Median language

Medically
Spoken in	Ancient Iran
speaker	extinct
Linguistic ; classification	Indo-European languages Indo-Iranian languages Iranian languages Western Iranian Northwest Iranian Median language ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	xme

The Medi language or Medi is the extinct language of the Iranian Medes . Together with Parthian , which is also extinct , the Caspian languages (including Gilaki and Mazandarani ), the Kurdish languages , Zaza-Gorani and Baluchi , the language of the Medes is classified as a north-west Iranian language. (See also Iranian languages .)

The original name of the Median language is unknown.

Proof and identity

Medisch is only documented by a few loan words in Old Persian . Nothing is known about the grammar . No documents have survived from the time of the Medes.

In contrast to other Iranian peoples such as the Persians, the Medes are only mentioned in foreign sources, such as Akkadian sources from the middle of the 9th century BC. And in Herodotus' historical representation of the Persian-Median conflict from the 5th century.

Herodotus mentions in his histories that the word spaka for 'bitch' is medical . This term and its meaning are preserved in modern Iranian languages such as Talish . In Russian, 'dog' means sobáka (соба́ка).

In the 1st century BC Strabo mentions a relationship between the various Iranian peoples and their languages: “[From] beyond the Indus […] Ariana extends so far that it includes some parts of Persia, Mediens, and in the north Parthia and Sogdia ; these peoples speak approximately the same language. "(Geographika 15.2.1–15.2.8)

literature

Manfred Mayrhofer : The reconstruction of the medical . In: Anzeiger der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historical class , 105, 1968, pp. 1–22.
Rüdiger Schmitt : The language of the Medes - a great unknown . In: Giovanni B. Lanfranchi, Michael Roaf, Robert Rollinger (Eds.): Continuity of Empire (?). Assyria, Media, Persia (= History of the Ancient Near East, Monograph , 5). Padua 2003, pp. 23-36.

Individual evidence

^ Rüdiger Schmitt: Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum . Reichert, Wiesbaden 1989.
^ AD (ed.) Godley: Herodotus, with an English translation . Harvard UP, Cambridge 1920. (Histories 1,110)
^ HC & W. Falconer Hamilton: The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes , Volume 3. George Bell & Sons, London 1903. p. 125. (Geographika 15.2)

[1] Rüdiger Schmitt: Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum . Reichert, Wiesbaden 1989.

[2] AD (ed.) Godley: Herodotus, with an English translation . Harvard UP, Cambridge 1920. (Histories 1,110)

[3] HC & W. Falconer Hamilton: The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes , Volume 3. George Bell & Sons, London 1903. p. 125. (Geographika 15.2)