Key facts
- Native to
- Parthian Empire (incl. Arsacid dynasty of Armenia , Arsacid dynasty of Iberia and Arsacid dynasty of Caucasian Albania )
- Region
- Parthia , ancient Iran
- Era
- State language 248 BC – 224 AD. Marginalized by Middle Persian from the 3rd century, though extant for longer in the Caucasus due to several eponymous branches.
- Language family
- Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Northwestern Iranian Parthian
- Writing system
- Inscriptional Parthian , Manichaean script
- Iso 639 3
- xpr
- Linguist list
- xpr
- Glottolog
- part1239
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- ancient language
- Country
- Khorasan Province
Show 6 more facts
- writing system
- Aramaic alphabet
- Commons category
- Parthian language
- number of speakers, writers, or signers
- 0
- topic's main category
- Category:Parthian language
- indigenous to
- Iran
via Wikidata · CC0
~8 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Parthian language, also known as Arsacid Pahlavi and Pahlawānīg, is an extinct ancient Northwestern Iranian language once spoken in Parthia, a region situated in present-day northeastern Iran and Turkmenistan. Parthian was the language of state of the Arsacid Parthian Empire (248 BC – 224 AD), as well as of its eponymous branches of the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia, Arsacid dynasty of Iberia, and the Arsacid dynasty of Caucasian Albania.
Parthian had a significant impact on Armenian, a large part of whose vocabulary was formed primarily from borrowings from Parthian, and had a derivational morphology and syntax that was also affected by language contact but to a lesser extent. Many ancient Parthian words were preserved and now survive only in Armenian. The Semnani (or Komisenian languages) and the Zaza language have similarities with the Parthian language and they may descend from Parthian directly or Northwestern Iranian languages with Parthian influences, but the topic lacks sufficient research.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Parthian” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.