Parthian language

Parthian was a Western Middle Iranian language. Language contact made it share some features of Eastern Iranian languages, the influence of which is attested primarily in loanwords. Some traces of Eastern influence survive in Parthian loanwords in Armenian.{{cite encyclopedia|title=Aparna|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/aparna-c3k|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Iranica|volume=1|year=1983|location=Costa Mesa|publisher=Mazda Pub|last=Lecoq|first=Pierre}} Parthian loanwords appear in everyday Armenian vocabulary; nouns, adjectives, adverbs, denominative verbs, and administrative and religious lexicons.{{sfn|Livshits|2006|p=79}}

Taxonomically, Parthian, an Indo-European language, belongs to the Northwestern Iranian language group while Middle Persian belongs to the Southwestern Iranian language group.{{Cite news|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iranian-languages#toc74634|title=Iranian languages|work=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=2017-09-20|language=en}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/parthian_history_language.php|title=Iran Chamber Society: History of Iran: Parthian History and Language|website=www.iranchamber.com|access-date=2017-09-20}}

{{main|Pahlavi scripts}}

The Parthian language was rendered using the Pahlavi writing system, which had two essential characteristics. First, its script derived from Aramaic,{{cite web|url=http://www.iranchamber.com/scripts/parthian_script.php|title=Iran Chamber Society: Iranian Scripts: Parthian Script|website=www.iranchamber.com|access-date=21 March 2018}} the script (and language) of the Achaemenid chancellery (Imperial Aramaic). Second, it had a high incidence of Aramaic words, which are rendered as ideograms or logograms; they were written as Aramaic words but pronounced as Parthian ones (See Arsacid Pahlavi for details).

The Parthian language was the language of the old Satrapy of Parthia and was used in the Arsacids courts. The main sources for Parthian are the few remaining inscriptions from Nisa and Hecatompylos, Manichaean texts, Sasanian multilingual inscriptions and remains of Parthian literature in the succeeding Middle Persian.{{Cite news|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Parthian-language|title=Parthian language|work=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=2017-09-20|language=en}} The later Manichaean texts, composed shortly after the demise of the Parthian power, play an important role for reconstructing the Parthian language.{{cite book |first=Josef |last=Wiesehöfer |title=Ancient Persia : from 550 BC to 650 AD |translator-first=Azizeh |translator-last=Azado |publisher=I.B. Tauris |year=2001 |page=118 |isbn=1-86064-675-1 }} Those Manichaean manuscripts contain no ideograms.

Attestations of the Parthian language include:{{cite book |last1=Tafazzoli |first1=A. |last2=Khromov |first2=A. L. |chapter=Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life |title=History of Civilizations of Central Asia |publisher=UNESCO |year=1996 |volume=3 |isbn=92-3-103211-9 }}

• Some 3,000 ostraca (ca. 100–29 BC) found in Nisā in southern Turkmenistan.
• A first century AD parchment dealing with a land-sale from Awraman in Western Iran.
• The first century BC ostraca from Shahr-e Qumis in Eastern Iran.{{cite journal | doi = 10.2307/4299707| journal=Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies

|volume =19|year= 1981 | issue =1 | title=The Second Parthian Ostracon from Qubmis (Qubmis Commentaries No. 3)

|author=A. D. H. Bivar|pages= 81–84 | jstor=4299707

}}

• The poem Draxt i Asurig
• Inscription on the coins of Arsacid Kings in the first century AD.
• The bilingual inscription of Seleucia on the Tigris (150–151 AD).{{cite web |url=http://www.rahamasha.net/uploads/2/3/2/8/2328777/the_bilingual_inscription_of_vologases_.pdf |title=The Bilingual Inscription of Vologeses son of Mithridates |website=rahamasha.net |access-date=2017-08-18 |archive-date=2021-02-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225234156/http://www.rahamasha.net/uploads/2/3/2/8/2328777/the_bilingual_inscription_of_vologases_.pdf |url-status=dead }}{{cite journal |first=D. S. |last=Potter |title=The Inscriptions on the Bronze Herakles from Mesene: Vologeses IV's War with Rome and the Date of Tacitus' Annales |journal=Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik |volume=88 |year=1991 |pages=277–290 |jstor=20187558

|url=https://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/zpe/downloads/1991/088pdf/088277.pdf }}

• The inscription of Ardavan V found in Susa (215).
• Some third century documents discovered in Dura-Europos, on the Euphrates.
• The inscription at Kal-e Jangal, near Birjand in South Khorasan (first half of third century or later).
• The inscriptions of early Sassanian Kings and priests in Parthian including Ka'ba-ye Zartosht near Shiraz and Paikuli in Iraqi Kurdistan.
• The vast corpus of Manichaean Parthian which do not contain any ideograms.
• In North Pakistan, Indo-Parthian culture in Taxila with Gondophares 20 BC–10 BC and Abdagases, Bajaur, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and down in to Sistan, Balochistan.

This sample of Parthian literature is taken from a Manichaean text fragment:{{Cite web|url=http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/etcs/iran/miran/manich/manreadc/manre.htm|title=Manichaean Reader, Part No. 4: A fragment from Maniʼs own account of his life}}

Although Parthian was quite similar to Middle Persian in many aspects, clear differences in lexical, morphological and phonological forms can still be observed. In the text above, the following forms can be noticed:

• ⟨āγad⟩, came, instead of Middle Persian and Baluchi ⟨āyad⟩.
• ⟨wāxt⟩, said, instead of ⟨gōft⟩. This form for the verb to say can still be found in many contemporary Northwestern Iranian languages, e.g. Mazandarani ⟨vātεn⟩, Zazaki ⟨vatış; vaten⟩ or Sorani (witin). It is also common in Tati and Talysh, though not in Gilaki and Kurmanji.
• ⟨až⟩, from, instead of ⟨az⟩. Observe also in ⟨kanīžag⟩, handmaiden, instead of ⟨kanīzag⟩ and even in ⟨društ⟩, healthy, instead of ⟨drust⟩. The rendering of the Persian sound {{IPA|/z/}} as {{IPA|/ʒ/}}, {{IPA|/tʃ/}} or {{IPA|/dʒ/}} is also very common in Northwestern Iranian languages of today.
• ⟨ay⟩, you are (Singular), instead of ⟨hē⟩.
• ⟨zamīg⟩, land, instead of ⟨zamīn⟩. The form ⟨zamīg⟩ can be found in Balochi. The form ⟨zamin⟩ can be found in Persian.
• ⟨hō⟩, that or the, instead of ⟨(h)ān⟩.
• The abstractive nominal suffix ⟨-īft⟩ instead of ⟨-īh⟩, as in ⟨šādīft⟩, joy, Middle Persian ⟨šādīh⟩.

Other prominent differences, not found in the text above, include the personal pronoun ⟨az⟩, I, instead of ⟨an⟩ and the present tense root of the verb ⟨kardan⟩, to do, ⟨kar-⟩ instead of Middle Persian ⟨kun-⟩. Also, the Middle Persian linking particle and relative pronoun ⟨ī(g)⟩ was not present in Parthian, but the relative pronoun ⟨čē⟩, what, was used in a similar manner.{{Cite book|title=Corpus Fontium Manichaerum: Dictionary of Manichaean Texts, Vol. III, Part 1: Dictionary of Manichaen Middle Persian and Parthian|last=Sims-Williams|first=Nicholas|publisher=Brepols|year=2004|isbn=2-503-51776-5|location=Turnhout, Belgium|pages=129}}

• Avestan language
• Old Persian language
• Middle Persian
• Persian language and history of Persian language
• Pahlavi literature

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite encyclopedia|title=Aparna|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/aparna-c3k|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Iranica|volume=1|year=1983|location=Costa Mesa|publisher=Mazda Pub|last=Lecoq|first=Pierre}}
• {{cite EB1911|wstitle=Parthia|volume=20|page=871}}
• {{cite journal|title= Reviewed work: L'Iran et la Migration des Indo-Aryens et des Iraniens, R. Ghirshman|last1=Boyce|first1=Mary|volume=99|issue=1|year=1979|pages=119–120|journal= Journal of the American Oriental Society|doi=10.2307/598967|last2=Ghirshman|first2=R.|jstor=598967}}
• {{cite journal |title=Armeno-Partho-Sogdica |first=Vladimir |last=Livshits |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/scri/13/1/article-p3_2.xml?language=en |journal=Iran & the Caucasus |volume=10 |year=2006 |issue=1 |pages=77–86 |doi=10.1163/157338406777979412 |url-access=subscription }}
• {{Cite thesis|title=Iranian-Armenian Language Contact in and before the 5th Century CE.|last=Meyer|first=Robin|date=2017|degree=D.Phil.|publisher=University of Oxford|url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:38e2dcfa-4051-4e5f-a761-844526cc6449|language=English}}

{{refend}}

{{wiktionarycat}}

• {{cite book |author=Robin Meyer |title=Iranian Syntax in Classical Armenian: The Armenian Perfect and Other Cases of Pattern Replication |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/55800 |isbn=9780191885839 |year=2024 |publisher=Oxford University Press}}
• [http://www.azargoshnasp.net/languages/Pahlavi/pahlavi.htm Some valuable texts in Parthian including Boyce, Mary The Manichaean hymn-cycles in Parthian (London Oriental Series, Vol. 3). London: Oxford University Press, 1954.]

{{Iranian languages}}

{{Ancient Mesopotamia}}

{{Parthian Empire}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parthian Language}}

Category:Northwestern Iranian languages

Category:Languages attested from the 1st century BC

Language

Category:Extinct languages of Asia

Category:Armenian language