Table of Contents

• IRAN ii. IRANIAN HISTORY (3) Chronological Table

  Ehsan Yarshater

  A chronological table of events. This records major happenings of Iranian pre-history and history from the most ancient times to 2005.

• IRAN ii. IRANIAN HISTORY (4) Index of Proper Names

  Ehsan Yarshater

  Index of proper names that occur in the chronological table.

• IRAN iii. TRADITIONAL HISTORY

  Ehsan Yarshater

  Before assimilating the results of European research on Persian history, the Iranians were in possession of a historical tradition that combined a mixture of myth, legend, and factual history.

• IRAN iv. MYTHS AND LEGENDS

  John R. Hinnells

  In the study of religion, myths are seen as narratives which encapsulate fundamental truths about the nature of existence, god(s), God(s), the universe. They explain the origin of the world or of a tribe or of a ritual.

• IRAN v. PEOPLES OF IRAN (1) A General Survey

  R. N. Frye

  The term “Iranian” may be understood in two ways. It is, first of all, a linguistic classification, intended to designate any society which inherited or adopted, and transmitted, an Iranian language.

• IRAN v. PEOPLES OF IRAN (2) Pre-Islamic

  C. J. Brunner

  This survey focuses on the early phase of the Iranian-speaking peoples’ presence on the plateau, during the early state-building phase.

• IRAN v. PEOPLES OF IRAN (3). Islamic Period

  cross-reference

  See Supplement.

• IRAN vi. IRANIAN LANGUAGES AND SCRIPTS

  Prods Oktor Skjærvø

  The term “Iranian language” is applied to any language which is descended from a proto-Iranian parent language (unattested by texts) spoken, presumably, in Central Asia in the late 3rd to early 2nd millennium BCE.

• IRAN vi. IRANIAN LANGUAGES AND SCRIPTS (1) Earliest Evidence

  Prods Oktor Skjærvø

  The Indo-Aryan and Iranian tribes separated about 2000 BCE., but attempts to correlate the proto-Indo-Iranians with archeological sites are all problematic.

• IRAN vi. IRANIAN LANGUAGES AND SCRIPTS (2) Documentation

  Prods Oktor Skjærvø

  Iranian languages are known from roughly three periods, commonly termed Old, Middle, and New (Modern).

• IRAN vi. IRANIAN LANGUAGES AND SCRIPTS (3) Writing Systems

  Prods Oktor Skjærvø

  Writing systems for Iranian languages include cuneiform (Old Persian); scripts descended from “imperial” Aramaic, two Syriac scripts, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Cyrillic, Georgian, and Latin.

• IRAN vii. NON-IRANIAN LANGUAGES (1) Overview

  Gernot Windfuhr

  This entry will discuss the non-Iranian languages spoken in Iran in the course of its history as the result of various peoples settling in parts of Iran and interacting with Iranian-speaking peoples who began to migrate to Iranian territories at the beginning of second millennium BCE. The entry includes linguistic sketches of languages or dialects.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• IRAN vii. NON-IRANIAN LANGUAGES (2) In Pre-Islamic Iran

  Gernot Windfuhr

  Of the three known pre-Islamic languages (Urartian, Kassite, and Elamite), only Urartian and Elamite are fairly well known.

• IRAN vii. NON-IRANIAN LANGUAGES (3) Elamite

  Gernot Windfuhr

  Elamite was spoken in the southern Zagros regions, which correspond to the ancient cultural-political entities of Elam and Anshan, and expanded into Akkadian-speaking Susiana.

• IRAN vii. NON-IRANIAN LANGUAGES (4) Urartian

  Gernot Windfuhr

  Urartian was most likely the dominant vernacular around Lake Van and the upper Zab valley. It was written from the late ninth to seventh century BCE in the empire of Urartu.

• IRAN vii. NON-IRANIAN LANGUAGES (5) Kassite

  Gernot Windfuhr

  The Kassites, Akkadian Kaššu, were mountain tribes probably somewhere in the central Zagros who ruled Babylon from the sixteenth to the middle of the twelfth century BCE.

• IRAN vii. NON-IRANIAN LANGUAGES (6) in Islamic Iran

  Gernot Windfuhr

  The non-Iranian languages spoken today in Iran include members of the following language families: (1) Altaic, (2) Afro-Asiatic Semitic, (3) Indo-European, (4) Caucasian (5) Dravidian.

• IRAN vii. NON-IRANIAN LANGUAGES (7) Turkic Languages

  Gernot Windfuhr

  In Iran, there are two distinct branches of Turkic: Oghuz Turkic languages and dialects that represent the southwestern branch of Turkic, and Khalaj, which presents a tiny branch of its own.

• IRAN vii. NON-IRANIAN LANGUAGES (8) Semitic Languages

  Gernot Windfuhr

   First Aramaic and then Arabic had considerable contact with Iranian languages. Their impact differs.

• IRAN vii. NON-IRANIAN LANGUAGES (9) Arabic

  Gernot Windfuhr

  Most extensive was the Arab settlement in eastern Iran and Greater Khorasan (including northwestern Afghanistan, and Central Asia, including Marv and Bukhara).