Indo Iranian group of languages. Characteristics of languages belonging to the Indo-European language family

Indo-Aryan languages (Indian) - a group of related languages, dating back to the ancient Indian language. Included (together with the Iranian languages and closely related Dardic languages) in the Indo-Iranian languages, one of the branches of the Indo-European languages. Distributed in South Asia: northern and central India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Republic of Maldives, Nepal; outside this region - Romani languages, Domari and Parya (Tajikistan). The total number of speakers is about 1 billion people. (estimate, 2007). ancient Indian languages.

Ancient Indian language. Indian languages come from dialects of the ancient Indian language, which had two literary forms - Vedic (the language of the sacred "Vedas") and Sanskrit (created by Brahmin priests in the Ganges valley in the first half - the middle of the first millennium BC). The ancestors of the Indo-Aryans came out of the ancestral home of the "Aryan expanse" at the end of the 3rd - beginning of the 2nd millennium. The related Indo-Aryan language is reflected in proper names, theonyms and some lexical borrowings in the cuneiform texts of the state of Mitanni and the Hittites. Indo-Aryan writing in the Brahmi syllabary originated in the 4th-3rd centuries BC.

The Middle Indian period is represented by numerous languages and dialects that were in use in oral, and then in written form from the middle. 1st millennium BC e. Of these, Pali (the language of the Buddhist Canon) is the most archaic, followed by Prakrits (the Prakrits of inscriptions are more archaic) and Apabhransha (dialects that developed by the middle of the 1st millennium AD as a result of the development of Prakrits and are a transitional link to the New Indian languages ).

The New Indian period begins after the 10th century. It is represented by about three dozen major languages and a large number of dialects, sometimes quite different from each other.

In the west and northwest they border on Iranian (Balochi, Pashto) and Dardic languages, in the north and northeast - with Tibeto-Burman languages, in the east - with a number of Tibeto-Burman and Mon-Khmer languages, in the south - with Dravidian languages (Telugu, Kannada). In India, linguistic islands of other linguistic groups (Munda languages, Mon-Khmer, Dravidian, etc.) are interspersed in the array of Indo-Aryan languages.

Hindi and Urdu (Hindustani) are two varieties of the same New Indian literary language; Urdu - the state language of Pakistan (the capital of Islamabad), has a written language based on the Arabic alphabet; Hindi (state language of India (New Delhi) - based on the Old Indian script Devanagari.
Bengal (State of India - West Bengal, Bangladesh (Kolkata))
Punjabi (eastern part of Pakistan, Punjab state of India)
Lahnda
Sindhi (Pakistan)
Rajasthani (Northwest India)
Gujarati - s-W subgroup
Marathas - western subgroup
Sinhalese - insular subgroup
Nepal - Nepal (Kathmandu) - central subgroup
Bihari - Indian state of Bihar - eastern subgroup
Oriya - ind. state of Orissa - eastern subgroup
Assamese - Ind. Assam State, Bangladesh, Bhutan (Thimphu) - east. subgroup
Gypsy -
Kashmiri - Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan - Dardic group
Vedic is the language of the most ancient sacred books of the Indians - the Vedas, which were formed in the first half of the second millennium BC.
Sanskrit has been the literary language of the ancient Indians since the 3rd century BC. to 4th century AD
Pali - Central Indian literary and cult language of the medieval era
Prakrits - various spoken Middle Indian dialects

Iranian languages are a group of related languages within the Aryan branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Distributed mainly in the Middle East, Central Asia and Pakistan.

The Iranian group was formed according to the generally accepted version as a result of the separation of languages from the Indo-Iranian branch in the territory of the Volga region and the southern Urals during the period of the Andronovo culture. There is also another version of the formation of the Iranian languages, according to which they separated from the main body of the Indo-Iranian languages on the territory of the BMAC culture. The expansion of the Aryans in ancient times took place to the south and southeast. As a result of migrations, Iranian languages spread by the 5th century BC. in large areas from the Northern Black Sea region to Eastern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Altai (Pazyryk culture), and from the Zagros Mountains, eastern Mesopotamia and Azerbaijan to the Hindu Kush.

The most important milestone in the development of the Iranian languages was the identification of the Western Iranian languages, which spread westward from Deshte-Kevir along the Iranian plateau, and the Eastern Iranian languages opposed to them. The work of the Persian poet Firdousi Shahnameh reflects the confrontation between the ancient Persians and the nomadic (also semi-nomadic) East Iranian tribes, nicknamed by the Persians as Turans, and their habitats as Turan.

In II - I centuries. BC. the Great Central Asian Migration of Peoples takes place, as a result of which the Eastern Iranians populate the Pamirs, Xinjiang, Indian lands south of the Hindu Kush, and invade Sistan.

As a result of the expansion of Turkic-speaking nomads from the first half of the 1st millennium AD. Iranian languages begin to be supplanted by Turkic ones, first in the Great Steppe, and with the beginning of the 2nd millennium in Central Asia, Xinjiang, Azerbaijan and a number of regions of Iran. The relic Ossetian language (a descendant of the Alano-Sarmatian language) in the mountains of the Caucasus, as well as the descendants of the Saka languages, the languages of the Pashtun tribes and the Pamir peoples, remained from the Iranian steppe world.

The current state of the Iranian-speaking array was largely determined by the expansion of the Western Iranian languages, which began under the Sassanids, but gained full strength after the Arab invasion:

The spread of the Persian language throughout the territory of Iran, Afghanistan and the south of Central Asia and the massive displacement of local Iranian and sometimes non-Iranian languages in the respective territories, as a result of which the modern Persian and Tajik communities were formed.

Expansion of the Kurds into Upper Mesopotamia and the Armenian Highlands.

Migration of the semi-nomads of Gorgan to the southeast and the formation of the Baloch language.

The phonetics of the Iranian languages shares many similarities with the Indo-Aryan languages in development from the Indo-European state. The ancient Iranian languages belong to the inflectional-synthetic type with a developed system of inflectional forms of declension and conjugation and are thus similar to Sanskrit, Latin and Old Church Slavonic. This is especially true of the Avestan language and, to a lesser extent, Old Persian. In Avestan, there are eight cases, three numbers, three genders, inflectional-synthetic verbal forms of present, aorist, imperfect, perfect, injunctiva, conjunctiva, optative, imperative, there is a developed word formation.

1. Persian - writing based on the Arabic alphabet - Iran (Tehran), Afghanistan (Kabul), Tajikistan (Dushanbe) - southwestern Iranian group.

2. Dari is the literary language of Afghanistan

3. Pashto - since the 30s the state language of Afghanistan - Afghanistan, Pakistan - East Iranian subgroup

4. Baloch - Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan (Ashgabat), Oman (Muscat), United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi) - northwestern subgroup.

5. Tajik - Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan (Tashkent) - Western Iranian subgroup.

6. Kurdish - Turkey (Ankara), Iran, Iraq (Baghdad), Syria (Damascus), Armenia (Yerevan), Lebanon (Beirut) - Western Iranian subgroup.

7. Ossetian - Russia (North Ossetia), South Ossetia (Tskhinval) - East Iranian subgroup

8. Tatsky - Russia (Dagestan), Azerbaijan (Baku) - western subgroup

9. Talysh - Iran, Azerbaijan - northwestern Iranian subgroup

10. Caspian dialects

11. Pamir languages are the unwritten languages of the Pamirs.

12. Yagnob is the language of the Yaghnobi, the inhabitants of the Yagnob river valley in Tajikistan.

14. Avestan

15. Pahlavi

16. Median

17. Parthian

18. Sogdian

19. Khorezmian

20. Scythian

21. Bactrian

22. Saky

Slavic group. Slavic languages are a group of related languages of the Indo-European family. Distributed throughout Europe and Asia. The total number of speakers is about 400-500 million people [source not specified 101 days]. They differ in a high degree of closeness to each other, which is found in the structure of the word, the use of grammatical categories, the structure of the sentence, semantics, the system of regular sound correspondences, and morphonological alternations. This proximity is explained by the unity of the origin of the Slavic languages and their long and intense contacts with each other at the level of literary languages and dialects.

The long independent development of the Slavic peoples in different ethnic, geographical, historical and cultural conditions, their contacts with various ethnic groups led to the emergence of differences in material, functional, etc. The Slavic languages within the Indo-European family are closest to the Baltic languages. The similarity between the two groups served as the basis for the theory of the "Balto-Slavic proto-language", according to which the Balto-Slavic proto-language first emerged from the Indo-European proto-language, later splitting into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. However, many scientists explain their special closeness by the long contact of the ancient Balts and Slavs, and deny the existence of the Balto-Slavic language. It has not been established in which territory the separation of the Slavic language continuum from the Indo-European / Balto-Slavic took place. It can be assumed that it took place to the south of those territories that, according to various theories, belong to the territory of the Slavic ancestral homelands. From one of the Indo-European dialects (Proto-Slavic), the Proto-Slavic language was formed, which is the ancestor of all modern Slavic languages. The history of the Proto-Slavic language was longer than the history of individual Slavic languages. For a long time it developed as a single dialect with an identical structure. Dialect variants arose later. The process of transition of the Proto-Slavic language into independent languages took place most actively in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium AD. e., during the formation of the early Slavic states in the territory of South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. During this period, the territory of Slavic settlements increased significantly. Areas of various geographical zones with different natural and climatic conditions were mastered, the Slavs entered into relationships with the population of these territories, standing at different stages of cultural development. All this was reflected in the history of the Slavic languages.

The history of the Proto-Slavic language is divided into 3 periods: the most ancient - before the establishment of close Balto-Slavic language contact, the period of the Balto-Slavic community and the period of dialect fragmentation and the beginning of the formation of independent Slavic languages.

Eastern subgroup

1. Russian

2. Ukrainian

3. Belarusian

Southern subgroup

1. Bulgarian - Bulgaria (Sofia)

2. Macedonian - Macedonia (Skopje)

3. Serbo-Croatian - Serbia (Belgrade), Croatia (Zagreb)

4. Slovenian - Slovenia (Ljubljana)

Western subgroup

1. Czech - Czech Republic (Prague)

2. Slovak - Slovakia (Bratislava)

3. Polish - Poland (Warsaw)

4. Kashubian - a dialect of Polish

5. Lusatian - Germany

Dead: Old Church Slavonic, Polabian, Pomeranian

Baltic group. The Baltic languages are a language group representing a special branch of the Indo-European group of languages.

The total number of speakers is over 4.5 million people. Distribution - Latvia, Lithuania, earlier the territories of (modern) north-east of Poland, Russia (Kaliningrad region) and north-west of Belarus; even earlier (before the 7th-9th, in some places the 12th centuries) up to the upper reaches of the Volga, the Oka basin, the middle Dnieper and Pripyat.

According to one theory, the Baltic languages are not a genetic formation, but the result of an early convergence [source not specified 374 days]. The group includes 2 living languages (Latvian and Lithuanian; sometimes the Latgalian language is distinguished separately, which is officially considered the dialect of Latvian); the Prussian language attested in the monuments, which became extinct in the 17th century; at least 5 languages known only by toponymy and onomastics (Curonian, Yatvingian, Galindian/Golyadian, Zemgalian and Selonian).

1. Lithuanian - Lithuania (Vilnius)

2. Latvian - Latvia (Riga)

3. Latgalian - Latvia

Dead: Prussian, Yatvyazhsky, Kurzhsky, etc.

German group. The history of the development of the Germanic languages is usually divided into 3 periods:

Ancient (from the emergence of writing to the XI century) - the formation of individual languages;

middle (XII-XV centuries) - the development of writing in the Germanic languages and the expansion of their social functions;

new (from the 16th century to the present) - the formation and normalization of national languages.

In the reconstructed Proto-Germanic language, a number of researchers single out a layer of vocabulary that does not have Indo-European etymology - the so-called pre-Germanic substratum. In particular, these are the majority of strong verbs, the conjugation paradigm of which also cannot be explained from the Proto-Indo-European language. The displacement of consonants compared to the Proto-Indo-European language - the so-called. "Grimm's law" - supporters of the hypothesis also explain the influence of the substrate.

The development of the Germanic languages from antiquity to the present day is associated with numerous migrations of their speakers. The Germanic dialects of the most ancient times were divided into 2 main groups: Scandinavian (northern) and continental (southern). In the II-I centuries BC. e. part of the tribes from Scandinavia moved to the southern coast of the Baltic Sea and formed an East Germanic group, opposing the West Germanic (formerly southern) group. The East Germanic tribe of the Goths, moving south, penetrated the territory of the Roman Empire up to the Iberian Peninsula, where they mixed with the local population (V-VIII centuries).

Inside the West Germanic area in the 1st century AD. e. 3 groups of tribal dialects were distinguished: Ingveon, Istveon and Erminon. The migration in the 5th-6th centuries of part of the Ingvaeonic tribes (Angles, Saxons, Jutes) to the British Isles predetermined the further development of the English language. The complex interaction of West Germanic dialects on the continent created the prerequisites for the formation of Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Old Low Frankish and Old High German languages. Scandinavian dialects after their isolation in the 5th century. from the continental group they were divided into eastern and western subgroups, on the basis of the first Swedish, Danish and Old Gutnish languages were later formed, on the basis of the second - Norwegian, as well as insular languages - Icelandic, Faroese and Norn.

The formation of national literary languages was completed in England in the 16th-17th centuries, in the Scandinavian countries in the 16th century, in Germany in the 18th century. The spread of the English language outside of England led to the creation of its variants in the USA, Canada, and Australia. The German language in Austria is represented by its Austrian variant.

North German subgroup.

1. Danish - Denmark (Copenhagen), northern Germany

2. Swedish - Sweden (Stockholm), Finland (Helsinki) - contact subgroup

3. Norwegian - Norway (Oslo) - continental subgroup

4. Icelandic - Iceland (Reykjavik), Denmark

5. Faroese - Denmark

West German subgroup

1. English - UK, USA, India, Australia (Canberra), Canada (Ottawa), Ireland (Dublin), New Zealand (Wellington)

2. Dutch - Netherlands (Amsterdam), Belgium (Brussels), Suriname (Paramaribo), Aruba

3. Frisian - Netherlands, Denmark, Germany

4. German - Low German and High German - Germany, Austria (Vienna), Switzerland (Bern), Liechtenstein (Vaduz), Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg

5. Yiddish - Israel (Jerusalem)

East German subgroup

1. Gothic - Visigothic and Ostrogothic

2. Burgundian, Vandal, Gepid, Herulian

Roman group. Romance languages (lat. Roma "Rome") - a group of languages and dialects that are part of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family and genetically ascend to a common ancestor - Latin. The name Romanesque comes from the Latin word romanus (Roman). The science that studies the Romance languages, their origin, development, classification, etc. is called romance and is one of the subsections of linguistics (linguistics). The peoples who speak them are also called Romance. The Romance languages developed as a result of the divergent (centrifugal) development of the oral tradition of different geographical dialects of the once single folk Latin language and gradually became isolated from the source language and from each other as a result of various demographic, historical and geographical processes. This epoch-making process was initiated by Roman colonists who settled regions (provinces) of the Roman Empire remote from the capital - the city of Rome - in the course of a complex ethnographic process called ancient Romanization in the period of the 3rd century BC. BC e. - 5 in. n. e. During this period, the various dialects of Latin are influenced by the substrate. For a long time, the Romance languages were perceived only as vernacular dialects of the classical Latin language, and therefore were practically not used in writing. The formation of the literary forms of the Romance languages was largely based on the traditions of classical Latin, which allowed them to converge again in lexical and semantic terms already in modern times.

French - France (Paris), Canada, Belgium (Brussels), Switzerland, Lebanon (Beirut), Luxembourg, Monaco, Morocco (Rabat).
Provencal - France, Italy, Spain, Monaco
Italian –Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, Switzerland
Sardinian - Sardinia (Greece)
Spanish - Spain, Argentina (Buenos Aires), Cuba (Havana), Mexico (Mexico City), Chile (Santiago), Honduras (Tegucigalpa)
Galician - Spain, Portugal (Lisbon)
Catalan - Spain, France, Italy, Andorra (Andorra la Vella)
Portuguese - Portugal, Brazil (Brazilia), Angola (Luanda), Mozambique (Maputo)
Romanian - Romania (Bucharest), Moldova (Chisinau)
Moldavian – Moldova
Macedonian-Romanian - Greece, Albania (Tirana), Macedonia (Skopje), Romania, Bulgarian
Romansh – Switzerland
Creole languages are crossed Romance languages with local languages

Italian:

1. Latin

2. Medieval Vulgar Latin

3. Oscan, Umbrian, Saber

Celtic group. The Celtic languages are one of the western groups of the Indo-European family, close, in particular, to the Italic and Germanic languages. Nevertheless, the Celtic languages, apparently, did not form a specific unity with other groups, as was sometimes believed earlier (in particular, the hypothesis of Celto-Italic unity, defended by A. Meie, is most likely incorrect).

The spread of the Celtic languages, as well as the Celtic peoples, in Europe is associated with the spread of the Hallstatt (VI-V centuries BC), and then the La Tene (2nd half of the 1st millennium BC) archaeological cultures. The ancestral home of the Celts is probably located in Central Europe, between the Rhine and the Danube, but they settled very widely: in the 1st half of the 1st millennium BC. e. they penetrated the British Isles, around the 7th century. BC e. - in Gaul, in the VI century. BC e. - to the Iberian Peninsula, in the V century. BC e. they spread to the south, cross the Alps and come to northern Italy, finally, by the 3rd century. BC e. they reach Greece and Asia Minor. We know relatively little about the ancient stages of the development of the Celtic languages: the monuments of that era are very scarce and not always easy to interpret; nevertheless, data from the Celtic languages (especially Old Irish) play an important role in the reconstruction of the Indo-European parent language.

Goidel subgroup

Irish - Ireland
Scottish - Scotland (Edinburgh)
Manx - dead - the language of the Isle of Man (in the Irish Sea)

Brythonic subgroup

1. Breton - Brittany (France)

2. Welsh - Wales (Cardiff)

3. Cornish - dead - in Cornwall - peninsula southwest of England

Gallic subgroup

1. Gaulish - extinct since the formation of the French language; was distributed in Gaul, Northern Italy, the Balkans and Asia Minor

Greek group. The Greek group is currently one of the most peculiar and relatively small language groups (families) within the Indo-European languages. At the same time, the Greek group is one of the most ancient and well-studied since antiquity. Currently, the main representative of the group with a full set of language features is the Greek language of Greece and Cyprus, which has a long and complex history. The presence of a single full-fledged representative today brings the Greek group closer to the Albanian and Armenian, which are also actually represented by one language each.

At the same time, other Greek languages and extremely isolated dialects existed earlier, which either died out or are on the verge of extinction as a result of assimilation.

1. modern Greek - Greece (Athens), Cyprus (Nicosia)

2. ancient Greek

3. Middle Greek, or Byzantine

Albanian group.

Albanian (alb. Gjuha shqipe) is the language of the Albanians, the indigenous population of Albania itself and part of the population of Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Lower Italy and Sicily. The number of speakers is about 6 million people.

The self-name of the language - "shkip" - comes from the local word "shipe" or "shpee", which actually means "stony soil" or "rock". That is, the self-name of the language can be translated as "mountain". The word "shkip" can also be interpreted as "understandable" (language).

Armenian group.

Armenian is an Indo-European language, usually classified as a separate group, rarely combined with Greek and Phrygian. Among the Indo-European languages, it is one of the ancient written languages. The Armenian alphabet was created by Mesrop Mashtots in 405-406. n. e. (see Armenian script). The total number of speakers around the world is about 6.4 million people. During its long history, the Armenian language has been in contact with many languages. Being a branch of the Indo-European language, Armenian later came into contact with various Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages - both living and now dead, adopting from them and bringing to our days much of what direct written evidence could not preserve. At different times, Hittite and hieroglyphic Luwian, Hurrian and Urartian, Akkadian, Aramaic and Syriac, Parthian and Persian, Georgian and Zan, Greek and Latin came into contact with the Armenian language at different times. For the history of these languages and their speakers, the data of the Armenian language are in many cases of paramount importance. These data are especially important for urartologists, Iranianists, Kartvelists, who draw many facts of the history of the languages they study from Armenian.

Hitto-Luvian group. The Anatolian languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages (also known as the Hitto-Luvian languages). According to glottochronology, they separated quite early from other Indo-European languages. All languages of this group are dead. Their carriers lived in the II-I millennium BC. e. on the territory of Asia Minor (the Hittite kingdom and the small states that arose on its territory), were later conquered and assimilated by the Persians and / or Greeks.

The oldest monuments of the Anatolian languages are the Hittite cuneiform and Luwian hieroglyphics (there were also brief inscriptions in the Palai language, the most archaic of the Anatolian languages). Through the work of the Czech linguist Friedrich (Bedřich) the Terrible, these languages were identified as Indo-European, which contributed to their decipherment.

Later inscriptions in Lydian, Lycian, Sidetic, Carian, and other languages were written in Asia Minor alphabets (partially deciphered in the 20th century).

1. Hittite

2. Luuvian

3. Palai

4. Carian

5. Lydian

6. Lycian

Tocharian group. Tocharian languages - a group of Indo-European languages, consisting of the dead "Tocharian A" ("Eastern Tocharian") and "Tocharian B" ("Western Tocharian"). They were spoken in the territory of modern Xinjiang. The monuments that have come down to us (the first of them were discovered at the beginning of the 20th century by the Hungarian traveler Aurel Stein) date back to the 6th-8th centuries. The self-name of the carriers is unknown, they are called “Tochars” conditionally: the Greeks called them Τοχάριοι, and the Turks - toxri.

Tocharian A - in Chinese Turkestan
Tocharsky V - ibid.

The total number of speakers is 850 million people. The Indo-Iranian languages are a genetic concept, motivated by the presence of an Indo-Iranian linguistic community that preceded the breakup into separate groups and retained a number of common archaisms dating back to the Indo-European era. It is very likely that the core of this community was formed back in the southern Russian steppes (as evidenced by archaeological finds in Ukraine, traces of linguistic contacts with the Finno-Ugric peoples, which took place, most likely, to the north of the Caspian Sea, Aryan traces in the toponymy and hydronymics of Tavria, the Northern Black Sea region etc.) and continued to develop during the period of joint existence in Central Asia or in the adjacent territories.

Comparative-historical grammar reconstructs for these languages a common original system of phonemes, a common vocabulary, a common system of morphology and word formation, and even common syntactic features. So, in phonetics, the Indo-Iranian languages are characterized by the coincidence of Indo-European *ē̆, *ō̆, *ā̆ in Indo-Iranian ā̆, the reflection of Indo-European *ə in Indo-Iranian i, the transition of Indo-European *s after i, u, r, k into an š-shaped sound; in morphology, in principle, the same system of declension of the name is developed and a number of specific verbal formations are formed, etc. The general lexical composition includes the names of the key concepts of Indo-Iranian culture (primarily in the field of mythology), religion, social institutions, objects of material culture, names, which confirms the presence of the Indo-Iranian community. The common name is *arya‑, which is reflected in many Iranian and Indian ethnic terms over a vast territory (the name of the modern state of Iran comes from the form of this word). The most ancient Indian and Iranian monuments "Rigveda" and "Avesta" in their most archaic parts are so close to each other that they can be considered as two versions of the same original text. Further migrations of the Aryans led to the division of the Indo-Iranian branch of languages into 2 groups, the isolation of which began with the entry into northwestern India of the ancestors of modern Indo-Aryans. Language traces from one of the earlier waves of migration have been preserved - Aryan words in the languages of Asia Minor and Western Asia from 1500 BC. e. (names of gods, kings and nobility, horse-breeding terminology), the so-called Mitannian Aryan (belonging to the Indian group, but not fully explained from the Vedic language).

The Indo-Aryan group proved to be more conservative in many respects than the Iranian group. Some of the archaisms of the Indo-European and Indo-Iranian eras are better preserved in it, while the Iranian group has undergone a number of significant changes. In phonetics, these are changes primarily in the field of consonantism: spirantization of deaf stops, loss of aspiration by consonants, transition of s to h. In morphology, it is a simplification of the complex ancient inflectional paradigm of name and verb, primarily in Old Persian.

The Old Indian languages are represented by the Vedic language, Sanskrit, as well as a number of Mitanni Aryan words; Middle Indian - Pali, Prakritami, Apabhransha; new Indo-Aryan languages - Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Oriya, Assamese, Sindhi, Nepali, Sinhalese, Maldivian, Romani and others.

The ancient Iranian languages are represented by Avestan, Old Persian (the language of the Achaemenid inscriptions), as well as separate words in the Greek transmission in Scythian and Media (one can judge some of the phonetic features of these languages). Middle Iranian languages include Middle Persian (Pahlavi), Parthian, Sogdian, Khorezmian, Saka languages (dialects), Bactrian (first of all, the language of the inscription in Surkhkotal). The new Iranian languages include Persian, Tajik, Pashto (Afghan), Ossetian, Kurdish, Balochi, Gilan, Mazanderan, Tat, Talysh, Parachi, Ormuri, Yaghnob, Munjan, Yidga, Pamir (Shugnan, Rushan, Bartang, Oroshor, Sarykol, Yazgulyam , Ishkashim, Vakhani) and others.

Modern Indo-Iranian languages are common in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Republic of Maldives, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq (northern regions), Turkey (eastern regions), the USSR (in Tajikistan, the Caucasus, etc.). They are characterized by a number of common trends, which indicates a common typology of the development of these two groups of languages. The ancient inflection of the name and the verb is almost completely lost. In the nominal paradigm, instead of a multi-case inflectional declension system, a direct and indirect opposition is developed, accompanied by functional words: postpositions or prepositions (only in Iranian languages), i.e., an analytical way of expressing grammatical meaning. In a number of languages, on the basis of these analytical constructions, a new agglutinative case inflection is formed (the eastern type of Indian languages, among Iranian languages - Ossetian, Baloch, Gilyan, Mazanderan). In the system of verb forms, complex analytical constructions are becoming widespread, conveying the meanings of aspect and tense, analytical passive, and analytical word formation. In a number of languages, new synthetic contracted verb forms are formed, in which the functional words of analytical constructions acquire the status of morphemes (in Indian languages, primarily in languages of the eastern type, this process has gone further, in Iranian it is observed only in the colloquial speech of many living languages). In syntax, the new Indo-Iranian languages tend to have a fixed word order, and for many of them - to ergativity in its various variants. A common phonological trend in the modern languages of these two groups is the loss of the phonological status of quantitative opposition of vowels, the strengthening of the meaning of the rhythmic structure of the word (sequences of long and short syllables), the very weak nature of dynamic word stress, and the special role of phrasal intonation.

The Dardic languages constitute a special intermediate group of the Indo-Iranian language branch. Regarding their status, scientists have no consensus. R. B. Shaw, S. Konov, J. A. Grierson (in their early works) saw an Iranian basis in the Dardic languages, noting their special closeness to the Pamir ones. G. Morgenstierne generally refers them to Indian languages, as does R. L. Turner. Grierson (in later works), D. I. Edelman consider them an independent group, occupying an intermediate position between the Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages. In many ways, the Dardic languages are included in the Central Asian linguistic union.

Edelman D.I., Comparative grammar of East Iranian languages. Phonology, M., 1986;
see also literature under the articles Indian (Indo-Aryan) languages, Iranian languages, Dardic languages, Nuristani languages.

T. Ya. Elizarenkova.

Materials devoted to the study of Indo-Iranian languages, in addition to general linguistic journals (see Linguistic journals), are published in specialized journals in a number of countries:

"Indische Bibliothek" (Bonn, 1820-30),
"Indische Studien" (B. - Lpz., 1850-98),
"Zeitschrift für Indologie und Iranistik" (Lpz., 1922-36),
"Indo-Iranian Journal" (The Hague, 1957-),
"Indological Studies: Journal of the Department of Sanskrit" (Delhi, 1972-),
"Studia Iranica" (P., 1972-),
"Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik" (Reinbek, Germany, 1975-).

INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

(Aryan languages) - a branch of the Indo-European family of languages (see Indo-European languages), splitting into Indian (Indo-Aryan) languages and Iranian languages; it also includes the Dardic languages and the Nuristani languages. The total number of speakers is 850 million people. I. I. is genetic. a concept motivated by the presence of Indo-Iranian. linguistic community that preceded the breakup into separate. group and preserved a number of common archaisms related to the Indo-European. epoch. It is very likely that the core of this community was formed back in South Russian. steppes (as evidenced by archaeological finds in Ukraine, traces of linguistic contacts with the Finno-Ugric peoples, which most likely took place north of the Caspian Sea, Aryan traces in the toponymy and hydronymics of Tavria, the Northern Black Sea region, etc.) and continued develop during the period of coexistence in Wed. Asia or adjacent territories. Compar.-ist. Grammar reconstructs for these languages a common original system of phonemes, a common vocabulary, a common system of morphology and word formation, and even common syntax. traits. So, in phonetics for I. I. characteristic is the coincidence of Indo-European *l, *5, *i in Indo-Iranian a, the reflection of Indo-European *e in Indo-Iranian i, the transition of Indo-European *s after i, u, r, k into an s-shaped sound; in morphology, in principle, the same system of declension of the name is developed and a number of specific ones are formed. verb formations, etc. General lexic. the composition includes the names of the key concepts of Indo-Iran. culture (primarily in the field of mythology), religion, social institutions, objects of material culture, have, which confirms the presence of Indo-Iranians. community. Common is self-monasv. *agua-, reflected in many Iranians. and ind. ethnic terms on a huge territory. (from the form of this word came the name of the modern state of Iran). Ancient Iid. II Iran. the monuments ChRig Veda and Chavesta in their most archaic parts are so close to each other that they can be considered as two versions of the same original text. Further migrations of the Aryans led to the division of the Indoirai. branches of languages into 2 groups, the isolation of which began with the entry into the northwest. India ancestors of modern. Indo-Aryans. Language traces from one of the earlier waves of migration have been preserved - Aryan words in the languages of Asia Minor and Western Asia From 1500 BC. e. (men of gods, kings and nobility, horse breeding terminology), so-called. Mitannian Aryan (belonging to the Ind. group, but not fully explicable from the Vedic language). The Indo-Aryan group ended up in many more conservative than the Iranian one. Some archaisms of Indo-European and Indo-Iranian are better preserved in it. eras, while iran. The group has undergone a number of significant changes. In phonetics, these are changes primarily in the field of consonantism: the spirantization of voiceless stops, the loss of aspiration by consonants, the transition of s to h. In morphology, this is a simplification of the complex ancient inflectional paradigm of the name and the verb, primarily in other Persian. lang. Other Ind. the languages are represented by the Vedic language, Sanskrit, as well as a certain number of Mitannian Aryan words; Middle Indian - Pali, prakritami, apa-bhransha; new Indo-Aryan languages—Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Gujara-ti, Punjabi, Oriya, Assamese, Sindhi, Nepali, Sinhalese, Maldivian, Gypsy languages, and others. Ancient Iran. languages are represented by Avestan, other Persian (the language of the Achae-Menid inscriptions), as well as separate. words in Greek transmission in Scythian and Indian (one can judge some phonetic features of these languages). By Wed-Iran. The languages include Middle Persian (Pahlavi), Parthian, Sogdian, Khorezmian, Saka languages (dialects), Oaktrian (first of all, the language of the inscription in Surkh-kotal). To the new Iranian languages include Persian, Tajik, Pashto (Afghan), Ossetian, Kurdish, Baloch, Gilan, Maeanderan, Tat, Talysh, Parachi, Ormuri, Yagnob, Munjan, Yidga, Pamir (Shug-Nan, Rushan, Bartang, Oro-Shor , Sarykolsky, Yazgulyamsky, Ishkashimsky, Vakhansky), etc. Modern. And I. distributed in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Republic of Maldives, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq (northern districts), Turkey (eastern districts), USSR (in Tajikistan, the Caucasus, etc.) . They are characterized by a number of common trends, which indicates a common typology of the development of these two groups of languages. The ancient inflection of the name and the verb is almost completely lost. In the nominal paradigm, instead of a multi-case inflectional declension system, a direct and indirect form is contrasted, accompanied by functional words: postpositions or prepositions (only in Iranian languages), i.e., analytical. grammatical way of expressing values. In a number of languages, based on these analytical constructions, a new agglutinative case inflection is formed (the Eastern type of the Ind. languages, among the Iranian ones - Ossetian, Baloch, Gilyan, Mazanderan). In the system of verb forms, complex analytics are becoming widespread. constructions that convey the values of the form and time, analytical. passive, analytic word formation. In a number of languages, new synthetic languages are being formed. contracted verbal forms, in which the service words are analytical. constructions acquire the status of morphemes (in Indian languages, primarily in languages of the Eastern type, this process has gone further, in Iranian it is observed only in the speech of many living languages). In the syntax for new I. i. characterized by a tendency to fixed. word order and, for many of them, to ergativity in its various variants. General phonological. trend in modern languages of these two groups is the loss of phonological. the status of quantities, the opposition of vowels, the strengthening of the meaning of rhythmic. word structure (sequences of long and short syllables), a very weak dynamic character. word stress and the special role of phrasal intonation. The Dardic languages form a distinct intermediate group of Indo-Iranians. language branch. Regarding their status, scientists have no consensus. R. B. Shaw, S. Konov, J. A. Grirson (in early works) saw the dard. Iranian languages. basis, noting their special affinity with the Pamirs. G. Morgenstierne generally refers them to ind. languages, as did R. L. Turner. Grierson (in later works), D. I. Edelman consider them to be independent, a group occupying an intermediate position between the Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages. According to many damn dard. languages are included in the center.-Asiatic, language union. # Edelman D. I., Compare, grammar East-Iran. languages. Phonology, M.. 1986; see also lit. under the articles Indian (Indo-Aryan languages), Iranian languages, Dardic languages, Nuristani languages. T. Ya. Elizarenkova. Materials, eating, research I. Ya., except for general linguistic. journals (see. Linguistic journals) are published in specializations. journals of a number of countries: "Indische Bibliothek" (Bonn, 1820-30), "Indische Studien" (B. - Lpz., 1850-98). "Zeitschrift fur Indologie und Iranistik" (Lpz., 1922—36), "Indo-Iranian Journal" (The Hague, 1957—), "Indological Studies". Journal of the Department of Sanskrit" (Delhi, 1972—), " Studia Iranica" (P., 1972—), "Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik" (Reinbeck, Germany. 1975-). E. A. Khelimsky.

Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary. 2012

See also interpretations, synonyms, word meanings and what is INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES in Russian in dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference books:

INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES in the Big Encyclopedic Dictionary:
INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES
languages, a special branch of the Indo-European family of languages, including the Indian (Indo-Aryan) Iranian and Dardic languages. Combining these three groups of languages into...
INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES in the Modern Explanatory Dictionary, TSB:
a special branch of the family of Indo-European languages, including Indian (Indo-Aryan), Iranian and Dardic ...
LANGUAGES
WORKING - see OFFICIAL AND WORKING LANGUAGES...
LANGUAGES in the Dictionary of Economic Terms:
OFFICIAL - see OFFICIAL AND WORKING LANGUAGES...
LANGUAGES
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES, formal languages for describing data (information) and an algorithm (program) for their processing on a computer. The basis of Ya.p. make up algorithmic languages...
LANGUAGES in the Big Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary:
LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD, the languages of the peoples inhabiting (and inhabiting earlier) the globe. The total number is from 2.5 to 5 thousand (set the exact figure ...
INDO-IRANIAN in the Big Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary:
INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES, a special branch of the Indo-European family. languages, including Ind. (Indo-Aryan), Iranian, Dardic and Nuristani ...
IRANIAN LANGUAGES
— a group of languages belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch (see Indo-Iranian languages) of the Indo-European family of languages (see Indo-European languages). Distributed in Iran, Afghanistan, some ...
INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
- one of the largest families of languages of Eurasia, which has spread over the past five centuries also in the North. and Yuzh. America, Australia and...
LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
of the world, the languages of the peoples inhabiting (and inhabiting earlier) the globe. The total number of Ya. m. - from 2500 to 5000 (the exact figure ...
ROMAN LANGUAGES in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
languages (from lat. romanus - Roman), a group of related languages \u200b\u200bthat belong to the Indo-European family (see Indo-European languages) and originate from Latin ...
LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGES in the Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron.
LANGUAGES OF THE PEOPLES OF THE USSR in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
- languages spoken by the peoples living on the territory of the USSR. In the USSR, approx. The 130 languages of the country's indigenous peoples living...
LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary.
FINNO-UGRIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
— a family of languages that is part of a larger genetic association of languages called the Uralic languages. Before it was proven genetically. kinship ...
URAL LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
- a large genetic association of languages, including 2 families - Fiiyo-Ugric (see Finno-Ugric languages) and Samoyedic (see Samoyedic languages; some scientists consider ...
SUDANIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
- a classification term used in African studies in the 1st half. 20th century and determined the languages spoken in the zone of geographical Sudan - ...
ROMAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
- a group of languages \u200b\u200bof the Indo-European family (see Indo-European languages), connected by a common origin from the Latin language, common patterns of development and, therefore, elements of a structural ...
PALEOASIATIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
- a conditionally defined linguistic community that unites genetically related Chukchi-Kamchatka languages, Eskimo-Aleut languages, Yenisei languages, Yukaghir-Chuvan languages and ...
OCEANIC LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
- part of the eastern "sub-branch" of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian languages (some scientists consider it as a subfamily of the Austronesian languages). Distributed in the districts of Oceania, located east of ...
CUSHITIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
- a branch of the Afroasian family of languages (see Afroasian languages). Distributed in S.-V. and V. Africa. The total number of speakers approx. 25.7 million people …
ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
- sign systems created for use in areas where the use of natural language is less effective or impossible. And I. differ...
JOURNALS LINGUISTIC in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
— periodicals devoted to the issues of general, particular and applied linguistics; they are adjoined by ongoing publications (series) of a magazine nature. Yaykovedch. problems ...
AFRASIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
(Afroasiatic languages; obsolete - Semitic-Hamitic, or Hamite-Semitic, languages) - a macrofamily of languages distributed by N Sev. parts of Africa from the Atlantic. coasts and Canary...
AUSTRIASIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
(Australian languages) - a family of languages spoken by part of the population (about 84 million people) Southeast. and Yuzh. Asia and also...
AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
one of the largest families of languages. Distributed in the Malay arch. (Indonesia, Philippines), Peninsula of Malacca, in Iek-ryh south. districts of Indochina, in ...
TURKIC LANGUAGES in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
- a family of languages spoken by numerous peoples and nationalities of the USSR, Turzn, part of the population of Iran, Afghanistan, Mongolia, China, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia ...
VEDIAN MYTHOLOGY
a set of mythological ideas of the Vedic Aryans (who invaded northwestern India in the 2nd millennium BC and gradually settled in eastern ...
AMESH Spenta in the Directory of Characters and Cult Objects of Greek Mythology:
(Avest., "immortal saints") Amshaspand (Middle Persian), in Iranian mythology, six or seven deities, the closest environment of the supreme deity Ahuramazda. Early texts depict...
ARYAN RACE in the Encyclopedia of the Third Reich:
A pseudoscientific term coined in the middle of the 19th century by the authors of reactionary racial theories. The falsity of the term lies in the confusion of the concepts of linguistic and racial ...
THE USSR. SOCIAL SCIENCES in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
Sciences Philosophy As an integral part of world philosophy, the philosophical thought of the peoples of the USSR has come a long and difficult historical path. In the spiritual...
THE USSR. POPULATION in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
The population of the USSR in 1976 was 6.4% of the world population. The population of the territory of the USSR (within modern borders) changed as follows (million people): 86.3 ...
NURISTANS in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
the main population of Nuristan is in Afghanistan, part also lives in Chitral in Pakistan. They consist of a number of tribes (Kati, Prasun, Waigali, Ashkuni, ...

Indo-Iranian languages

(Aryan languages) - a branch of the Indo-European family of languages \u200b\u200b(see Indo-European languages), splitting into Indian (Indo-Aryan) languages and Iranian languages; it also includes the Dardic languages and the Nuristani languages. The total number of speakers is 850 million people. The Indo-Iranian languages are a genetic concept, motivated by the presence of an Indo-Iranian linguistic community that preceded the breakup into separate groups and retained a number of common archaisms dating back to the Indo-European era. It is very likely that the core of this community was formed back in the southern Russian steppes (as evidenced by archaeological finds in Ukraine, traces of linguistic contacts with the Finno-Ugric peoples, which took place, most likely, to the north of the Caspian Sea, Aryan traces in the toponymy and hydronymics of Tavria, the Northern Black Sea region etc.) and continued to develop during the period of joint existence in Central Asia or in the adjacent territories.

The Indo-Aryan group proved to be more conservative in many respects than the Iranian group. Some of the archaisms of the Indo-European and Indo-Iranian eras are better preserved in it, while the Iranian group has undergone a number of significant changes. In phonetics, these are changes primarily in the field of consonantism: spirantization of voiceless stops, loss of aspiration by consonants, the transition of s to h. In morphology, this is a simplification of the complex ancient inflectional paradigm of the name and the verb, primarily in the Old Persian language.

The ancient Indian languages are represented by the Vedic language, Sanskrit, as well as a number of Mitanni Aryan words; Middle Indian - Pali, Prakritami, Apabhransha; new Indo-Aryan languages - Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Oriya, Assamese, Sindhi, Nepali, Sinhalese, Maldivian, Gypsy languages and others.

The ancient Iranian languages are represented by Avestan, Old Persian (the language of the Achaemenid inscriptions), as well as separate words in the Greek transmission in Scythian and Media (one can judge some phonetic features of these languages). Middle Iranian languages include Middle Persian (Pahlavi), Parthian, Sogdian, Khorezmian, Saka languages (dialects), Bactrian (first of all, the language of the inscription in Surkhkotal). The new Iranian languages include Persian, Tajik, Pashto (Afghan), Ossetian, Kurdish, Baloch, Gilan, Mazanderan, Tat, Talysh, Parachi, Ormuri, Yaghnob, Munjan, Yidga, Pamir (Shugnan, Rushan, Bartang, Oroshor, Sarykol, Yazgulyam). , Ishkashim, Vakhani) and others.

Modern Indo-Iranian languages are common in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Republic of Maldives, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq (northern regions), Turkey (eastern regions), the USSR (in Tajikistan, the Caucasus, etc.). They are characterized by a number of common trends, which indicates a common typology of the development of these two groups of languages. The ancient inflection of the name and the verb is almost completely lost. In the nominal paradigm, instead of a multi-case inflectional declension system, a direct and indirect form is opposed, accompanied by functional words: postpositions or prepositions (only in Iranian languages), i.e., an analytical way of expressing grammatical meaning. In a number of languages, on the basis of these analytical constructions, a new agglutinative case inflection is formed (the eastern type of Indian languages, among Iranian languages - Ossetian, Baloch, Gilyan, Mazanderan). In the system of verb forms, complex analytical constructions are widely used that convey the meanings of aspect and tense, the analytical passive, and analytical word formation. In a number of languages, new synthetic contracted verb forms are formed, in which the functional words of analytical constructions acquire the status of morphemes (in Indian languages, primarily in languages of the eastern type, this process has gone further, in Iranian it is observed only in the colloquial speech of many living languages). In syntax, the new Indo-Iranian languages tend to have a fixed word order, and for many of them - to ergativity in its various variants. A common phonological trend in the modern languages of these two groups is the loss of the phonological status of the quantitative opposition of vowels, the strengthening of the meaning of the rhythmic structure of the word (sequences of long and short syllables), the very weak character of dynamic word stress, and the special role of phrasal intonation.

Edelman D.I., Comparative grammar of East Iranian languages. Phonology, M., 1986; see also the literature under the articles Indian (Indo-Aryan) languages, Iranian languages, Dardic languages, Nuristani languages.

T. Ya. Elizarenkova.

Materials devoted to the study of Indo-Iranian languages, in addition to general linguistic journals (see Linguistic journals), are published in specialized journals in a number of countries:

"Indische Bibliothek" (Bonn, 1820-30), "Indische Studien" (B. - Lpz., 1850-98), "Zeitschrift für Indologie und Iranistik" (Lpz., 1922-36), "Indo-Iranian Journal" (The Hague, 1957-), "Indological Studies: Journal of the Department of Sanskrit" (Delhi, 1972-), "Studia Iranica" (P., 1972-), "Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik" (Reinbek, Germany, 1975-).

Modern Indian (New Indian) languages are common in Central and Northern India, and in addition, in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The linguistic situation in the Indo-speaking countries is extremely complex. In southern India, many Indo-Aryan languages coexist with the languages of the Dravidian family. Hindi, the language of the Hindu population, and its variant Urdu, which is spoken by Muslims in the cities of Pakistan and some Indian states, belong to the New Indian (Hindi uses a special Indian Devanagari script, Urdu uses the Arabic script). The differences between these two varieties of the literary language are small and come to light mainly in writing, while the spoken language, called Hindustani, is almost the same among Hindus and Muslims. Further, the Indo-Aryan group includes the languages \u200b\u200bof Gujarati, Bhili, Marathi, Punjabi, Assamese (in India), Bengali (in Bangladesh), Sinhalese (in Sri Lanka), Nepali (of course, in Nepal), etc. Gypsy also belongs to the new Indian languages a language widespread far beyond the main area of Indo-Aryan speech, including in Russia.

Indian literary languages have a glorious history. The oldest written Indian language is Vedic, that is, the language of the Vedas - collections of religious hymns, spells, chants. Especially famous is the collection of Rig Veda (veda of hymns), which was formed at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. e. The Vedic language was replaced by Sanskrit, which is known in two forms that have replaced one another - epic, on which two famous and huge poems "Mahabharata" and "Ramayana" are composed, and classical. Literature created in classical Sanskrit is large in volume, diverse in genres and brilliant in execution. Vedic and Sanskrit are collectively referred to as Old Indian. Sanskrit grammar ("Octateuch"), created by Panini in the 4th century. BC e., still serves as a model of linguistic description. Between the Old Indian and New Indian languages in time lie numerous Middle Indian languages \u200b\u200b- Prakrits (Sanskrit "natural", "ordinary").

At the end of the XVIII century. it was the surprise of European scientists with the beauty and rigor of Sanskrit, which found much in common with the languages of Europe, that became the impetus for the creation of a comparative historical direction in linguistics.

The Iranian group is the largest in the Indo-European family in terms of the number of languages included in it. Iranian speech is heard in modern Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Central Asia and the Caucasus. In addition to living languages, the Iranian group includes a large number of dead languages - both written and non-written, but reconstructed on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Among the first, first of all, the literary language in which the Avesta is written is worthy of mention - a set of sacred texts of the ancient religion of fire worshipers - the Zoroastrians. That's what it's called: Avestan. Among the unwritten ones, the Scythian language is interesting, widespread in the Northern Black Sea region, on the territory of modern Southern Ukraine and the North Caucasus, and which ceased to exist one and a half millennia ago. Linguists believe that modern Ossetians are the linguistic heirs of the Scythians.

The ancient Iranians (Scythians, Sarmatians, etc.) were the immediate neighbors of the Slavs. Contacts with the Iranians led to the appearance of many borrowings in the Russian language. Surprisingly, such familiar words as hut, pants, boot, ax are such borrowings; The traces of the presence of Iranians in the Black Sea region include numerous names of rivers of Iranian origin, including Don, Dnieper, Dniester, Danube.

Portal for the student. Self-training

See also interpretations, synonyms, word meanings and what is INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES in Russian in dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference books:

RELATED ARTICLES