Median language

The Median language (also Medean or Medic) is the language of the Iranian Medes.^[1] Together with Gilaki, Mazandarani, Kurdic languages, Parthian, Zazaki, and Baluchi, the language of the Medes is classified as a northwestern Iranian language. ^[2] Median is only attested 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."^[3] A distinction from other ethno-linguistic groups (such as the Persians) is evident primarily in foreign sources, for instance from mid-9th century BCE Assyrian cuneiform sources^[4] and from Herodotus' mid-5th century BCE second-hand account of the Perso-Median conflict. It is not known what the native name of the Median language was (this is also true for all other Old Iranian languages), or whether the Medes themselves nominally distinguished it from the languages of other Iranian peoples. 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. This is a cuneiform inscription composed in Akkadian, perhaps in the 8th century BCE, but no Median names are mentioned in it." "Some scholars are inclined to assume that the so-called Old Persian cuneiform was in fact Median cuneiform, which later was borrowed by the Persians."^[5] Some modern research suggest that the so-called Linear Elamite -which still has not been deciphered- may was written in the language of Medes, assuming Kutik Inshushinak being original Iranian name of Cyaxares, not a much earlier Elamite king^[6]. Median is "presumably"^[3] a substrate for Old Persian. The Median element is readily identifyable because it did not share in the developments that were peculiar 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 asa (OPers.) and aspa (Med.)." ^[3] Using comparative phonology of proper names attested in Old Persian, Roland Kent^[7] notes several other Old Persian words that appear to be borrowings from Median, for example, taxma, 'brave', as in the proper name Taxmaspada. Diakonoff^[8] includes farnah, 'glory' (also attested in Avestan as x^varənah); paridaiza, 'paradise'; vazraka, 'great' and xshayathiya, 'royal'. In the mid-5th century BCE, Herodotus (Histories 1.110^[9]) noted that spaka is the Median word for a female dog. This term and meaning are preserved in living Iranic languages such as Talyshi. In the 1st century BCE, Strabo (c. 64 BCE – 24 CE) 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^[10])

Connection with the Fahlaviyat of the Islamic period

In Islamic time, the region of Media was called "Fahleh/Pahleh" and the original meaning of "Parthia" had fallen from use. This fact (viz. the appellation of "Parthia" for Media) was still well known to Ibn l-Muqaffa in the 8th century. He explained Pahlawi as the language of Pahla (Fahlahl-Bahlah) in the sense of Media (Isfahan, Ray, Hamadan, Mah-Nahavand, Azerbaijan)^[11]. Thus Fahla consisted of five regions, namely Isfahan, Ray, Hamadan, Mah Nahavand, and Azerbaijan, that is a region comprising Media^[12]. From the linguistic point of view, Fahla can be also extended to Gilan. Thus fahlaviyat include poems composed in the former dialects of western, central, and northern Iran^[13]. Fahlaviyat is a general name for Iranian vernacular used and it denotes the quatrains and poems in general in the old dialects of the Pahla/Fahla regions. The fahlavyat, are survivals of the Median dialects or areas where old Median was predominant at one time. They ave certain linguistic affinities with Parthian, although in their existing forms they have been much influenced by Modern Persian^[14].

References