Proto-Indo-Iranian language
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Proto-Indo-Iranian, is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd millennium BC, and are usually connected with the early Andronovo archaeological horizon.
Proto-Indo-Iranian was a Satem language, likely removed less than a millennium from the late Proto-Indo-European language, and in turn removed less than a millennium from the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda. It is the ancestor of the Indo-Aryan languages, the Iranian languages and the Nuristani languages. The main phonological change separating Proto-Indo-Iranian from Proto-Indo-European is the collapse of the ablauting vowels *e, *o, *a into a single vowel, Proto-Indo-Iranian *a (but see Brugmann's law). Grassmann's law, Bartholomae's law, and the Ruki sound law were also complete in Proto-Indo-Iranian.
Among the sound changes from Proto-Indo-Iranian to Indo-Aryan is the loss of the voiced sibilant *z, among those to Iranian is the de-aspiration of the PIE voiced aspirates.
| Proto-Indo-Iranian | Old Iranian (OP, Av) | Vedic Sanskrit |
|---|---|---|
| *açva ("horse") | Av, OP aspa | aśva |
| *bhag- | OP baj- (bāji; "tribute") | bhag- (bhaga) |
| *bhrātr- ("brother") | OP brātar | bhrātṛ |
| *bhūmī ("earth", "land") | OP būmi | bhūmī |
| *martya ("mortal, "man") | OP martya | martya |
| *māsa ("moon") | OP māha | māsa |
| *vāsara ("early") | OP vāhara ("spring") | vāsara ("morning") |
| *arta ("truth") | Av aša, OP arta | ṛta |
| *draugh- ("falsehood") | Av druj, OP draug- | druh- |
| *sauma "pressed (juice)" | Av haoma | soma |
[edit] References
- Asko Parpola, 'The formation of the Aryan branch of Indo-European', in Blench and Spriggs (eds), Archaeology and Language III, London and New York (1999).
- Alexander Lubotsky, "The Indo-Iranian substratum" in Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European, ed. Carpelan et al., Helsinki (2001).
[edit] See also
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