Indo-Iranian

[Richard F.Strand]

>Rick Mc Callister inquired:

>	Why does Old Persian look as far removed [or more] from Avestan as
>any of the others? What's the time difference? Is the difference between
>Avestan and Old Persian as great as the chart would indicate?

     Old Persian is not so far out if you consider the evolution of IE
palatals in Early Iranian to have proceeded through a dentalization process:

          k'  >  c  >  ts
          g'  >   j  >  dz

The dental affricate stage persists in the Nuristani branch of Indo-Iranian,
as discussed on my website
(http://users.sedona.net/~strand/Nuristani/nuristanis.html).

     Subsequently, affrication was lost in most Iranian regions, with the
dentalized affricates becoming /s/ and /z/; but Old Persian retained the
dentalization while deaffricating /ts/ > /th/ and /dz/ > /d/.

     As to the time difference, inscriptional Old Persian dates from ca. 521
BC.  Avestan has been traditionally dated from the 6th Century BC, but
Burrow has argued for a date up to 500 years earlier.

          Richard Strand
          Richard Strand's Nuristan Site
          http://users.sedona.net/~strand