Identity
A distinction from other ethnolinguistic groups such as the Persians is evident primarily in foreign sources, such as from mid-9th-century BCE Assyrian cuneiform sources [19] and from Herodotus' mid-5th-century BCE secondhand account of the Perso-Median conflict. It is not known what the native name of the Median language was (just like for all other Old Iranian languages) or whether the Medes themselves nominally distinguished it from the languages of other Iranian peoples. The Assyrians who ruled over both the Medes and Persians from the 9th to 7th centuries BC called them "Manda" and "Parshumash" respectively.
Median is "presumably" [2] a substrate of Old Persian. The Median element is readily identifiable because it did not share in the developments that were particular 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.)." [2]
Using comparative phonology of proper names attested in Old Persian, Roland Kent [20] notes several other Old Persian words that appear to be borrowings from Median: for example, taxma, 'brave', as in the proper name Taxmaspada. Diakonoff [21] includes paridaiza, 'paradise'; vazraka, 'great' and xshayathiya, 'royal'. In the mid-5th century BCE, Herodotus ( Histories 1.110 [22] ) noted that spaka is the Median word for a female dog. This term and meaning are preserved in living Iranian languages such as Talyshi and Zaza language. [23]
In the 1st century BCE, Strabo (c. 64BCE–24CE) 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 [24] )
Traces of the (later) dialects of Media (not to be confused with the Median language) are preserved in the compositions of the fahlaviyat genre, verse composed in the old dialects of the Pahla/Fahla regions of Iran's northwest. [25] Consequently, these compositions have "certain linguistic affinities" with Parthian, but the surviving specimens (which are from the 9th to 18th centuries CE) are much influenced by Persian. For an enumeration of linguistic characteristics and vocabulary "deserving mention", see Tafazzoli 1999. The use of fahla (from Middle Persian pahlaw) to denote Media is attested from late Arsacid times so it reflects the pre-Sassanid use of the word to denote "Parthia", which, during Arsacid times, included most of Media.
Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties, respectively Iranian Persian, Dari Persian, and Tajiki Persian. It is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan, as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran. It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet, a derivative of the Arabic script, and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet, a derivative of the Cyrillic script.
The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise the majority of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian.
The Avesta is the primary collection of religious literature of Zoroastrianism. It was compiled and redacted during the late Sassanian period although its individual texts were produced much earlier during the Old Iranian period. Before their compilation, these texts had been passed down orally for centuries. All texts in the Avesta are composed in the Avestan language and are written in the Avestan alphabet. The oldest surviving fragment of a text dates to 1323 CE.
The Medes were an ancient Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media between western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, they occupied the mountainous region of northwestern Iran and the northeastern and eastern region of Mesopotamia in the vicinity of Ecbatana. Their consolidation in Iran is believed to have occurred during the 8th century BC. In the 7th century BC, all of western Iran and some other territories were under Median rule, but their precise geographic extent remains unknown.
Avestan is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages, Old Avestan and Younger Avestan. 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 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.
Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages and is the ancestor of Middle Persian. Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as ariya (Iranian). Old Persian is close to both Avestan and the language of the Rig Veda, the oldest form of the Sanskrit language. All three languages are highly inflected.
Cyaxares was the third king of the Medes. He ascended to the throne in 625 BCE, after his father Phraortes lost his life in a battle against the Assyrians.
Achaemenes was the progenitor of the Achaemenid dynasty of rulers of Persia.
The Massagetae or Massageteans, also known as Sakā tigraxaudā or Orthocorybantians, were an ancient Eastern Iranian Saka people who inhabited the steppes of Central Asia and were part of the wider Scythian cultures. The Massagetae rose to power in the 8th to 7th centuries BCE, when they started a series of events with wide-reaching consequences by expelling the Scythians out of Central Asia and into the Caucasian and Pontic Steppes. The Massagetae are most famous for their queen Tomyris's alleged defeating and killing of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire.
Teïspes ruled Anshan in 675–640 BC. He was the son of Achaemenes of Persis and an ancestor of Cyrus the Great. There is evidence that Cyrus I and Ariaramnes were both his sons. Cyrus I is the grandfather of Cyrus the Great, whereas Ariaramnes is the great-grandfather of Darius the Great.
Historically, Iran was commonly referred to as "Persia" in the Western world. Likewise, the modern-day ethnonym "Persian" was typically used as a demonym for all Iranian nationals, regardless of whether or not they were ethnic Persians. This terminology prevailed until 1935, when, during an international gathering for Nowruz, the Iranian king Reza Shah Pahlavi officially requested that foreign delegates begin using the endonym "Iran" in formal correspondence. Subsequently, "Iran" and "Iranian" were standardized as the terms referring to the country and its citizens, respectively. Later, in 1959, Pahlavi's son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi announced that it was appropriate to use both "Persia" and "Iran" in formal correspondence. However, the issue is still debated among Iranians. A variety of scholars from the Middle Ages, such as the Persian polymath Al-Biruni, also used terms like "Xuniras" to refer to Iran: "which is the center of the world, [...] and it is the one wherein we are, and the kings called it the Iranian realm."
Atropates was a Persian nobleman who served Darius III, then Alexander the Great, and eventually founded an independent kingdom and dynasty that was named after him. Diodorus (18.4) refers to him as Atrápēs (Ἀτράπης), while Quintus Curtius (8.3.17) erroneously names him 'Arsaces'.
The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau.
Media is a region of north-western Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Medes. During the Achaemenid period, it comprised present-day Iranian Azerbaijan, Iranian Kurdistan and western Tabaristan. As a satrapy under Achaemenid rule, it would eventually encompass a wider region, stretching to southern Dagestan in the north. However, after the wars of Alexander the Great, the northern parts were separated due to the Partition of Babylon and became known as Atropatene, while the remaining region became known as Lesser Media.
Drangiana or Zarangiana (Greek: Δραγγιανή, Drangianē; also attested in Old Western Iranian as 𐏀𐎼𐎣, Zraka or Zranka, was a historical region and administrative division of the Achaemenid Empire. This region comprises territory around Hamun Lake, wetlands in endorheic Sistan Basin on the Iran-Afghan border, and its primary watershed Helmand river in what is nowadays southwestern region of Afghanistan.
The Western Iranian languages or Western Iranic languages are a branch of the Iranian languages, attested from the time of Old Persian and Median.
In Modern Persian, the word Īrān (ایران) derives immediately from 3rd-century Middle Persian Ērān (𐭠𐭩𐭫𐭠𐭭), initially meaning "of the Aryans" before acquiring a geographical connotation as a reference to the lands inhabited by the Aryans. In both the geographic and demonymic senses, Ērān is distinguished from the antonymic Anērān, literally meaning "non-Iran".
Khvarenah (also spelled khwarenah or xwarra(h): Avestan: 𐬓𐬀𐬭𐬆𐬥𐬀𐬵xᵛarənah) is an Avestan word for a Zoroastrian concept literally denoting "glory" or "splendour" but understood as a divine mystical force or power projected upon and aiding the appointed. The neuter noun thus also connotes "(divine) royal glory", reflecting the perceived divine empowerment of kings. The term also carries a secondary meaning of "(good) fortune"; those who possess it are able to complete their mission or function.
Arya was the ethnonym used by Iranians during the early History of Iran. In contrast to cognates of Arya used by the Vedic people and Iranic steppe nomads, the term is commonly translated using the modern ethnonym Iranian.
Media was a political entity centered in Ecbatana that existed from the 7th century BCE until the mid-6th century BCE and is believed to have dominated a significant portion of the Iranian plateau, preceding the powerful Achaemenid Empire. The frequent interference of the Assyrians in the Zagros region led to the process of unifying the Median tribes. By 612 BCE, the Medes became strong enough to overthrow the declining Assyrian empire in alliance with the Babylonians. However, contemporary scholarship tends to be skeptical about the existence of a united Median kingdom or state, at least for most of the 7th century BCE.
