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The language of Zoroastrian literature (and of the Sasanian inscriptions) is sometimes referred to as Pahlavi – a name that originally referred to the Pahlavi scripts, [13] [14] which were also the preferred writing system for several other Middle Iranian languages. Pahlavi Middle Persian is the language of quite a large body of literature ...
The two directly attested Old Iranian languages are Old Persian (from the Achaemenid Empire) and Old Avestan (the language of the Avesta). Of the Middle Iranian languages, the better understood and recorded ones are Middle Persian (from the Sasanian Empire), Parthian (from the Parthian Empire), and Bactrian (from the Kushan and Hephthalite ...
The bilingual and trilingual inscriptions of the 3rd-century Sasanian Empire include Parthian texts, which were then also rendered in inscriptional Parthian. The Parthian language was a Middle Iranian language of Parthia proper, a region in the north-western segment of the Iranian plateau where the Arsacids had their power base.
A 2023 analysis by Bonmann et al., identified the Kushan script with a new sub-branch of the Eastern Iranian languages, particularly a language "situated in between Bactrian-, Sogdian-, Saka- and Old Steppe Iranian". They also argue "since it is not an ‘unknown script’ anymore, we suggest to call the writing system ‘(Issyk-)Kushan script ...
Middle Persian is written with this alphabet. The Iranologist Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst notes that the Manichaean script was mainly used to write numerous Middle Iranian languages (Manichaean Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian, Early New Persian, Bactrian) and Old Uyghur (a Turkic language). [1]
Some Middle Persian texts were also transcribed into the Avestan alphabet. The latter process, being a form of interpretation, was known as 'pa-zand'. "Pazand texts, transcribed phonetically, represent a late and often corrupt Middle Persian pronunciation, and so present their own problems."
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. [2]
Middle Persian literature is the corpus of written works composed in Middle Persian, that is, the Middle Iranian dialect of Persia proper, the region in the south-western corner of the Iranian plateau. Middle Persian was the prestige dialect during the era of Sasanian dynasty. It is the largest source of Zoroastrian literature.