"If we compare the toponyms and personal names established for the western parts of the Iranian highlands by cuneiform inscriptions of the 9th and 7th centuries B.C., with the toponyms and personal names, and in general with the vocabulary, of the oldes part of the sacred book of the Zoroastrians, the Avesta, we find that even taking the most optimistic view on the number of possible Iranian etymologies of names in the Western area, there is no escaping the conclusion that what obtained there during the first part of the Ist millennium B.c was a mixture of languages. In the Avesta, by contrast, no traces of an alien, non Iranian lexicological substratum have been detected, This points to the superimposition of the Avestan language on a substratum which already was Indo-Iranian, consequently to a much longer occupation of the area where the Avesta was composed, by speakers of Indo-Iranian languages."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
D'jakonov, quoted in Gherardo Gnoli The Idea of Iran , 76
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Avestan_geography
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Avestan geography
21 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Avestan geography →
Related Quotes
"“The fact [is] that Avestan geography, particularly the list in Vd. I, is confined to the east,” ...[this list is] “r…"
"[The horizon of the Avesta] “is according to Burrow, wholly eastern and therefore certainly earlier than the westward…"
"[the attempt to transpose the geography of the Avesta from Afghanistan to western Iran] “was doubtless due to differe…"
"“With VarAna and RaNhA, as of course with Hapta HAndu, which comes between them in the Vd. I list, we find ourselves …"
"[the Avesta reflects] “an historical situation in which Iranian elements exist side by side with … Aryan or Proto-Ind…"
"“in the denomination of Ariana, which became known to the Greeks after the Macedonian conquest of the eastern territo…"
"“we may consider that the northernmost regions where Zoroaster carried out his work were Bactria and Areia”. ..."
"[the airyo-Sayana refers to] “the vast region that stretches southward from the HindUkuS,” ... “from the southern slo…"
"[Likewise, in later Greek tradition, ArianE] “is the Greek name which doubtless reflects an older Iranian tradition t…"
"The Hilmand region and the HAmUn-i Hilmand are beyond all doubt the most minutely described countries in Avestan geog…"