Avestan facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Avestan
𐬎𐬞𐬀𐬯𐬙𐬀𐬎𐬎𐬀𐬐𐬀𐬉𐬥𐬀 upastawakaēna
Region	Central Asia
Era	Late Bronze Age, Iron Age
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Eastern Iranian Avestan
Writing system	Avestan alphabet Gujarati script and Devanagari script (used by Indian Zoroastrians)
Linguasphere	58-ABA-a
Yasna 28.1, Ahunavaiti Gatha (Bodleian MS J2)
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Avestan is a very old language from the Iranian family. It's actually a name for two closely related languages: Old Avestan and Younger Avestan. These languages were spoken thousands of years ago in what is now Central Asia.

We know about Avestan because it was used for the holy texts of Zoroastrianism, a very ancient religion. The main holy book is called the Avesta, which is where the language gets its name. Old Avestan is quite similar to Vedic Sanskrit, another ancient language from India. Both came from an even older language called Proto-Indo-Iranian.

The Avestan texts were written in ancient regions like Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Some historians believe the Yaz culture might be linked to the early people who spoke Avestan.

Avestan's Family Tree

Avestan and Old Persian are the two oldest known Iranian languages. Avestan was likely spoken in the northeastern parts of a large historical region called Greater Iran.

Languages are often grouped by their age and where they were spoken. Avestan is known as an "Eastern Old Iranian" language. This means it's an old language from the eastern side of the Iranian language family. However, the differences between "Eastern" and "Western" Iranian languages weren't as clear back then. Avestan simply didn't have some of the changes seen in Old Persian, which was a Western Iranian language.

Old Avestan is very similar in its grammar and words to Vedic Sanskrit.

Different Forms of Avestan

Avestan appears in two main forms: "Old Avestan" (also called "Gathic Avestan") and "Younger Avestan." It's important to know that Younger Avestan didn't directly grow out of Old Avestan. They were different dialects, meaning they were spoken in different ways, even if they were related.

Over time, all Avestan texts went through many changes. This happened because the texts were passed down orally (by speaking and memorizing) for a long time before they were written down.

• First, there was the original language used by the people who created the oldest texts.
• Then, the language changed a bit when people chanted it slowly during religious ceremonies.
• Later, people who spoke Younger Avestan passed down the Old Avestan texts, causing some changes.
• Scribes (people who copied texts) also wrote down Younger Avestan texts in their own way.
• Sometimes, changes were made on purpose to make the language more standard.
• The language also changed when texts were moved to places where Avestan wasn't spoken anymore.
• Finally, when the texts were written down using the Avestan alphabet, there were more changes, and some mistakes happened during copying.

Because of all these steps, the Avestan we see today is the version from the Sasanian Empire period.

When Was Avestan Spoken?

It's tricky to say exactly when Avestan was spoken because we only find it in the Avesta texts. There are no other records of it. So, scholars have to guess based on clues within the texts themselves.

Many attempts to date Avestan have been linked to the life of Zarathustra, the founder of Zoroastrianism. He was traditionally thought to live around 600 BC. If that were true, Old Avestan would have been spoken around that time. Younger Avestan would have been spoken later, perhaps during the Hellenistic period or Parthian Empire.

However, many modern scholars now think Avestan is much older.

• Old Avestan texts, especially the Gathas, are very similar to the Rigveda, an ancient Indian text from the second half of the second millennium BC (around 1500-1000 BC).
• Younger Avestan texts describe places in eastern Greater Iran and don't show any signs of influence from the later Achaemenid Empire or Median Empire in Western Iran. This suggests that these texts, even though they came after Zarathustra, were written before 600 BC.

So, many scholars now believe that most Younger Avestan texts come from the first half of the first millennium BC (around 1000-500 BC). Old Avestan texts, like those by Zarathustra, might have been written as early as 1000 BC or even 1500 BC.

The Avestan Alphabet

The special script used to write Avestan was created much later, around 300 or 400 AD. By this time, the Avestan language itself had not been spoken in daily life for many centuries. It was only used for religious ceremonies and texts. Priests memorized and recited these texts.

The Avestan script is called Din dabireh, which means "religion writing." It has 53 different characters and is written from right to left. Many of its letters are based on the Pahlavi scripts, which in turn came from the Aramaic script. The Avestan alphabet also borrowed some letters, especially vowels, from Ancient Greek. Some letters were completely new inventions.

The Avestan alphabet has many letters because it was designed to write down the spoken religious texts very precisely. It was believed that saying the prayers correctly was important for them to work.

Today, Zoroastrians in India often write Avestan using Gujarati script. This started around the 12th century. Some Avestan sounds that don't exist in Gujarati are written using extra marks.

Sounds of Avestan (Phonology)

Avestan had a rich system of sounds. It kept some "voiced sibilants" (like the 'z' sound) and had "fricative" sounds (like 'f' or 'th').

Here are some of the sounds found in Avestan:

• Vowels: Avestan had both short and long vowels, similar to how we have short 'a' in "cat" and long 'a' in "car."
• Consonants: It had many consonants, including sounds like 'p', 't', 'k', 'b', 'd', 'g', 'f', 's', 'z', and 'h'. It also had some sounds not common in English, like 'θ' (like 'th' in "thin") and 'ɣ' (like the 'ch' in Scottish "loch").

Sample Text

Here is an example of Avestan text from the Yasna, one of the main parts of the Avesta:

Latin alphabet	Avestan alphabet	English Translation
ahyā. yāsā. nəmaŋhā. ustānazastō. rafəδrahyā.manyə̄uš. mazdā. pourwīm. spəṇtahyā. aṣ̌ā. vīspə̄ṇg. š́yaoθanā.vaŋhə̄uš. xratūm. manaŋhō. yā. xṣ̌nəwīṣ̌ā. gə̄ušcā. urwānəm.::	Yasna 28.1, Ahunavaiti Gatha (Bodleian MS J2)	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.

Example Phrases

Here are some common phrases in Avestan:

See Also

• Proto-Indo-European language
• Proto-Indo-Iranian language
• Vedic Sanskrit