PROTO-INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGE

'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, the Dardic 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''

Contents

References

See also

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).

See also

★ Iran and India