Middle Persian or Pahlavi is the Iranian language spoken during Sassanian times. It descended from Old Persian. An extinct language (also called a dead language) is a language which no longer has any native speakers. ... 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. ... As a means of recording the passage of time the 9th century was that century that lasted from 801 to 900. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many spoken in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia), the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), and Central Asia. ... The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words see here. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of sounds and the human voice. ... Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ... This chart shows concisely the most common way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is applied to represent the English language. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family with an estimated 150-200 million native speakers today. ... The Sassanid Empire in the time of Shapur I; the conquest of Cappadocia was temporary Official language Pahlavi (Middle Persian) Dominant Religion Zoroastrianism Capital Ctesiphon Sovereigns Shahanshah of the Iran (Eranshahr) First Ruler Ardashir I Last Ruler Yazdegerd III Establishment 224 AD Dissolution 651 AD Part of the History of... See Aryan Language or Old Persian For more information visit: *[Ancient Iranian Languages & Literature The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (CAIS) ...

Middle Persian was usually written in the Pahlavi script. The language was also written down in the Manichaean script by Persian-speaking Manichaeans. The Pahlavi script was used broadly in the Sasanid Persian Empire to write down Middle Persian for secular, as well as religious purposes. ... The Manichaean script is a variant of the Syriac script designed to record the Middle Persian language. ... Manichean priests, writing at their desk, with panel inscription in Sogdian. ...

Middle-Persian' Literature and Grammar

In the classification of the Iranian languages, the Middle Period includes those languages which were common in Iran from the third century B.C. (the fall of the Achaemenids) up to the seventh century A.D. (the fall of the Sasanians). One of these languages is Pahlavi or the Zoroastrian Middle Persian or which is a continuation of the Old Persian. Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Dynasty was a dynasty in the ancient Persian Empire, including Cyrus II the Great, Darius I and Xerxes I. At the height of their power, the Achaemenid rulers of Persia ruled over territories roughly emcompassing some parts of todays Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon... Head of king Shapur II (Sasanian dynasty A.D. 4th century). ... The Pahlavi script was used broadly in the Sasanid Persian Empire to write down Middle Persian for secular, as well as religious purposes. ... See Aryan Language or Old Persian For more information visit: *[Ancient Iranian Languages & Literature The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (CAIS) ...

The most important and distinct development in the structure of Iranian languages in the Middle Period (in the Mid-Wes Iran, Iranian languages), is its transformation from the synthetic form of the Old Period (Old Persian and Avestan) to an analytic form i.e. the nouns, pronouns, and the adjectives lost their conjugative suffixes and changed to invariable words used in all grammatical cases; the gender and the dual number, also, disappeared. Prepositions were used to indicate the different roles of words, and the tenses changed from a synthetic form to composite ones. Yasna 28. ... In English, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which can co-occur with (in)definite articles and attributive adjectives, and function as the head of a noun phrase. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun phrase. ... In grammar, an adjective is a part of speech that modifies a noun or a pronoun, usually by describing it or making its meaning more specific. ...

One can imagine that this development had to do with the fact that Old Persian, as it appears in the inscriptions of Bistun and Persepolis, could have not possibly been the language of conversation, and, it could not have been simplified so much as is evident in the Zoroastrian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, during only 500 years. Thus, one can conclude that Old Persian had been the language of literary writing, which was very different from the spoken language, and although written Persian or Pahlavi was its continuation, it was not a direct one and was greatly influenced by the spoken form of the language. The Behistun Inscription, carved into a cliffside, gives the same text in three languages, telling the story of King Darius conquests, with the names of twenty-three provinces subject to him. ... Persepolis aerial view. ... Zoroastrianism was adapted from an earlier, polytheistic faith by Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) in Persia very roughly around 1000 BC (although, in the absence of written records, some scholars estimates are as late as 600 BC). ...

Transition to Modern Persian

The modern-day descendant of Middle Persian is Modern Persian. The changes between late Middle and early Modern Persian were very gradual, and in the 10th-11th centuries, Middle Persian texts were still intelligible to speakers of early Modern Persian. However, there are definite differences that had taken place already by the 10th century: 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. ...

• Sound changes, such as
  • the dropping of unstressed initial vowels
  • the epenthesis of vowels in initial consonant clusters
  • the loss of -g when word final
  • change of initial w- to either b- or (gw- → g-)
• Changes in the verbal system, notably the loss of distinctive subjunctive and optative forms, and the increasing use of verbal prefixes to express verbal moods
• Changes in the vocabulary, especially the substitution of a large number of Arabic loanwords for words of native origin
• The substitution of Arabic script for Pahlavi script.

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 invaded by the Arab armies that spread Islam. In poetry and phonetics, epenthesis (, from Greek epi on + en in + thesis putting) is the insertion of a consonant, a vowel, or a whole syllable into a word, usually to facilitate pronunciation. ... A loanword (or a borrowing) is a word taken in by one language from another. ... Zoroastrianism (Avestan Daênâ Vañuhi the good religion)[1][2] is the religion and philosophy based on the teachings ascribed to the prophet Zoroaster (Zarathustra, Zartosht). ... 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... Languages Arabic other languages (Arab minorities) Religions Predominantly Muslim Some adherents of Druze, Judaism, Samaritan, Christianity Related ethnic groups Mizrachi Jews, Sephardi Jews[], Ashkenazi Jews, Canaanites, other Semitic-speaking groups An Arab (Arabic: ‎; transliteration: ) is a member of a Semitic-speaking people originally from the Arabian peninsula and surrounding territories... Islam (Arabic:  ) is a monotheistic religion based upon the teachings of Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure. ...

A Comparison Table of Pahlavi with other Iranian Languages

The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Zazaki (Zazaish) is a language spoken by Zazas in eastern Anatolia (Turkey). ... The Kurdish language is a language spoken in the region called Kurdistan, including Kurdish populations in parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. ... Pashto (‎, IPA: also known as Pakhto, Pushto, Pukhto ‎, Pashtoe, Pashtu, Pushtu, Pushtoo, Pathan, or Afghan language) is an Iranian language of the Indo-Iranian language family spoken by Pashtuns living in southeastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan. ... Balochi (also Baluchi, Baloci or Baluci) is a Southeastern Iranian language. ... Mazandarani or Tabari is an ancient Iranian language of the northwestern branch. ... Persian (Local names: فارسی Fârsi or پارسی Pârsi)* is an Indo-European language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan as well as by minorities in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, India, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Southern Russia, neighboring countries, and elsewhere. ... The Iranian languages are a part of the Indo-European language family with estimated 150-200 million native speakers. ... Sketch of the first column of the Behistun Inscription Old Persian is the oldest attested Persid language. ... Avestan is an Eastern Old Iranian language that was used to compose the sacred hymns and canon of the Zoroastrian Avesta. ...

See also

• Old Persian
• Pahlavi Literature

See Aryan Language or Old Persian For more information visit: *[Ancient Iranian Languages & Literature The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (CAIS) ... This article needs to be wikified. ...

External links

• Articles on Ancient Iranian Languages
• Iranian Languages Group