Interesting Facts about Avestan, a Mysterious Language

Avestan language is an extinct Eastern Iranian language. It is the language in which most of the ancient Iranian religious texts are written. It is closely related to Old Persian and Sanskrit.

Not many people know about the existence of this language, except for followers of the Zoroastrian religion, who consider it as a sacred language, and some experts in ancient languages.  But Avestan is a very interesting language, and its history is unique. And not many people know about the influence that compositions in this language have over our own modern life. Today I am going to write about some interesting facts about this ancient language.

1.-  Avestan is a very ancient language. The oldest known compositions in this language date from the first half of the 2^nd millennium BC. Some sources talk about the year 1700 BC. By the year 400 BC, it was already a dead language.

2.- We do not know the real name of this language. We do not know even which was the specific area where this language was spoken and by whom. The name of this language comes from the Avesta, the sacred book of the Zoroastrian religion that is composed in this ancient language. We have an idea about the area in central Asia where this language was once spoken. And this leads us to the next point.

3.- The Avesta, also known as “Zend Avesta” is the sacred book of Zoroastrianism and is the only known composition in this language. All that we know about this language comes from this ancient text. This text has been continuously used as a liturgical text and this is the reason that we have today a reference to study this language, its grammar, expressions.

4.- The Avestan alphabet, also known as “Din Dabireh”, (From middle Persian “Religious Scripture”) is the script system adapted for this language. It has 14 vowels and 34 consonants. This complex alphabet was designed to preserve the variety of sounds that exist in this language. Most of the letters derived from Pahlavi alphabet and from Aramaic (Pahlavi also is derived from the Aramaic script). It was created around the 3^rd century AD to write the ancient Avestan hymns. The interesting thing is that it is believed that Avestan was a spoken language only, and the compositions of this religious text were transmitted orally. This makes Avestan, a strange case of a language that adapted a written system after its extinction.

5.- The Avesta, the only book in Avestan language, is a compilation of religious and liturgical texts from various sources. Among them, we can identify the existence of at least 2 dialects. The Old Avestan dialect, also called Gathic dialect, and Young Avestan. Most of the Avestan compositions are in Young Avestan, but the Teachings of Zarathushtra, the founder of Zoroastrianism, exposed in a collection of hymns called “Gathas”, and some other old hymns are in the Gathic dialect.

Here is a short poem in Old Avestan, recited as a Mañthram by Zoroastrians:

Ashem Vohū Vahishtem Astī

Ushtā astī, ushtā ahmāi

Hyat Ashāi vahishtāi ashem

Righteousness is the best good

is happiness. Happiness (is) to him

who (is) righteous for the sake of the best righteousness.

Translation by Ervad Kavasji Edulji Kanga

6.- The grammar of Avestan is the typical grammar of an old Indo-Iranian language and Indo-European. In brief, we can say that there are 3 genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) and 3 numbers (singular, dual and plural). There is neither definite nor indefinite article. There are 8 cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, vocative, ablative, instrumental and locative. There are 3 tenses (present, aorist and perfect) and 4 modes (indicative, imperative, subjunctive and optative).  The word order is free. Because of the limited material, there are still some forms that are unknown. Researchers believe that there are some parts where the language was not used correctly.  

7.- Avestan is closely related to Sanskrit. The close links between both languages are more evident in the older dialects of both, Gathic Avestan dialect and Vedic Sanskrit. Phonetic, lexical and morphologic elements in both languages are closely connected. We can even translate Avestan to the Vedic word by word. It is thanks to this relation that words in Avestan could be translated.

Here is an example in from Heritage Institute website. The Avestan text in the picture is written by me, from Yasna 72.11.  

  

Avestan Text

Aevo pañtao yō ashahe,

Vīspe anyaēshãm apañtãm

Translation to Sanskrit by Dr. Satyan Banerjee

Abade pantha he ashae,

Visha anyaesham apantham

Modified English translation

There’s one path, is the path of Righteousness,

All others are not paths

8.- English and Avestan are related. There are words that are identical in both languages. Here are some Avestan words that are similar to their English equivalent:

-Brātar = Brother                                         -Dughdhar = Daughter

-Nãma = Name                                           -Pairika = Fairy

-Pathan = Path                                            -Star = Star

-Yare = Year                                                -Tat = That

In my article about Interesting facts about Persian language I wrote a comment about the word Paradise. I wrote about possible words where it comes from. I mentioned the Persian word فردوس (Ferdous) that means garden or the word پردیس (Pardis). The word is probably from the Avestic word “Pairi-Daeza” that means “Surrounding Wall”.

9.- Many people who have read about ancient Persian history relate the name of God in Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda with the Japanese multinational carmaker Mazda. In the website of the company, they indeed relate their name with Ahura Mazda, but the real origin comes from the name of the company founder, whose last name is “Matsuda”. Anyway, it seems that Mazda is the most famous name and word in this language. It means “Wise”. Some glossaries interpret this name as “Omniscient”. Not many people know that if they study the language in deep, eventually they will find that there is no agreement about the gender. Some sources consider the word “Mazda” as masculine, and in some other, it is considered feminine.    

If you want to learn more about Avestan language, there are some pages that you can visit. English speakers can visit Avesta.org where you have access to the whole Zend Avesta and there are some resources to study the language. Iranica online has some good articles about this language. But I think that the website from Harvard University directed by Prof. Oktor Skjærvø is the best to learn the language in detail.

If you know Persian, you can visit arshtad wordpress and din-e behi . 

Unfortunately, in very few languages you can find material to study this language. Spanish speakers can read Proel.org with a good overview of this language. However, some Spanish Universities are starting to research about it.  

My Best Wishes to all my friend for Now Ruz and a Blessed Spring Time! 

به همه دوستان ایرانی و هم کیشان زرتشتیان من، امیدوارم که  سال نو و جشن نوروز خجسته باد

به همگی تندرستی و شادی ارزو میکنم. شاد و پیروز باشید

Наврӯзатон Хуҷаста бод!  Наврӯзатон пирӯз!

Наврӯз Муборак бошад! 

 Avestan Classes in the Darb-e Meher.