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40-781: The name comes from the Avestan Haētumant , literally "dammed, having a dam", which referred to the Helmand River and the irrigated areas around it. The word Haetumant is cognate with Sanskrit Setumatī meaning "one which has a dam." The Helmand stretches for 1,150 km (710 mi). It rises in the northeastern part of Maidan Wardak Province in the Hindu Kush mountains, about 40 km west of Kabul ( 34°34′N 68°33′E  /  34.567°N 68.550°E  / 34.567; 68.550 ), flowing southwestward through Daykundi Province and Uruzgan Province . After passing through

80-526: A probable link between Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit and languages of the Epics. Complex meters such as Anuṣṭubh and rules of Sanskrit prosody had been or were being innovated by this time, but parts of the Brāhmaṇa layers show the language is still close to Vedic Sanskrit. This is the last stratum of Vedic literature, comprising the bulk of the Śrautasūtras and Gṛhyasūtras and some Upaniṣad s such as

120-514: A strict tripartite division of vocalic length between hrasva (short, 1 mora), dīrgha (long, 2 morae) and pluta (prolated, 3+ morae). Pluta vowels are recorded a total of 3 times in the Rigveda and 15 times in the Atharvaveda , typically in cases of questioning and particularly where two options are being compared. For example: The pluti attained the peak of their popularity in

160-519: Is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages , Old Avestan (spoken in the mid-2nd to 1st millennium BC) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BC). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scriptural language of Zoroastrianism . Both are early Eastern Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian language branch of the Indo-European language family . Its immediate ancestor

200-459: Is attested in roughly two forms, known as "Old Avestan" (or "Gathic Avestan") and "Younger Avestan". Younger Avestan did not evolve from Old Avestan; the two differ not only in time, but they are also different dialects. Every Avestan text, regardless of whether originally composed in Old or Younger Avestan, underwent several transformations. Karl Hoffmann traced the following stages for Avestan as found in

240-618: Is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid- 2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It is orally preserved , predating the advent of writing by several centuries. Extensive ancient literature in the Vedic Sanskrit language has survived into the modern era, and this has been a major source of information for reconstructing Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Indo-Iranian history. The separation of Proto-Indo-Iranian language into Proto-Iranian and Proto-Indo-Aryan

280-560: Is classified as Eastern Old Iranian. But the east–west distinction is of limited meaning for Avestan, as the linguistic developments that later distinguish Eastern from Western Iranian had not yet occurred. Avestan does not display some typical (South-)Western Iranian innovations already visible in Old Persian, and so in this sense, "eastern" only means "non-western". Old Avestan is closely related to Old Persian and largely agrees morphologically with Vedic Sanskrit . The Avestan language

320-560: Is estimated, on linguistic grounds, to have occurred around or before 1800 BCE. The date of composition of the oldest hymns of the Rigveda is vague at best, generally estimated to roughly 1500 BCE. Both Asko Parpola (1988) and J. P. Mallory (1998) place the locus of the division of Indo-Aryan from Iranian in the Bronze Age culture of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC). Parpola (1999) elaborates

360-567: Is interpreted such that the bulk of this material, which has been produced several centuries after Zarathustra, must still predate the sixth century BC. As a result, more recent scholarship often assumes that the major parts of the Young Avestan texts mainly reflect the first half of the first millennia BC, whereas the Old Avestan texts of Zarathustra may have been composed around 1000 BC or even as early as 1500 BC. The Avestan language

400-601: Is only known from the Avesta and otherwise unattested. As a result, there is no external evidence on which to base the time frame during which the Avestan language was spoken and all attempts have to rely on internal evidence. Such attempts were often based on the life of Zarathustra as the most distinct event in the Avestan period . Zarathustra was traditionally based in the 6th century BC meaning that Old Avestan would have been spoken during

440-535: Is written right-to-left. Among the 53 characters are about 30 letters that are – through the addition of various loops and flourishes – variations of the 13 graphemes of the cursive Pahlavi script (i.e. "Book" Pahlavi) that is known from the post-Sassanian texts of Zoroastrian tradition. These symbols, like those of all the Pahlavi scripts, are in turn based on Aramaic script symbols. Avestan also incorporates several letters from other writing systems, most notably

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480-561: The c.  12th century texts of Neryosang Dhaval and other Parsi Sanskritist theologians of that era, which are roughly contemporary with the oldest surviving manuscripts in Avestan script. Today, Avestan is most commonly typeset in the Gujarati script ( Gujarati being the traditional language of the Indian Zoroastrians). Some Avestan letters with no corresponding symbol are synthesized with additional diacritical marks, for example,

520-477: The Kaṭha Upaniṣad and Maitrāyaṇiya Upaniṣad . These texts elucidate the state of the language which formed the basis of Pāṇini's codification into Classical Sanskrit. Vedic differs from Classical Sanskrit to an extent comparable to the difference between Homeric Greek and Classical Greek . The following differences may be observed in the phonology: Vedic had a pitch accent which could even change

560-584: The Ṛg·veda must have been essentially complete by around the 12th century BCE. The pre-1200 BCE layers mark a gradual change in Vedic Sanskrit, but there is disappearance of these archaic correspondences and linguistics in the post-Rigvedic period. This period includes both the mantra and prose language of the Atharvaveda (Paippalada and Shaunakiya), the Ṛg·veda Khilani , the Samaveda Saṃhitā, and

600-470: The /z/ in zaraθuštra is written with j with a dot below. Avestan has retained voiced sibilants, and has fricative rather than aspirate series. There are various conventions for transliteration of the Avestan alphabet , the one adopted for this article being: Vowels: Consonants: The glides y and w are often transcribed as < ii > and < uu >. The letter transcribed < t̰ > indicates an allophone of /t/ with no audible release at

640-576: The Avesta , a collection of Zoroastrian religious literature composed in the language, the name of which comes from Persian اوستا , avestâ and is of obscure origin, though it might come from or be cognate with the Avestan term 𐬎𐬞𐬀𐬯𐬙𐬁𐬬𐬀𐬐𐬀 , upastāvaka , 'praise'. The language was sometimes called Zend in older works, stemming from a misunderstanding of the Zend (commentaries and interpretations of Zoroastrian scripture) as synonymous with

680-728: The Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority , is used extensively for irrigation, although a buildup of mineral salts has decreased its usefulness in watering crops. For much of its length, the Helmand is free of salt. Its waters are essential for farmers in Afghanistan, but it feeds into the Hamun Lake and is also important to farmers in Iran's southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province . A number of hydroelectric dams have created artificial reservoirs on some of

720-512: The Sasanian period ". The script used for writing Avestan developed during the 3rd or 4th century AD. By then the language had been extinct for many centuries, and remained in use only as a liturgical language of the Avesta canon. As is still the case today, the liturgies were memorized by the priesthood and recited by rote. The script devised to render Avestan was natively known as Din dabireh "religion writing". It has 53 distinct characters and

760-578: The Afghanistan's rivers including the Kajaki Dam on the Helmand River. The chief tributary of the Helmand river, the Arghandab River (confluence at 31°27′N 64°23′E  /  31.450°N 64.383°E  / 31.450; 64.383 ), also has a major dam , north of Kandahar . The Helmand valley region is mentioned by name in the Avesta ( Fargard 1:13) as the Aryan land of Haetumant , one of

800-583: The Avesta itself, due to both often being bundled together as "Zend-Avesta". Avestan and Old Persian are the two attested languages comprising Old Iranian , and while Avestan was localized in the northeastern parts of Greater Iran according to Paul Maximilian Tedesco  [ de ] (1921), other scholars have favored regarding Avestan as originating in eastern parts. Scholars traditionally classify Iranian languages as "old", "middle" and "new" according to their age, and as "eastern" or "western" according to geography, and within this framework Avestan

840-647: The Vedic language: The first three are commonly grouped together, as the Saṃhitās comprising the four Vedas: ṛg, atharvan, yajus, sāman, which together constitute the oldest texts in Sanskrit and the canonical foundation both of the Vedic religion, and the later religion known as Hinduism. Many words in the Vedic Sanskrit of the Ṛg·veda have cognates or direct correspondences with the ancient Avestan language, but these do not appear in post-Rigvedic Indian texts. The text of

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880-571: The Young Avestan material. As regards Old Avestan, the Gathas show strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the Rigveda , which in turn is assumed to represent the second half of the second millennium BC. As regards Young Avestan, texts like the Yashts and the Vendidad are situated in the eastern parts of Greater Iran and lack any discernible Persian or Median influence from Western Iran. This

920-628: The city of Lashkargah in Helmand Province , it enters the desert of Dasht-e Margo , and then flows to the Sistan marshes and the Hamun-i-Helmand lake region around Zabol at the Afghan-Iranian border ( 31°9′N 61°33′E  /  31.150°N 61.550°E  / 31.150; 61.550 ). A few smaller rivers such as Tarnak and Arghandab flow into Helmand. This river, managed by

960-412: The development of periphrastic aorist forms. This must have occurred before the time of Pāṇini because Panini makes a list of those from the northwestern region of India who knew these older rules of Vedic Sanskrit. In this layer of Vedic literature, the archaic Vedic Sanskrit verb system has been abandoned, and a prototype of pre-Panini Vedic Sanskrit structure emerges. The Yajñagāthās texts provide

1000-514: The early Achaemenid period . Given that a substantial time must have passed between Old Avestan and Young Avestan, the latter would have been spoken somewhere during the Hellenistic or the Parthian period of Iranian history. However, more recent scholarship has increasingly shifted to an earlier dating. The literature presents a number of reasons for this shift, based on both the Old Avestan and

1040-578: The early centres of the Zoroastrian faith in areas that are now Afghanistan . However, by the late first millennium BC and early first millennium AD, the preponderance of communities of Hindus and Buddhists in the Helmand and Kabul valleys led to Parthians referring to it as India. From 1758 to 1842, the Helmand formed the northern borders of the Brahui Khanate of Kalat . Avestan Avestan ( / ə ˈ v ɛ s t ən / ə- VESS -tən )

1080-564: The end of a word and before certain obstruents . According to Beekes, [ð] and [ɣ] are allophones of /θ/ and /x/ respectively (in Old Avestan). The following phrases were phonetically transcribed from Avestan: Vedic Sanskrit Vedic Sanskrit , also simply referred as the Vedic language , is an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It

1120-470: The entirety of present-day Afghanistan as well as parts of Tajikistan , Turkmenistan , and Uzbekistan . The Yaz culture of Bactria–Margiana has been regarded as a likely archaeological reflection of the early " Eastern Iranian " culture that is described in the Zoroastrian Avesta . It is not known what the original speakers of Avestan called the language. The modern term "Avestan" comes from

1160-508: The extant texts. In roughly chronological order: Many phonetic features cannot be ascribed with certainty to a particular stage since there may be more than one possibility. Every phonetic form that can be ascribed to the Sasanian archetype on the basis of critical assessment of the manuscript evidence must have gone through the stages mentioned above so that "Old Avestan" and "Young Avestan" really mean no more than "Old Avestan and Young Avestan of

1200-473: The indigenous rulers of India are written in the Prakrit language. Originally the epigraphic language of the whole of India was mainly Prakrit and Sanskrit is first noticed in the inscriptions of North India from about the second half of the 1st century BCE. Sanskrit gradually ousted Prakrit from the field of Indian epigraphy in all parts of the country. Five chronologically distinct strata can be identified within

1240-469: The mantras of the Yajurveda . These texts are largely derived from the Ṛg·veda, but have undergone certain changes, both by linguistic change and by reinterpretation. For example, the more ancient injunctive verb system is no longer in use. An important linguistic change is the disappearance of the injunctive , subjunctive, optative, imperative (the aorist ). New innovations in Vedic Sanskrit appear such as

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1280-458: The meaning of the words, and was still in use in Pāṇini's time, as can be inferred by his use of devices to indicate its position. At some latter time, this was replaced by a stress accent limited to the second to fourth syllables from the end. Since a small number of words in the late pronunciation of Vedic carry the so-called "independent svarita " on a short vowel, one can argue that late Vedic

1320-651: The model and has "Proto-Rigvedic" Indo-Aryans intrude the BMAC around 1700 BCE. He assumes early Indo-Aryan presence in the Late Harappan horizon from about 1900 BCE, and "Proto-Rigvedic" (Proto-Dardic) intrusion to Punjab as corresponding to the Gandhara grave culture from about 1700 BCE. According to this model, Rigvedic within the larger Indo-Aryan group is the direct ancestor of the Dardic languages . The early Vedic Sanskrit language

1360-423: The overlong or prolated vowels are themselves called pluta . Pluta vowels are usually noted with a numeral "3" ( ३ ) indicating a length of three morae ( trimātra ). A diphthong is prolated by prolongation of its first vowel. Pāṇinian grammarians recognise the phonetic occurrence of diphthongs measuring more than three morae in duration, but classify them all as prolated (i.e. trimoraic) to preserve

1400-432: The vowels, which are mostly derived from Greek minuscules. A few letters were free inventions, as were also the symbols used for punctuation. Also, the Avestan alphabet has one letter that has no corresponding sound in the Avestan language; the character for /l/ (a sound that Avestan does not have) was added to write Pazend texts. The Avestan script is alphabetic , and the large number of letters suggests that its design

1440-477: Was marginally a tonal language . Note however that in the metrically-restored versions of the Rig Veda almost all of the syllables carrying an independent svarita must revert to a sequence of two syllables, the first of which carries an udātta and the second a so-called dependent svarita . Early Vedic was thus definitely not a tonal language like Chinese but a pitch accent language like Japanese , which

1480-458: Was due to the need to render the orally recited texts with high phonetic precision. The correct enunciation of the liturgies was (and still is) considered necessary for the prayers to be effective. The Zoroastrians of India, who represent one of the largest surviving Zoroastrian communities worldwide, also transcribe Avestan in Brahmi -based scripts. This is a relatively recent development first seen in

1520-550: Was far less homogeneous compared to the language described by Pāṇini , that is, Classic Sanskrit. The language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit. The formalization of the late form of Vedic Sanskrit language into the Classical Sanskrit form is credited to Pāṇini 's Aṣṭādhyāyī , along with Patanjali 's Mahabhasya and Katyayana 's commentary that preceded Patanjali's work. The earliest epigraphic records of

1560-528: Was inherited from the Proto-Indo-European accent . Pitch accent was not restricted to Vedic. Early Sanskrit grammarian Pāṇini gives accent rules for both the spoken language of his post-Vedic time as well as the differences of Vedic accent. However, no extant post-Vedic text with accents are found. Pluti , or prolation , is the term for the phenomenon of protracted or overlong vowels in Sanskrit ;

1600-547: Was the Proto-Iranian language , a sister language to the Proto-Indo-Aryan language , with both having developed from the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian language ; as such, Old Avestan is quite close in both grammar and lexicon to Vedic Sanskrit , the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language . The Avestan text corpus was composed in the ancient Iranian satrapies of Arachosia , Aria , Bactria , and Margiana , corresponding to

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