Avestan | |
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𐬎𐬞𐬀𐬯𐬙𐬀𐬎𐬎𐬀𐬐𐬀𐬉𐬥𐬀 upastawakaēna | |
Region | Central Asia |
Era | Late Bronze Age, Iron Age |
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | ae |
ISO 639-2 | ave |
ISO 639-3 | ave |
Glottolog | aves1237 |
Linguasphere | 58-ABA-a |
![]() Yasna 28.1, Ahunavaiti Gatha (Bodleian MS J2) | |
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Zoroastrianism |
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Avestan (/əˈvɛstən/ ə-VESS-tən)[1] is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages, Old Avestan (spoken in the mid-2nd to 1st millennium BC) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BC). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scriptural language of Zoroastrianism; the Avesta serves as their namesake. Both are early Eastern Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian language branch of the Indo-European language family. Its immediate ancestor was the Proto-Iranian language, a sister language to the Proto-Indo-Aryan language, with both having developed from the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian language; as such, Old Avestan is quite close in both grammar and lexicon to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language.
The Avestan text corpus was composed in the ancient Iranian satrapies of Arachosia, Aria, Bactria, and Margiana,[2] corresponding to the entirety of present-day Afghanistan as well as parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Yaz culture[3] of Bactria–Margiana has been regarded as a likely archaeological reflection of the early "Eastern Iranian" culture that is described in the Zoroastrian Avesta.
Since the evidence of Young Avestan place names so clearly points to a more eastern location, the Avesta is again understood, nowadays, as an East Iranian text, whose area of composition comprised – at least – Sīstån/Arachosia, Herat, Merw and Bactria.