Middle Persian or Pahlavi is the Iranian language spoken during Sassanian times. It descended from Old Persian. Numerous languages are spoken in Iran, yet all of them originate from the same linguistic roots. ... Sketch of the first column of the Behistun Inscription Old Persian is the oldest attested Persid language. ...

Middle Persian was usually written in the Pahlavi script. The language was also written down in the Manichean script by Persian-speaking Manichees. Pahlavi is a term that refers: (1) to a script used in Iran derived from the Aramaic script, and (2) more broadly, to Middle Persian, the Middle Iranian language written in this script. ... Manichaeism was one of the major ancient religions. ...

Transition to Modern Persian

The modern-day descendent of Middle Persian is Modern Persian. The latter is distinguished from the former by, among other things, being written in a different script, the Perso-Arabic script, and by a large number of Arabic loanwords. Pahlavi Middle Persian is the language of quite a large body of Zoroastrian literature which details the traditions and prescriptions of the Zoroastrian religion which was the state religion of Sassanid Iran (224 to ca. 650) before Iran was defeated by the Arab armies that introduced Islam. Persian (فارسی), also known as Farsi (local name), Parsi (older local name, but still used by some speakers), Tajik (a Central Asian dialect) or Dari (an Afghan dialect), is a language spoken in Iran, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing the Arabic language, which is the language of the Quran, the holy book of Islam. ... Faravahar, The depiction of the human soul before birth and after death. ... Sassanid Empire at its greatest extent The Sassanid dynasty (also Sassanian) was the name given to the kings of Persia during the era of the second Persian Empire, from 224 until 651, when the last Sassanid shah, Yazdegerd III, lost a 14-year struggle to drive out the Umayyad Caliphate... The Arabs (Arabic: عرب Ê»arab) are an originally Arabian ethnicity widespread in the Middle East and North Africa. ... Islam  listen? (Arabic: al-islām) the submission to God is a monotheistic faith, one of the Abrahamic religions, and the worlds second largest religion. ...

See also: Pahlavi Literature Literature of Pahlavi Pahlavi Literature is divided to three parts: 1. ...

External Link

• Articles on Ancient Iranian Languages
• Iranian Languages Group