Eastern Iranian languages
Eastern Iranian | |
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Geographic distribution | Central Asia, South Asia, Caucasus |
Linguistic classification | Indo-European
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Subdivisions |
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Glottolog | east2704 |
The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages, having emerged during the Middle Iranian era (4th century BC to 9th century AD). The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. As opposed to the Middle-era Western Iranian dialects, the Middle-era Eastern Iranian dialects preserve word-final syllables.
The largest living Eastern Iranian language is Pashto, with at least 80 million speakers between the Oxus River in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. The second-largest living Eastern Iranian language is Ossetic, with roughly 600,000 speakers across Ossetia (split between Georgia and Russia). All other languages of the Eastern Iranian subgroup have fewer than 200,000 speakers combined.
Most living Eastern Iranian languages are spoken in a contiguous area: southern and eastern Afghanistan and the adjacent parts of western Pakistan; the Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region in eastern Tajikistan; and the westernmost parts of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in western China. There are also two living members in widely separated areas: the Yaghnobi language of northwestern Tajikistan (descended from Sogdian); and the Ossetic language of the Caucasus (descended from Scytho-Sarmatian and is hence classified as Eastern Iranian despite its location). These are remnants of a vast ethno-linguistic continuum that stretched over most of Central Asia, parts of the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, and Western Asia in the 1st millennium BC — an area otherwise known as Scythia. The large Eastern Iranian continuum in Eastern Europe would continue up to the 4th century AD, with the successors of the Scythians, namely the Sarmatians.[1]
History
Due to the
Middle Persian/Dari spread around the Oxus River region, Afghanistan, and
Classification
Eastern Iranian remains in large part a dialect continuum subject to common innovation. Traditional branches, such as "Northeastern", as well as Eastern Iranian itself, are better considered
The languages are as follows:[10]
- Old Iranian period
Avestan is sometimes classified as Eastern Iranian, but is not assigned to a branch in 21st-century classifications.
- Middle Iranian period
- Bactrian†, c. 4th century BC – 9th century AD
- Khwarezmian† (Chorasmian) c. 4th century BC – 13th century AD
- Sogdian†, from c. the 4th century AD
- Scytho-Khotanese (Saka)† (c. 5th century – 10th century AD) and Tumshuqese† (formerly Maralbashi, 7th century AD)
- Scytho-Sarmatian†, from c. the 8th century BC
- Modern languages (Neo-Iranian)
- )
- Pamir languages
- North Pamir
- Sanglechi-Ishkashimi
- Wakhi
- Munji-Yidgha
- Ormuri-Parachi
- Ormuri
- Parachi
- Northern
- Yaghnobi
- Jassic†)
Characteristics
The Eastern Iranian area has been affected by widespread sound changes, e.g. t͡ʃ > ts.
English | Avestan | Pashto |
Munji | Sanglechi | Wakhi | Shughni | Parachi | Ormuri |
Yaghnobi | Ossetic
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
one | aēva- | yaw | yu | vak | yi | yiw | žu | sō | ī | iu |
four | t͡ʃaθwārō | tsalṓr | t͡ʃfūr | tsəfúr | tsībɨr | tsavṓr | t͡ʃōr | tsār | (tafṓr)1 | cyppar |
seven | hapta | ōwə | ōvda | ōvδ | ɨb | ūvd | hōt | wō | aft | avd |
- The initial syllable was in this word lost entirely in Yaghnobi due to a stress shift.
Lenition of voiced stops
Common to most Eastern Iranian languages is a particularly widespread
A series of
English | Avestan | Pashto |
Munji | Sanglechi | Wakhi | Shughni | Parachi | Ormuri |
Yaghnobi | Ossetic
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ten | dasa | las | los / dā1 | dos | δas | δis | dōs | das | das | dæs |
cow | gav- | ɣwā | ɣṓw | uɣūi | ɣīw | žōw | gū | gioe | ɣōw | qug |
brother | brātar- | wrōr | vəróy | vrūδ | vīrīt | virṓd | byā | (marzā2) | virṓt | ærvad3 |
The consonant clusters *ft and *xt have also been widely lenited, though again excluding Ormuri-Parachi, and possibly Yaghnobi.
External influences
The neighboring Indo-Aryan languages have exerted a pervasive external influence on the closest neighbouring Eastern Iranian, as it is evident in the development in the retroflex consonants (in Pashto, Wakhi, Sanglechi, Khotanese, etc.) and aspirates (in Khotanese, Parachi and Ormuri).[8] A more localized sound change is the backing of the former retroflex fricative ṣ̌ [ʂ], to x̌ [x] or to x [χ], found in the Shughni–Yazgulyam branch and certain dialects of Pashto. E.g. "meat": ɡuṣ̌t in Wakhi and γwaṣ̌a in Southern Pashto, but changes to guxt in Shughni, γwax̌a in Central and Northern Pashto.
Notes
- ^1 Munji dā is a borrowing from Persian but Yidgha still uses los.
- ^2 Ormuri marzā has a different etymological origin, but generally Ormuri [b] is preserved unchanged, e.g. *bastra- > bēš, Ormuri for "cord" (cf. Avestan band- "to tie").
- ^3 Ossetic ærvad means "relative". The word for "brother" æfsymær is of a different etymological source.
See also
- Western Iranian languages
- Dari (Eastern Persian), a dialect of a Western Iranian language, despite the name
- Sakan language
References
- ^ J.Harmatta: "Scythians" in UNESCO Collection of History of Humanity – Volume III: From the Seventh Century BC to the Seventh Century AD. Routledge/UNESCO. 1996. pg. 182
- JSTOR 3000746.
- ISBN 978-0-521-77933-3.
- ISBN 978-0-521-51441-5.
- ISBN 978-0-521-51441-5.
- ISBN 978-1-84511-283-7.
- ISBN 978-1-84511-283-7.
- ^ a b Nicholas Sims-Williams, Eastern Iranian languages, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, 2008
- ^ Antje Wendtland (2009), The position of the Pamir languages within East Iranian, Orientalia Suecana LVIII
- ^ Gernot Windfuhr, 2009, "Dialectology and Topics", The Iranian Languages, Routledge
External links
- Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, ed. Schmitt (1989), p. 100.