:Median language

Median is attested only by numerous loanwords in Old Persian. Nothing is known of its grammar, “but it shares important phonological isoglosses with Avestan, rather than Old Persian. Under the Median rule … Median must to some extent have been the official Iranian language in western Iran”.{{harvnb|Skjærvø|2002|p=13}}

No documents dating to Median times have been preserved, and it is not known what script these texts might have been in. So far only one inscription of pre-Achaemenid times (a bronze plaque) has been found on the territory of Media from the time Media was under the control of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. This is a cuneiform inscription composed in Akkadian, perhaps in the 8th century BCE, but no Median names are mentioned in it.{{cite encyclopedia|author=Dandamayev, Muhammad & I. Medvedskaya|title=Media|year=2006|encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Iranica|edition=OT 10|publisher=Mazda|location=Costa Mesa|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/media}}

Words of Median origin include:

Image:Hamadan (Iran) Relief Achamenid Period.JPG ("treasure epistle") in Ecbatana. The inscriptions are by Darius I and his son Xerxes I.]]

• {{lang|xme|*čiθra-|italic=yes}}: "origin".{{harvnb|Tavernier|2007|p=619}} The word appears in *čiθrabṛzana- (med.) "exalting his linage", *čiθramiθra- (med.) "having mithraic origin", *čiθraspāta- (med.) "having a brilliant army", etc.{{harvnb|Tavernier|2007|pp=157–8}}
• Farnah: Divine glory ({{langx|ae|khvarənah}})
• Paridaiza: Paradise
• Spaka- : The word is Median and means "dog".{{harvnb|Tavernier|2007|p=312}} Herodotus identifies "Spaka-" (Gk. "σπάχα" – female dog) as Median rather than Persian.(Hawkins 2010, "Greek and the Languages of Asia Minor to the Classical Period", [https://books.google.com/books?id=1iYbL1wHfR0C&pg=226 p. 226]) The word is still used in modern Iranian languages including Talyshi, Zaza{{cite web |last=Paul |first=Ludwig |date=1998 |title=The Pozition of Zazaki the West Iranian Languages |url=https://www.azargoshnasp.net/languages/zazaki/zazakipositionof.pdf |access-date=December 4, 2023 |website=Iran Chamber |publisher=Open Publishing}} also suggested as a source to the Russian {{lang|ru|собака}} ({{transliteration|ru|sobaka}}) with the same meaning.(Gamkrelidze - Ivanov, 1995, "Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical..", [https://books.google.com/books?id=M2aqp2n2mKkC&q=sobaka&pg=PA505 p. 505])(Fortson, IV 2009, "Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction", [https://books.google.com/books?id=bSxHgej4tKMC&q=sobaka+&pg=PA419 p. 419])(YarShater 2007, "Encyclopaedia Iranica", [https://www.google.com.au/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=isbn:1934283088&gws_rd=ssl p. 96])
• vazṛka-: "great" (as Western Persian bozorg){{harvnb|Schmitt|2008|p=98}}
• vispa-: "all"{{harvnb|Tavernier|2007|p=627}} (as in Avestan). The component appears in such words as vispafryā (Med. fem.) "dear to all", vispatarva- (med.) "vanquishing all", vispavada- (Median-Old Persian) "leader of all", etc.{{harvnb|Tavernier|2007|pp=352–3}}
• xšayaθiya- (king){{Citation needed|date=August 2017}}
• xšaθra- (realm; kingship): This Median word (attested in *xšaθra-pā- and continued by Middle Persian šahr "land, country; city") is an example of words whose Greek form (known as romanized "satrap" from Gk. σατράπης satrápēs) mirrors, as opposed to the tradition,{{#tag:ref|"..a great many Old Persian lexemes...are preserved in a borrowed form in non-Persian languages – the so-called "collateral" tradition of Old Persian (within or outside the Achaemenid Empire).... not every purported Old Iranian form attested in this manner is an actual lexeme of Old Persian."{{harvnb|Schmitt|2008|p=99}}|group="N"}} a Median rather than an Old Persian form (also attested, as xšaça- and xšaçapāvā) of an Old Iranian word.
• zūra-: "evil" and zūrakara-: "evil-doer".

A distinction from other ethnolinguistic groups such as the Persians is evident primarily in foreign sources, such as from mid-9th-century BCE Assyrian cuneiform sources{{cite encyclopedia|title=Ancient Iran::The coming of the Iranians|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica Online|year=2007|access-date=2007-02-28|url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-32107/ancient-Iran}} and from Herodotus' mid-5th-century BCE secondhand account of the Perso-Median conflict. It is not known what the native name of the Median language was (just like for all other Old Iranian languages) or whether the Medes themselves nominally distinguished it from the languages of other Iranian peoples. The Assyrians who ruled over both the Medes and Persians from the 9th to 7th centuries BC called them Manda and Parshumash, respectively.

Median is presumed to have been a substrate of the official Old Persian used in the Achaemenid Empire.{{harvnb|Skjærvø|2002|p=149}} As Prods Oktor Skjærvø explains, the Median element is readily identifiable because it did not share in the developments that were particular to Old Persian. Median forms "are found only in personal or geographical names […] and some are typically from religious vocabulary and so could in principle also be influenced by Avestan […]. Sometimes, both Median and Old Persian forms are found, which gave Old Persian a somewhat confusing and inconsistent look: 'horse,' for instance, is [attested in Old Persian as] both {{lang|peo-Latn|asa}} (OPers.) and {{lang|xme-Latn|aspa}} (Med.)."{{harvnb|Skjærvø|2002|p=13}}

Using comparative phonology of proper names attested in Old Persian, Roland Kent{{cite book|last=Kent|first=Roland G.|title=Old Persian. Grammar, Texts, Lexicon|location=New Haven|publisher=American Oriental Society|year=1953|edition=2nd}} pp. 8-9. notes several other Old Persian words that appear to be borrowings from Median: for example, taxma, 'brave', as in the proper name Taxmaspada. Diakonoff{{cite book|last=Diakonoff|first=Igor M.|chapter=Media|title=Cambridge History of Iran, Vol 2|pages=36–148|editor=Ilya Gershevitch|year=1985|location=London|publisher=Cambridge UP}} includes paridaiza, 'paradise'; vazraka, 'great' and xshayathiya, 'royal'. In the mid-5th century BCE, Herodotus (Histories 1.110{{cite book|editor-last=Godley|editor-first=A. D. |title=Herodotus, with an English translation|location=Cambridge|publisher=Harvard UP|year=1920}} [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126&layout=&loc=1.110 (Histories 1.110)]) noted that spaka is the Median word for a female dog. This term and meaning are preserved in living Iranian languages such as Talyshi and Zaza language.{{cite web |last=Paul |first=Ludwig |date=1998 |title=The Pozition of Zazaki the West Iranian Languages |url=https://www.azargoshnasp.net/languages/zazaki/zazakipositionof.pdf |access-date=December 4, 2023 |website=Iran Chamber |publisher=Open Publishing}}

In the 1st century BCE, Strabo (c. 64BCE–24CE) would note a relationship between the various Iranian peoples and their languages: "[From] beyond the Indus... Ariana is extended so as to include some part of Persia, Media, and the north of Bactria and Sogdiana; for these nations speak nearly the same language." (Geography, 15.2.1-15.2.8{{cite book|last=Hamilton|first=H. C. & W. Falconer|title=The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes|volume=3|year=1903|location=London|publisher=George Bell & Sons}} p. 125. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0239:book=15:chapter=2:section=1 (Geography 15.2)])

Traces of the (later) dialects of Media (not to be confused with the Median language) are preserved in the compositions of the fahlaviyat genre, verse composed in the old dialects of the Pahla/Fahla regions of Iran's northwest.{{Cite book|last=Tafazzoli|first=Ahmad|chapter=Fahlavīyāt|title=Encyclopaedia Iranica|volume=9|year=1999|issue=2|location=New York|publisher=iranicaonline.org|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/fahlaviyat}} Consequently, these compositions have "certain linguistic affinities" with Parthian, but the surviving specimens (which are from the 9th to 18th centuries CE) are much influenced by Persian. For an enumeration of linguistic characteristics and vocabulary "deserving mention", see {{harvnb|Tafazzoli|1999}}. The use of fahla (from Middle Persian pahlaw) to denote Media is attested from late Arsacid times so it reflects the pre-Sassanid use of the word to denote "Parthia", which, during Arsacid times, included most of Media.

A number of modern Iranian languages spoken today have had medieval stages with attestations found in Classical and Early Modern Persian sources. G. Windfuhr believes that the "modern [Iranian] languages of Azarbaijan and Central Iran, located in ancient Media and Atropatene, are 'Median' dialects" and that those languages "continue the lost local and regional language" of Old Median, and bear similarity to "Medisms in Old Persian". The term Pahlav/Fahlav (see fahlaviyat) in traditional medieval Persian sources is also used to refer to regionalisms in Persian poetry from western Iran that reflect the period of Parthian rule of those regions, but Windfuhr also ascribes some of these to older Median influencePage 15 from

{{Citation | last = Windfuhr | first = Gernot | contribution = Dialectology and Topics

| editor-last = Windfuhr | editor-first = Gernot | title = The Iranian Languages | year = 2009 | pages = 5–42 | publisher = Routledge | place = London and New York | publication-date = 2009 | isbn = 978-0-7007-1131-4 }} and their languages "being survivals of the Median dialects have certain linguistic affinities with Parthian".{{harvnb|Tafazzoli|1999}} The most notable New Median languages and dialects are spoken in central Iran,Borjian, Habib, “Median Succumbs to Persian after Three Millennia of Coexistence: Language Shift in the Central Iranian Plateau,” Journal of Persianate Societies, volume 2, no. 1, 2009, pp. 62-87. [https://www.academia.edu/8074684/_Median_Succumbs_to_Persian_after_Three_Millennia_of_Coexistence_Language_Shift_in_the_Central_Iranian_Plateau_].

especially around Kashan.Borjian, Habib, “Median Dialects of Kashan,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 16, fasc. 1, 2011, pp. 38-48. [https://www.academia.edu/8075238/Median_dialects_of_Kashan].

• Linear Elamite – a script possibly used to write Median language
• Madai

{{Portal|Languages|Asia}}

{{reflist|group="N"}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=Tavernier |first=Jan |title=Iranica in the Achaemenid Period (ca. 550–330 B.C.): Linguistic Study of Old Iranian Proper Names and Loanwords, Attested in Non-Iranian Texts |publisher=Peeters Publishers |year=2007 |isbn=978-90-429-1833-7}}
• {{cite book | last =Schmitt | first =Rüdiger | year =2008 | publisher= Cambridge University Press| contribution =Old Persian | editor-last =Woodard | editor-first =Roger D. | title =The Ancient Languages of Asia and the Americas | isbn = 978-0-521-68494-1 |pages=76–100 }}
• {{cite book |last=Skjærvø |first=Prods Oktor |author-link=Prods Oktor Skjaervo |url=http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~iranian/OldPersian/opcomplete.pdf |title=An Introduction to Old Persian |publisher=Harvard |year=2002 |edition=Revised and expanded 2nd }}

{{Iranian languages}}

{{Median topics}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Median Language}}

Category:Northwestern Iranian languages

Category:Extinct languages of Asia

Language

Category:Languages extinct in the 6th century

Category:Languages attested from the 6th century BC