Old Persian

Origin and overview

As a written language, Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. It is an Iranian language and as such a member of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscriptions. Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages which are attested in original texts.

The oldest date of use of Old Persian as a spoken language is not precisely known. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where the Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by a tribe called mis, who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province. Their language, Old Persian, became the official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give a good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, mis (along with mis, presumably Medians) are first mentioned in the area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III. The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian peo itself coming directly from the older word peo. Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median, according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before the formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE.

Classification

Main article: Iranian languages#Proto-Iranian and Old Iranian_languages

Old Persian belongs to the Iranian language family, a branch of the Indo-Iranian language family, itself within the large family of Indo-European languages. The common ancestors of Indo-Iranians came from Central Asia sometime in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. The extinct and unattested Median language is another Old Iranian language related to Old Persian; both are classified as Western Iranian languages, and many Median names appear in Old Persian texts. The group of Old Iranian languages was presumably large; however, knowledge of it is restricted mainly to Old Persian, Avestan, and Median. The first two are the only languages in that group to have left written original texts, while Median is known mostly from loanwords in Old Persian.

Language evolution

By the 4th century BCE, the late Achaemenid period, the inscriptions of Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III differ enough from the language of Darius' inscriptions to be called a "pre-Middle Persian," or "post-Old Persian". Old Persian subsequently evolved into Middle Persian, which is in turn the ancestor of New Persian.

Professor Gilbert Lazard, a famous Iranologist and the author of the book Persian Grammar, states:

Middle Persian, also sometimes called Pahlavi, is a direct continuation of Old Persian and was used as the written official language of the country. Comparison of the evolution at each stage of the language shows great simplification in grammar and syntax. However, New Persian is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian.

Substrates

Old Persian contains numerous loanwords from the Median language, which was presumably a substrate of Old Persian. The Median element is identifiable because it did not share in the developments that were peculiar to Old Persian. Median words can be found in all parts of the lexicon, though some forms appear only in proper names, while others appear primarily in religious vocabulary and thus may include some Avestan influence. Some words are attested with both their Old Persian and Median forms, such as the word for 'horse', which is attested in Old Persian as both peo (Old Persian) and peo (Median).

Script

Main article: Old Persian cuneiform

Old Persian texts were written from left to right in the syllabic Old Persian cuneiform script and had 36 phonetic characters and 8 logograms. The usage of logograms is not obligatory. The script was surprisingly Excerpt: "It remains unclear why the Persians did not take over the Mesopotamian system in earlier times, as the Elamites and other peoples of the Near East had, and, for that matter, why the Persians did not adopt the Aramaic consonantal script.." not a result of evolution of the script used in the nearby civilisation of Mesopotamia. Despite the fact that Old Persian was written in cuneiform script, the script was not a direct continuation of Mesopotamian tradition and in fact, according to Schmitt, was a "deliberate creation of the sixth century BCE".

The origin of the Old Persian cuneiform script and the identification of the date and process of introduction are a matter of debate among Iranian scholars with no general agreement having been reached. The factors making the consensus difficult are, among others, the difficult passage DB (IV lines 88–92) from Darius the Great who speaks of a new "form of writing" being made by himself which is said to be "in Aryan":

Also, the analysis of certain Old Persian inscriptions are "supposed or claimed" to predate Darius the Great. Although it is true that the oldest attested Old Persian inscriptions are found on the Behistun monument from Darius, the creation of this "new type of writing" seems, according to Schmitt, "to have begun already under Cyrus the Great".

The script shows a few changes in the shape of characters during the period it was used. This can be seen as a standardization of the heights of wedges, which in the beginning (i.e. in DB) took only half the height of a line.

Phonology

The following phonemes are expressed in the Old Persian script:

Most phonemes are conventionally transcribed with the corresponding IPA symbols shown on this table, including peo for . The exceptions are peo, as the first three letters are used for , and peo is used for the remaining phoneme ( in the native script, of uncertain pronunciation but perhaps an affricate or sibilant of some kind).

Lycian 𐊋𐊆𐊈𐊈𐊀𐊓𐊕𐊑𐊏𐊀 xlc ~ 𐊈𐊆𐊖𐊀𐊓𐊕𐊑𐊏𐊀 xlc for (genuine) Old Persian peo (besides the Median form peo) = Tissaphernes suggests as the pronunciation of peo (compare https://web.archive.org/web/20121117015833/http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cirafarnah-elamite-zi-ut-ra-bar-na-assyrian-si-dir-pa-ar-na-ni-gk and Kloekhorst 2008, p. 125 in https://www.academia.edu/345130/Studies_in_Lycian_and_Carian_phonology_and_morphology for this example, who, however, mistakenly writes peo, which contradicts the etymology [PIIr. peo] and the Middle Persian form pal [peo gives Middle Persian pal]).

The phoneme does not occur in native Iranian vocabulary, only in borrowings from Akkadian (a new develops in Middle Persian from Old Persian and the change of to ). The phoneme can also form a syllable peak; both the way Persian names with syllabic (such as Brdiya) are rendered in Elamite and its further development in Middle Persian suggest that before the syllabic , an epenthetic vowel had developed already in the Old Persian period, which later became after labials. For example, Old Persian peo is rendered in Elamite as elx, rendering transcriptions such as peo, peo or even peo questionable and making peo or peo much more realistic (and equally for peo "wolf", peo and other Old Persian words and names with syllabic ).

While peo usually became in Middle Persian, it became word-initially in New Persian, except before (including the epenthetic vowel mentioned above), where it became . This suggests that it was really pronounced as .

Grammar

Grammatical numbers

Old Persian has 3 types of grammatical number: singular, dual and plural.

Grammatical genders

Old Persian has three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. In contrast, Modern Persian (as well as Middle Persian) is a genderless language.

Nouns

Old Persian stems:

• a-stems (peo)
• i-stems (peo)
• u- (and au-) stems (peo)
• consonantal stems (peo)

Adjectives are declined in a similar way.

Verbs

Voices

Active, Middle (them. pres. peo, peo), Passive (peo).

Mostly the forms of first and third persons are attested. The only preserved Dual form is peo 'both lived'.

Sample text

Here's the opening line of the Darius Naqsh-e Rostam inscription "a".

Old Persian 𐎲𐎥 𐏐 𐎺𐏀𐎼𐎣 𐏐 𐎠𐎢𐎼𐎶𐏀𐎭𐎠 𐏐 𐏃𐎹 𐏐 𐎡𐎶𐎠𐎶 𐏐 𐎲𐎢𐎷𐎡𐎶 𐏐 𐎠𐎭𐎠 𐏐 𐏃𐎹 𐏐 𐎠𐎺𐎶 𐏐 𐎠𐎿𐎶𐎠𐎴𐎶 𐏐 𐎠𐎭𐎠 𐏐 𐏃𐎹 𐏐 𐎶𐎼𐎫𐎡𐎹𐎶 𐏐 𐎠𐎭𐎠 𐏐 𐏃𐎹 𐏐 𐏁𐎡𐎹𐎠𐎫𐎡𐎶 𐏐 𐎠𐎭𐎠 𐏐 𐎶𐎼𐎫𐎡𐎹𐏃𐎹𐎠 𐏐 𐏃𐎹 𐏐 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐎶 𐏐 𐎧𐏁𐎠𐎹𐎰𐎡𐎹𐎶 𐏐 𐎠𐎤𐎢𐎴𐎢𐏁 𐏐 𐎠𐎡𐎺𐎶 𐏐 𐎱𐎽𐎢𐎺𐎴𐎠𐎶 𐏐 𐎧𐏁𐎠𐎹𐎰𐎡𐎹𐎶 𐏐 𐎠𐎡𐎺𐎶 𐏐 𐎱𐎽𐎢𐎺𐎴𐎠𐎶 𐏐 𐎳𐎼𐎶𐎠𐎫𐎠𐎼𐎶

Transliteration peo

English translation A great god is Ahura Mazda, who created this earth, who created yonder sky, who created man, who created happiness for man, who made Darius king, one king of many, one lord of many.

Lexicon

Notes

Bibliography

• : 238–245
• : 56–85

References

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2. Gnoli, Gherardo. (2006). "Encyclopædia Iranica". Routledge & Kegan Paul.
3. "Old Persian Texts". Avesta – Zoroastrian Archives.
4. Kent, R. G. (1950) "Old Persian: Grammar Texts Lexicon", p. 6. American Oriental Society.
5. (June 15, 2007). "Everyday text shows that Old Persian was probably more commonly used than previously thought". University of Chicago News Office (archived).
6. Lazard, Gilbert. (1975). "The Cambridge History of Iran". Cambridge University Press.
7. (2006). "An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society". Walter de Gruyter.
8. Bo Utas. (2005). "Linguistic convergence and areal diffusion: case studies from Iranian, Semitic and Turkic". Routledge.
9. "Behistun T 42 – Livius".
10. Stolper, M. W.. (1997). "Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie". Walter de Gruyter.