early convergence [source not specified 374 days]. The group includes 2 living languages ​​(Latvian and Lithuanian; sometimes the Latgalian language is distinguished separately, officially considered a dialect of Latvian); the Prussian language, attested in monuments, which became extinct in the 17th century; at least 5 languages ​​known only by toponymy and onomastics (Curonian, Yatvingian, Galindian/Golyadian, Zemgalian and Selonian).

1. Lithuanian - Lithuania (Vilnius).

2. Latvian - Latvia (Riga).

3. Latgalian - Latvia.

Dead: Prussian, Yatvyazhsky, Kurzhsky, etc.

German group.

The history of the development of Germanic languages ​​is usually divided into 3 periods:

Ancient (from the emergence of writing to the 11th century) - the formation of individual languages;

Middle (XII-XV centuries) - development of writing in Germanic languages ​​and expansion of their social functions;

New (from the 16th century to the present) - the formation and normalization of national languages.

In the reconstructed Proto-Germanic language, a number of researchers identify a layer of vocabulary that does not have an Indo-European etymology - the so-called pre-Germanic substrate. In particular, these are the majority of strong verbs, the conjugation paradigm of which also cannot be explained from the Proto-Indo-European language. The shift of consonants compared to the Proto-Indo-European language is the so-called. “Grimm’s law” - supporters of the hypothesis also explain the influence of the substrate.

The development of Germanic languages ​​from antiquity to the present day is associated with numerous migrations of their speakers. Germanic dialects of ancient times were divided into 2 main groups: Scandinavian (northern) and continental (southern). In the II-I centuries BC. e. Some tribes from Scandinavia moved to the southern coast of the Baltic Sea and formed an East German group opposing the West German (formerly southern) group. The East German tribe of the Goths, moving south, penetrated the territory of the Roman Empire right up to the Iberian Peninsula, where they mixed with the local population (V-VIII centuries).

Within the West Germanic area in the 1st century AD. e. 3 groups of tribal dialects were distinguished: Ingveonian, Istveonian and Erminonian. The resettlement in the 5th-6th centuries of part of the Ingvaean tribes (Angles, Saxons, Jutes) to the British Isles predetermined the further development of the English language. The complex interaction of West Germanic dialects on the continent created the preconditions for the formation of the Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Old Low Frankish and Old High German languages.

Scandinavian dialects after their isolation in the 5th century. from the continental group they were divided into eastern and western subgroups; on the basis of the first, Swedish, Danish and Old Gutnic languages ​​were later formed, on the basis of the second - Norwegian, as well as the island languages ​​- Icelandic, Faroese and Norn.

The formation of national literary languages ​​was completed in England in the 16th-17th centuries, in the Scandinavian countries in the 16th century, in Germany in the 18th century. The spread of the English language beyond England led to the creation of its variants in the USA, Canada, and Australia. The German language in Austria is represented by its Austrian variant.

North German subgroup:

1. Danish - Denmark (Copenhagen), northern Germany.

2. Swedish - Sweden (Stockholm), Finland (Helsinki) - contact subgroup.

3. Norwegian - Norway (Oslo) - continental subgroup.

4. Icelandic - Iceland (Reykjavik), Denmark.

5. Faroese - Denmark.

West German subgroup:

1. English - UK, USA, India, Australia (Canberra), Canada (Ottawa), Ireland (Dublin), New Zealand (Wellington).

2. Dutch - Netherlands (Amsterdam), Belgium (Brussels), Suriname (Paramaribo), Aruba.

3. Frisian - Netherlands, Denmark, Germany.

4. German - Low German and High German - Germany, Austria (Vienna), Switzerland (Bern), Liechtenstein (Vaduz), Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg.

5. Yiddish - Israel (Jerusalem).

East German subgroup:

1. Gothic - Visigothic and Ostrogothic.

2. Burgundian, Vandal, Gepid, Herulian.

Roman group. Romance languages ​​(Latin Roma "Rome") are a group of languages ​​and dialects that are part of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family and genetically go back to a common ancestor - Latin. The name Romanesque comes from the Latin word romanus (Roman). The science that studies Romance languages, their origin, development, classification, etc. is called Romance studies and is one of the subsections of linguistics (linguistics).

The peoples who speak them are also called Romanesque. The Romance languages ​​developed as a result of the divergent (centrifugal) development of the oral tradition of different geographical dialects of the once united vernacular Latin language and gradually became isolated from the source language and from each other as a result of various demographic, historical and geographical processes.

The beginning of this epoch-making process was laid by Roman colonists who settled regions (provinces) of the Roman Empire remote from the capital - Rome - during a complex ethnographic process called ancient Romanization in the period of the 3rd century. BC e. - 5th century n. e. During this period, the various dialects of Latin are influenced by the substrate.

For a long time, Romance languages ​​were perceived only as vernacular dialects of the classical Latin language, and therefore were practically not used in writing. The formation of the literary forms of the Romance languages ​​was largely based on the traditions of classical Latin, which allowed them to become closer again in lexical and semantic terms in modern times.

1. French - France (Paris), Canada, Belgium (Brussels), Switzerland, Lebanon (Beirut), Luxembourg, Monaco, Morocco (Rabat).

2. Provencal - France, Italy, Spain, Monaco.

3. Italian - Italy, San Marino, Vatican, Switzerland.

4. Sardinian - Sardinia (Greece).

5. Spanish - Spain, Argentina (Buenos Aires), Cuba (Havana), Mexico (Mexico City), Chile (Santiago), Honduras (Tegucigalpa).

6. Galician - Spain, Portugal (Lisbon).

7. Catalan - Spain, France, Italy, Andorra (Andorra la Vella).

8. Portuguese - Portugal, Brazil (Brasilia), Angola (Luanda), Mozambique (Maputo).

9. Romanian - Romania (Bucharest), Moldova (Chisinau).

10. Moldavian - Moldova.

11. Macedonian-Romanian - Greece, Albania (Tirana), Macedonia (Skopje), Romania, Bulgarian.

12. Romansh - Switzerland.

13. Creole languages ​​are crossed Romance languages ​​with local languages.

Italian:

1. Latin.

2. Medieval Vulgar Latin.

3. Oscian, Umbrian, Sabelian.

Celtic group. Celtic languages ​​are one of the western groups of the Indo-European family, close, in particular, to the Italic and Germanic languages. Nevertheless, the Celtic languages, apparently, did not form a specific unity with other groups, as was sometimes previously thought (in particular, the hypothesis of Celto-Italic unity, defended by A. Meillet, is most likely incorrect).

The spread of Celtic languages, as well as Celtic peoples, in Europe is associated with the spread of Hallstatt (VI-V centuries BC) and then La Tène (2nd half of the 1st millennium BC) archaeological cultures. The ancestral home of the Celts is probably localized in Central Europe, between the Rhine and the Danube, but they settled very widely: in the 1st half of the 1st millennium BC. e. they entered the British Isles around the 7th century. BC e. - to Gaul, in the 6th century. BC e. - to the Iberian Peninsula, in the 5th century. BC e. they spread to the south, cross the Alps and come to Northern Italy, finally, by the 3rd century. BC e. they reach Greece and Asia Minor.

We know relatively little about the ancient stages of development of the Celtic languages: the monuments of that era are very scarce and not always easy to interpret; nevertheless, data from the Celtic languages ​​(especially Old Irish) play an important role in the reconstruction of the Indo-European proto-language.

Goidelic subgroup:

1. Irish - Ireland.

2. Scottish - Scotland (Edinburgh).

3. Manx is a dead language of the Isle of Man (in the Irish Sea).

Brythonic subgroup:

1. Breton - Brittany (France).

2. Welsh - Wales (Cardiff).

3. Cornish - dead - on Cornwall - the peninsula of southwestern England.

Gallic subgroup:

1. Gaulish - died out from the era of the formation of the French language; was distributed in Gaul, Northern Italy, the Balkans and Asia Minor

Greek group. The Greek group is currently one of the most unique and relatively small language groups (families) within the Indo-European languages. At the same time, the Greek group is one of the most ancient and well-studied since antiquity.

Currently, the main representative of the group with a full range of linguistic functions is the Greek language of Greece and Cyprus, which has a long and complex history. The presence of a single full representative in our days brings the Greek group closer to the Albanian and Armenian, which are also actually represented by one language each.

At the same time, there were previously other Greek languages ​​and extremely distinct dialects that either became extinct or are on the verge of extinction as a result of assimilation.

1. Modern Greek - Greece (Athens), Cyprus (Nicosia)

2. Ancient Greek

3. Middle Greek, or Byzantine

Albanian group:

Albanian language (Alb. Gjuha shqipe) is the language of the Albanians, the indigenous population of Albania proper and part of the population of Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Lower Italy and Sicily. The number of speakers is about 6 million people.

The self-name of the language - “shkip” - comes from the local word “shipe” or “shkipe”, which actually means “rocky soil” or “rock”. That is, the self-name of the language can be translated as “mountain”. The word "shkip" can also be interpreted as "understandable" (language).

Armenian group:

The Armenian language is an Indo-European language, usually classified as a separate group, less often combined with Greek and Phrygian languages. Among the Indo-European languages, it is one of the oldest written languages. The Armenian alphabet was created by Mesrop Mashtots in 405-406. n. e. (see Armenian writing). The total number of speakers worldwide is about 6.4 million. During its long history, the Armenian language has been in contact with many languages.

Being a branch of the Indo-European language, Armenian subsequently came into contact with various Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages ​​- both living and now dead, taking over from them and bringing to the present day much of what direct written evidence could not preserve. At different times, Hittite and hieroglyphic Luwian, Hurrian and Urartian, Akkadian, Aramaic and Syriac, Parthian and Persian, Georgian and Zan, Greek and Latin came into contact with the Armenian language.

For the history of these languages ​​and their speakers, data from the Armenian language in many cases are of paramount importance. This data is especially important for urartologists, Iranianists, and Kartvelists, who draw many facts about the history of the languages ​​they study from Armenian.

Hittite-Luwian group. Anatolian languages ​​are a branch of the Indo-European languages ​​(also known as the Hittite-Luwian languages). According to glottochronology, they separated from other Indo-European languages ​​quite early. All languages ​​in this group are dead. Their carriers lived in the 2nd-1st millennium BC. e. on the territory of Asia Minor (the Hittite kingdom and the small states that arose on its territory), were later conquered and assimilated by the Persians and/or Greeks.

The most ancient monuments of Anatolian languages ​​are Hittite cuneiform and Luwian hieroglyphics (there were also short inscriptions in Palayan, the most archaic of the Anatolian languages). Through the works of the Czech linguist Friedrich (Bedrich) the Terrible, these languages ​​were identified as Indo-European, which contributed to their decipherment.

Later inscriptions in Lydian, Lycian, Sidetian, Carian and other languages ​​were written in Asia Minor alphabets (partially deciphered in the 20th century).

Dead:

1. Hittite.

2. Luuvian.

3. Palaysky.

4. Carian.

5. Lydian.

6. Lycian.

Tocharian group. Tocharian languages ​​are a group of Indo-European languages ​​consisting of the dead "Tocharian A" ("East Tocharian") and "Tocharian B" ("West Tocharian"). They were spoken in what is now Xinjiang. The monuments that have reached us (the first of them were discovered at the beginning of the 20th century by the Hungarian traveler Aurel Stein) date back to the 6th-8th centuries. The self-name of the speakers is unknown; they are called “Tochars” conventionally: the Greeks called them Τοχ?ριοι, and the Turks called them toxri.

Dead:

1. Tocharian A - in Chinese Turkestan.

2. Tocharsky V - ibid.

The mysterious languages ​​of the East still excite the minds of the public, especially the euphonious Persian language, in which the greatest poets of antiquity wrote their poems. The ancient Persian dialect is included in the Iranian group of languages, the number of speakers of which reaches about 200 million. Who are they, these eastern people, part of the Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family? Details in this article!

Iranian language group

The name “Iranian languages” itself dates back to the mid-19th century. This group of languages ​​is connected with Iran as its ethnic group as closely as possible, or, on the contrary, it was very distant from it, retaining only some related features.

This situation applies primarily to the Persian language, which for many years was considered the leading language of the Iranian group.

The very concept of “Iranian” should be understood not only as Persian, but also as a whole complex of linguistic dialects, which includes the already mentioned Persian language.

Origin

The Iranian group of languages ​​was formed in ancient times (2nd millennium BC), when a common proto-Aryan language dominated the territory of Central Asia, and it was then that the proto-Iranian dialect arose - the progenitor of the modern “Iranian” dialect. Today, in the same New Persian language, only echoes of it remain.

Having emerged as a separate language from the common Aryan, Proto-Iranian acquired the following phonetic features:

• Loss of voiced consonants that were pronounced aspirated, for example, “bh” turned into a simple “b”, “gh” - “g”, “dh” - “d”, etc.
• Fricativization of deaf people, for example, “pf” turned into a long “f”.
• Processes of palatalization, for example, the transition of “s” to “z”, “g” to “z”, etc.
• Development of aspiration from “s” to “ssh”.
• Processes of dissimilation of “tt” into “st”, “dt” into “zd”.

The Iranian group of the Indo-European language family ranks with the Albanian, Armenian, Baltic, Germanic and Aryan languages. The same group as the Iranian languages ​​also includes such dead dialects as Anatolian, Illyrian and Tocharian. The first two were languages ​​of the Greek countries, and the last one has Balkan roots.

History and classification

Historically, the Iranian group of languages ​​has existed for about 3000 years. There are three periods in total: ancient, middle and modern. Most is known about the ancient language, which preserved all the Aryan traditions and the inflectional synthetic system.

The middle and new periods of the Iranian group of languages ​​followed the path of destruction of inflection. These are the “great-grandchildren” of Aryan, which become more analytical linguistic adverbs. The last type or New Iranian languages ​​is a group of dialects that is now alive or has recently died out, since their last speakers left the world.

A clearer sequence of development can be traced in the most famous branch of the Iranian group of languages ​​- Persian. It is also divided into Old Persian-Middle Persian and New Persian (Farsi).

Other Iranian branches either did not preserve their written sources at all, or died out long before their emergence. That is why it is difficult to study modern Iranian languages, since there is a complete lack of genetic connections.

However, scientists studying Iranian languages ​​do not lose heart, collecting more and more new facts from excavations at the sites of former settlements. It is worth telling about each period in more detail.

Ancient Iranian languages

This period has an approximate date from the IV-III century. BC Coverage area - speakers of the ancient Iranian group of languages ​​lived in the southwest from the Zagros to China, Altai and the Northern Black Sea region in the northwest. Such a huge space contributed to a split within the language group and served to form separate languages ​​of ancient Iran.

The following are considered documented and recorded according to the research of oriental scientists:

1. Old Persian is the dialect of the Achaemenid kings, the ancestor of the entire southwestern Iranian group, and the language of official inscriptions on monuments and historical sites.
2. Avestan language is the written or book language of the Avesta, which was the holy book of the Zoroastrians. This adverb was previously only oral and was associated among the ancient Iranians exclusively with the religious component of their life. It is the language of parables, prayers and Zoroastrian songs.
3. Median language is a dialect of Media, which contains particles of the Proto-Aryan language. Presumably the Median dialect is the ancestor of the western group of Iranian languages.
4. Scythian language is the dialect of the Scythians and partly Sarmatians, demonstrating complex diphthongs with aspiration - the calling card of all Iranians and Sarmatians lived in the steppes of the Caucasus and in the Northern Black Sea region. This adverb is one of the most enigmatic and mysterious in the Iranian group; the Scythian and Sarmatian tribes are known only thanks to Greek sources. The Slavic group also met with the Scythian language, but at that time in the future territory of Rus' there was only cuneiform, which was represented by lines and “cuts” - notches. Naturally, such a primitive “letter” at that time could not reflect any striking phonetic features.

All of the listed languages, and those that have been lost, can only be restored by the method of comparative historical linguistics.

Ancient Iranian languages ​​were characterized by incomplete consonance, as well as longitude and voicing of consonants.

Central Iranian languages

The second period, or Central Iranian, dates back to the 4th - 9th centuries BC. e. This chronology is a bit arbitrary, since only historical documents of the ancient Persians help to compile it. The study situation is further complicated by the fact that the Middle Iranian period did not leave any modern Iranian “descendants”. That is why this time is called a dead period in the development of the Iranian group of languages.

The inflectional features of the language are further destroyed, and words are formed not using endings, but in an analytical way.

This is interesting! In the languages ​​of western Iran, the inflectional system has completely collapsed, and only the verbal conjugation remains.

Coverage and distribution area

The distribution area of ​​Iran's languages ​​began to have a clearer division into western and eastern groups. The dividing line ran along the border of Parthia and Bactria.

In total, oriental scientists, judging by the found written monuments, distinguish the following Central Iranian languages:

1. Middle Persian is a dialect of Sasanian Iran or "Pahlavi". This is a famous Zoroastrian language with a rich written language - many literary monuments of that era are written in this language, which was even used on the coins of the kings of Fars.
2. Parthian language is a dialect of Parthia, which is a follower of Median. This is the language of the Arsacid state. This dialect was lost around the 5th century, when Old Persian became widespread.
3. The Bactrian language is a dialect of the Kushans and Hephthalites using Greek writing. This dialect was supplanted in the 9th-10th centuries. V. New Persian.
4. The Saka language is one of the most mysterious dialects of the Iranian group of languages. Saka belongs to the linguistic group of Khotanese dialects associated with Buddhist culture and, accordingly, with its linguistic features. Therefore, many monuments of Buddhist literature have been found in this dialect. Saka was supplanted by the Turkic Uyghur language.
5. Sogdian is the dialect of Sogdian colonists from Central Asia. The Sogdian dialect has left many literary monuments. In the 10th century it was supplanted by New Persian and Turkic. However, according to scientists, he still has a descendant - this is the Yaghnobi language.
6. The Khorezmian language is a dialect of Khorezm that did not exist for long and was supplanted by the Turkic language.
7. Sarmatian language is the dialect of the Sarmatians, which completely replaced the Scythian language throughout the Northern Black Sea region. This is the steppe dialect of the eastern tribes, which were the longest speakers of this language of the Middle Iranian period, almost until the 13th century. Later, the Sarmatian language became the ancestor of Alan.

New Iranian languages

Groups of the Indo-European language family today have many varieties of ancient Iranian dialects. The New Iranian period began after the conquest of Iran by the Arabs and continues its tradition at the present time.

New Iranian languages ​​have a large dialectal practice, which is most often characterized by the absence of writing. Many dialects arise and disappear so quickly that orientalists do not even have time to thoroughly record the source. Because of this spontaneity, many linguistic communities are deprived of their own literature, and in general they are a supra-dialectal form of language with an uncertain status.

Naturally, the Arabic dialect had a great influence on the New Iranian language. New Persian, the state language of Iran, is coming to the fore today. On the periphery, in the mountainous regions of Greater Iran, you can also find non-Persian dialects, for example, Kurdish and Balochi. The most famous among the non-Persian dialects is the dialect of the Ossetians, who are descendants of the ancient Alans.

Modern Iranian language family

The Iranian language group includes:

1. New Persian, divided into its daughter literary forms: Farsi, Dari and Tajik.
2. Tatsky.
3. Luro-Bakhtiyarsky.
4. Dialects of Farsa and Lara.
5. Kurdshuli.
6. Kumzari.
7. Kurdish, with its dialect forms: Kurmanji, Sorani, Feili and Laki.
8. Daylemite.
9. Pricaspian.
10. Turkic.
11. Semnansky.
12. Balochi.
13. Pushutu and Vanetsi are the dialects of Afghanistan.
14. Pamir group of dialects.
15. Yaghnobi language.
16. Ossetian.

Thus, the peoples of the Iranian language group inherit interesting dialectal features. The main language of Iran today is New Persian, but on the territory of this vast state - Greater Iran - you can find many mysterious dialects and subsidiary literary forms, ranging from Farsi to Ossetian.