It is not known what the original speakers of Avestan called the language. The modern term "Avestan" comes from the Avesta, a collection of Zoroastrian religious literature composed in the language, the name of which comes from Persianاوستا, avestâ and is of obscure origin, though it might come from or be cognate with the Avestan term 𐬎𐬞𐬀𐬯𐬙𐬁𐬬𐬀𐬐𐬀, upastāvaka, 'praise'.
The language was sometimes called Zend in older works, stemming from a misunderstanding of the Zend (commentaries and interpretations of Zoroastrian scripture) as synonymous with the Avesta itself, due to both often being bundled together as "Zend-Avesta".
Genealogy
Avestan and Old Persian are the two attested languages comprising Old Iranian,[4] and while Avestan was localized in the northeastern parts of Greater Iran[f 2] according to Paul Maximilian Tedesco [de] (1921), other scholars have favored regarding Avestan as originating in eastern parts.[4][5]
Scholars traditionally classify Iranian languages as "old", "middle" and "new" according to their age, and as "eastern" or "western" according to geography, and within this framework Avestan is classified as Eastern Old Iranian. But the east–west distinction is of limited meaning for Avestan, as the linguistic developments that later distinguish Eastern from Western Iranian had not yet occurred. Avestan does not display some typical (South-)Western Iranian innovations already visible in Old Persian, and so in this sense, "eastern" only means "non-western".[6]
The Avestan language is attested in roughly two forms, known as "Old Avestan" (or "Gathic Avestan") and "Younger Avestan". Younger Avestan did not evolve from Old Avestan; the two differ not only in time, but they are also different dialects.
Every Avestan text, regardless of whether originally composed in Old or Younger Avestan, underwent several transformations. Karl Hoffmann traced the following stages for Avestan as found in the extant texts. In roughly chronological order:
The natural language of the composers of the Gathas, the Yasna Haptanghaiti, the four sacred prayers (Y. 27 and 54).
Changes precipitated by slow chanting
Changes to Old Avestan due to transmission by native speakers of Younger Avestan
The natural language of the scribes who wrote grammatically correct Younger Avestan texts
Deliberate changes introduced through "standardization"
Changes introduced by transfer to regions where Avestan was not spoken
Adaptions/translations of portions of texts from other regions
Post-Sasanian deterioration of the written transmission due to incorrect pronunciation
Errors and corruptions introduced during copying
Many phonetic features cannot be ascribed with certainty to a particular stage since there may be more than one possibility. Every phonetic form that can be ascribed to the Sasanian archetype on the basis of critical assessment of the manuscript evidence must have gone through the stages mentioned above so that "Old Avestan" and "Young Avestan" really mean no more than "Old Avestan and Young Avestan of the Sasanian period".[4]
The Avestan language is only known from the Avesta and otherwise unattested. As a result, there is no external evidence on which to base the time frame during which the Avestan language was spoken and all attempts have to rely on internal evidence. Such attempts were often based on the life of Zarathustra as the most distinct event in the Avestan period.[citation needed] Zarathustra was traditionally based in the 6th century BC meaning that Old Avestan would have been spoken during the early Achaemenid period.[8] Given that a substantial time must have passed between Old Avestan and Young Avestan, the latter would have been spoken somewhere during the Hellenistic or the Parthian period of Iranian history.[9]
However, more recent scholarship has increasingly shifted to an earlier dating.[10][11][12] The literature presents a number of reasons for this shift, based on both the Old Avestan and the Young Avestan material. As regards Old Avestan, the Gathas show strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the Rigveda, which in turn is assumed to represent the second half of the second millennium BC.[13][14][15][16] As regards Young Avestan, texts like the Yashts and the Vendidad are situated in the eastern parts of Greater Iran and lack any discernible Persian or Median influence from Western Iran.[17] This is interpreted such that the bulk of this material, which has been produced several centuries after Zarathustra, must still predate the sixth century BC.[18][19][20] As a result, more recent scholarship often assumes that the major parts of the Young Avestan texts mainly reflect the first half of the first millennia BC,[21][22][23] whereas the Old Avestan texts of Zarathustra may have been composed around 1000 BC[24][25][26][27] or even as early as 1500 BC.[28][29][30]
The script used for writing Avestan developed during the 3rd or 4th century AD. By then the language had been extinct for many centuries, and remained in use only as a liturgical language of the Avesta canon. As is still the case today, the liturgies were memorized by the priesthood and recited by rote.
The script devised to render Avestan was natively known as Din dabireh "religion writing". It has 53 distinct characters and is written right-to-left. Among the 53 characters are about 30 letters that are – through the addition of various loops and flourishes – variations of the 13 graphemes of the cursive Pahlavi script (i.e. "Book" Pahlavi) that is known from the post-Sassanian texts of Zoroastrian tradition. These symbols, like those of all the Pahlavi scripts, are in turn based on Aramaic script symbols. Avestan also incorporates several letters from other writing systems, most notably the vowels, which are mostly derived from Greek minuscules. A few letters were free inventions, as were also the symbols used for punctuation. Also, the Avestan alphabet has one letter that has no corresponding sound in the Avestan language; the character for /l/ (a sound that Avestan does not have) was added to write Pazend texts.
The Avestan script is alphabetic, and the large number of letters suggests that its design was due to the need to render the orally recited texts with high phonetic precision. The correct enunciation of the liturgies was (and still is) considered necessary for the prayers to be effective.
The Zoroastrians of India, who represent one of the largest surviving Zoroastrian communities worldwide, also transcribe Avestan in Brahmi-based scripts. This is a relatively recent development first seen in the c. 12th century texts of Neryosang Dhaval and other Parsi Sanskritist theologians of that era, which are roughly contemporary with the oldest surviving manuscripts in Avestan script. Today, Avestan is most commonly typeset in the Gujarati script (Gujarati being the traditional language of the Indian Zoroastrians). Some Avestan letters with no corresponding symbol are synthesized with additional diacritical marks, for example, the /z/ in zaraθuštra is written with j with a dot below.
Avestan has retained voiced sibilants, and has fricative rather than aspirate series. There are various conventions for transliteration of the Avestan alphabet, the one adopted for this article being:
Vowels:
a ā ə ə̄ e ē o ō å ą i ī u ū
Consonants:
k g γ x xʷ č ǰ t d δ θ t̰ p b β f
ŋ ŋʷ ṇ ń n m y w r s z š ṣ̌ ž h
The glides y and w are often transcribed as <ii> and <uu>. The letter transcribed <t̰> indicates an allophone of /t/ with no audible release at the end of a word and before certain obstruents.[31]
With outspread hands in petition for that help, O Mazda, I will pray for the works of the holy spirit, O thou the Right, whereby I may please the will of Good Thought and the Ox-Soul.
^Wells, John C. (1990), Longman pronunciation dictionary, Harlow, England: Longman, p. 53, ISBN0-582-05383-8 entry "Avestan"
^Witzel, Michael. "THE HOME OF THE ARYANS"(PDF). Harvard University. p. 10. Retrieved 8 May 2015. 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.
^Mallory, J. P. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture. page 653. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. ISBN978-1-884964-98-5. entry "Yazd culture".
^ abcHoffmann, Karl (1989), "Avestan language", Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. 3, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 47–52.
^Gnoli, Gherardo (1989), "Avestan geography", Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. 3, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 44–47, It is impossible to attribute a precise geographical location to the language of the Avesta... With the exception of an important study by P. Tedesco (1921 [...]), who advances the theory of an 'Avestan homeland' in northwestern Iran, Iranian scholars of the twentieth century have looked increasingly to eastern Iran for the origins of the Avestan language and today there is general agreement that the area in question was in eastern Iran—a fact that emerges clearly from every passage in the Avesta that sheds any light on its historical and geographical background.
^Hoffmann, K. Encyclopaedia Iranica. AVESTAN LANGUAGE. III. The grammar of Avestan.: "The morphology of Avestan nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs is, like that of the closely related Old Persian, inherited from Proto-Indo-European via Proto-Indo-Iranian (Proto-Aryan), and agrees largely with that of Vedic, the oldest known form of Indo-Aryan. The interpretation of the transmitted Avestan texts presents in many cases considerable difficulty for various reasons, both with respect to their contexts and their grammar. Accordingly, systematic comparison with Vedic is of much assistance in determining and explaining Avestan grammatical forms.
Morgenstierne. Encyclopaedia Iranica: AFGHANISTAN vi.
^Shahbazi, Alireza Shapur (1977). "The 'Traditional Date of Zoroaster' Explained". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 40: 25–35. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00040386.
^Hintze, Almut (2015). "Zarathustra's Time and Homeland - Linguistic Perspectives". In Stausberg, Michael (ed.). The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. p. 38. ISBN9781118785539. Linguistic, literary and conceptual characteristics suggest that the Old(er) Avesta pre‐dates the Young(er) Avesta by several centuries.
^Daniel, Elton L. (2012). The History of Iran. Greenwood. p. 47. ISBN978-0313375095. Recent research, however, has cast considerable doubt on this dating and geographical setting.
^Stausberg, Michael (2002). Die Religion Zarathushtras: Geschichte - Gegenwart - Rituale. Vol. 1 (1st ed.). W. Kohlhammer GmbH. p. 27. ISBN978-3170171183. Die 'Spätdatierung' wird auch in der jüngeren Forschung gelegentlich vertreten. Die Mehrzahl der Forscher neigt heutzutage allerding der 'Frühdatierung' zu
^Bryant, Edwin (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture. Oxford University Press. p. 130. Previously, a sixth century B.C.E. date based on Greek sources was accepted by many scholars, but this has now been completely discarded by present-day specialists in the field.
^Skjaervø, P. Oktor (2009). "Old Iranian". In Windfuhr, Gernot (ed.). The Iranian Languages. Routledge. p. 43. ISBN9780203641736. Old Avestan [...] is closely similar in grammar and vocabulary to the oldest Indic language as seen in the oldest part of the Rgveda and should therefore probably be dated to about the same time.
^Daniel, Elton L. (2012). The History of Iran. Greenwood. p. 47. ISBN978-0313375095. The similarity of the language and metrical system of the Gathas to those of the Vedas, the simplicity of the society depicted throughout the Avesta, and the lack of awareness of great cities, historical rulers, or empires all suggest a different time frame.
^Bryant, Edwin (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture. Oxford University Press. p. 130. The oldest parts of the Avesta, which is the body of texts preserving the ancient canon of the Iranian Zarthustrian tradition, is linguistically and culturally very close to the material preserved in the Rgveda.
^Foltz, Richard C. (2013). Religions of Iran: From Prehistory to the Present. Oneworld Publications. p. 57. ISBN978-1780743080. The archaic nature of the Avestan language and its similarities to that of the Rig Veda, as well as the social and ecological environment it describes, would suggest a date somewhere between these two extremes, but not much later than 1000 BC.
^Gnoli, Gherardo (2011). "AVESTAN GEOGRAPHY". Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. III. Iranica Foundation. pp. 44–47. "It seems likely that this geographical part of the Avesta was intended to show the extent of the territory that had been acquired in a period that can not be well defined but that must at any rate have been between Zoroaster's reforms and the beginning of the Achaemenian empire. The likely dating is therefore between the ninth and seventh centuries B.C.
^Boyce, Mary (1996). A History Of Zoroastrianism: The Early Period. Brill. p. 191. Had it been otherwise, and had Zoroastrianism been carried in its infancy to the Medes and Persians, these imperial people must inevitable have found mention in its religious works.
^Skjaervø, P. Oktor (1995). "The Avesta as source for the early history of the Iranians". In Erdosy, George (ed.). The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia. De Gruyter. p. 166. ISBN9783110144475. The fact that the oldest Young Avestan texts apparently contain no reference to western Iran, including Media, would seem to indicate that they were composed in eastern Iran before the Median domination reached the area.
^Grenet, Frantz (2005). "An Archaeologist's Approach to Avestan Geography". In Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh; Stewart, Sarah (eds.). Birth of the Persian Empire Volume I. I.B.Tauris. p. 44. ISBN978-0-7556-2459-1. It is difficult to imagine that the text was composed anywhere other than in South Afghanistan and later than the middle of the 6th century BC.
^Vogelsang, Willem (2000). "The sixteen lands of Videvdat - Airyanem Vaejah and the homeland of the Iranians". Persica. 16: 62. doi:10.2143/PERS.16.0.511. All of the above observations would indicate a date for the composition of the Videvdat list which would antedate, for a considerable time, the arrival in Eastern Iran of the Persian Acheamenids (ca. 550 B.C.)
^Skjaervø, P. Oktor (2009). "Old Iranian". In Windfuhr, Gernot (ed.). The Iranian Languages. Routledge. p. 43. ISBN9780203641736. Young Avestan must have been quite close to Old Persian, which suggests it was spoken in the first half of the first millennium BC.
^Malandra, William W. (2009). "Zoroaster ii. general survey". Encyclopædia Iranica. Iranica Foundation. Controversy over Zaraθuštra's date has been an embarrassment of long standing to Zoroastrian studies. If anything approaching a consensus exists, it is that he lived ca. 1000 BC give or take a century or so[.]
^Schmitt, Rüdiger (2000). "Die Sprachen der altiranischen Periode". Die iranischen Sprachen in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. p. 21. Die ältesten Texte dieses Corpus, die sog. Gathas stammen von Zarathustra selbst, dessen Lebensdaten von der Mehrheit der Forscher heute um das Jahr 1000 v. Chr. angesetzt [...] werden.
^Hale, Mark (2004). "Avestan". In Roger D. Woodard (ed.). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. Cambridge University Press. p. 742. ISBN0-521-56256-2. Current scholarly consensus places his life considerably earlier than the traditional Zoroastrian sources are thought to, favoring a birth date before 1000 BC.
^Skjaervø, P. Oktor (2009). "Old Iranian". In Windfuhr, Gernot (ed.). The Iranian Languages. Routledge. p. 46. ISBN9780203641736. Mid-second millennium:Composition of the ritual texts[...]the last direct evidence of which are the extant Old Avestan texts.
^Daniel, Elton L. (2012). The History of Iran. Greenwood. p. 47. ISBN978-0313375095. All in all, it seems likely that Zoroaster and the Avestan people flourished in eastern Iran at a much earlier date (anywhere from 1500 to 900 B.C.) than once thought.
^Grenet, Frantz (2015). "Zarathustra's Time and Homeland - Geographical Perspectives". In Stausberg, Michael; Vevaina, Yuhan S.-D.; Tessmann, Anna (eds.). The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism. John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. p. 22. ISBN9781118785539. All things considered, our chronological and cultural parameters tend to suggest locating Zarathustra (or, at least, the "Gathic community") [...] around c. 1500–1200 BC.
Beekes, Robert S. P. (1988), A Grammar of Gatha-Avestan, Leiden: Brill, ISBN90-04-08332-4.
Hoffmann, Karl; Forssman, Bernhard (1996), Avestische Laut- und Flexionslehre, Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 84, Institut fur Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck, ISBN3-85124-652-7.
Kellens, Jean (1990), "Avestan syntax", Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. 3/sup, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
Skjærvø, Prod Oktor (2006), Old Avestan, fas.harvard.edu.
