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Lesson Text

Translation

Grammar

1 The Alphabet

The earliest complete Avestan manuscripts date from the 13th to 14th centuries A.D. They are written in a script based on the Pahlavi, or Middle Persian alphabet, invented to record an earlier version of the texts during the Sassanid dynasty (ca. 224-640 A.D.). This earlier script had itself evolved from the Aramaic characters brought to the Iranian plateau several centuries earlier still. Like Aramaic, Avestan is read from right to left.

The alphabet is presented here in its English transliteration, organized by place and manner of articulation. The example of each character's approximate pronunciation is taken from American English unless otherwise noted.

Letter		Sound				Letter		Sound				Letter		Sound
a		gutter				k		kipper				y		youth
ā		father				x		Ger. Loch				r		room
i		sit, Ger. bitte				x́		horse				v		vice; medially, werewolf
ī		me				xv		x́ + v
u		book				g (ġ)		gipper				s		sound
ū		choose				γ		approx. brogue, Sp. haga				š (ṣ̌)		shout
e		red				ŋ		sing				š́		wish you were here
ē		hey				c		chip, It. ciao				z		zoo
o		goat, Sp. rojo				j		jest				ž		azure
ō		hoe				ń		Sp. año
ə		approx Fr. peut-être				ṯ		approx. as British bitter				h		horse
ə̄		herd, Fr. peur				t		time
ą		gong				d		dime
å		bawdy				θ		theater
						δ		father
						n		never
						ṇ		before t, d = n; before k, g = ŋ; before p, b = m
						p		pour
						f		fair
						b		boar
						B		Sp. recibir
						m		moot
						m̨		hmm...

In addition to the alphabet as described, the diphthongs /ay/ and /ao/ are written as contiguous letters:

		aē		sight
		ao		ouch

2 The Sound System

2.1 Phonology

The original pronunciation of both the old and the younger Avestan language is unknown. Existing texts reflect only the liturgical enunciation of the hymns at the time they were first written down, ca. 400 A.D. No more than a few fragments of these earliest recensions are extant; peculiar word breaks, meaningless repetitions of verbal prefixes, and metrical erosion show that the scribes had lost living contact with the language by this time. (Pliny and the Parsi tradition both refer to an older manuscript recorded under the Arsacids who ruled from ca. 250 B.C. to 226 A.D., but no physical evidence survives. Scholars who accept its existence believe that it had an even simpler and more ambiguous orthography than the Sassanid fragments.) The degree of phonemic change that occurred between the original composition and this fifth century recension, and between this recension and the extant manuscripts from ca. 1350 A.D., cannot be gauged. Nevertheless, the pronunciation of the existing script is more or less certain. Each letter represents one discrete phoneme and must, for the most part, be read individually. Exceptions are the vowel combinations comprising diphthongs and the sequence ng.

Vowels:		Front				Central				Back
High		i, ī								u, ū
Mid				o, ō				e, ē
Low						a, ā
						ə, ə̄

Diphthongs:		å, aē, ao

Consonants:
		Unaspirated		Aspirated		Unaspirated		Aspirated		Nasal		Sibilant		Sibilant
		Unvoiced		Unvoiced		Voiced		Voiced				Unvoiced		Voiced
Velars:		k		x, x́, xv		g, ġ		γ		ŋ
Palatals:		c				j				ń		š, ṣ̌, š́		ž
Cerebrals:		ṯ
Dentals:		t		θ		d		δ		n, (ṇ)		s		z
Labials:		p, f				b, B				m, m̨

Semivowels:		y, r, v
Aspirates:		h

2.2 Accentuation

Avestan orthography does not indicate accentuation, but scholars have traced four phonetic patterns that must be ascribed to stress. The change h > xə is seen to occur when the vowel following h is accented. Likewise, an r clustered with a following unvoiced velar, dental, or labial devoices when the vowel preceding that r is accented: rk > hrk, rt > š, and rp > hrp. In both instances, ca 'and' when added to the word shifts the accent to the final syllable.

2.3 Length of Final Vowels

Word-final vowels are generally long in Old Avestan (OAv) and short in Younger Avestan (YAv). The examples in these lessons are in Old Avestan.

3 Noun Inflection

Avestan is highly inflected. This means that, unlike English whose syntax is primarily governed by word order and the use of prepositions, the functional relationships among the various words in a sentence are expressed by inflections, or endings, added to the stem, or base form, of a noun or adjective.

There are cases in Avestan. In addition to syntactic function, these also express number -- singular, dual, or plural. Each noun also has gender: masculine, feminine, or neuter.

The cases are as follows:

Case		Primary Function		English Translation
Nominative		Grammatical Subject		(subject)
Accusative		Direct Object		(object)
Instrumental		Object of Means		by, with
Dative		Indirect Object		to, for, for the sake of
Ablative		Object of Origin		from, out of, on account of
Genitive		Subject of Possession or Character		of
Locative		Object of Location		in, on, upon, over, under, at, etc.
Vocative		Object of Address		('you', or name of person being addressed)

Case names and other grammatical terms are often abbreviated in these lessons (e.g., 'sg.' for singular, 'du.' for dual).

The nominal inflections applied to nouns and adjectives are classified according to the final letter of the noun's stem. Each "stem type" takes its own set of inflections, for which paradigms will be given through the course of these lessons. For each paradigm, a single word will be used; where a case form is not attested for that word, but is found for other words of the same stem type, the 'reconstructed' form will be marked by an asterisk. Where no attestation of a case exists for any word of the stem type, the form will be labelled 'unattested'.

3.1 a-Stem Nouns, Masculine and Neuter

Singular:		Masculine aspa- 'horse'		Neuter šyauθna- 'work'
Nom.		aspō, aspā		*šyauθnəm
Acc.		aspəm		šyauθnəm
Instr.		*aspā		šyauθnā
Dat.		*aspāi		šyauθnāi
Abl.		*aspāt		šyauθnāt
Gen.		*aspahya		*šyauθnahya
Loc.		*aspai		šyauθnai
Voc.		*aspā		*šyauθna
Dual:
Nom.		aspā		šyauθne
Acc.		aspā		šyauθne
Instr/Dat/Abl.		aspaebya		šyauθnaebya
Gen.Loc.		aspayāh		šyauθnāh
Plural:
Nom.		aspå, asp̊ŋhō		šyauθnā
Acc.		*aspə̄ng		šyauθnā
Instr.		*aspāiš		šyauθnāiš
Dat/Abl.		*aspaebyō		šyauθnaebyō
Gen.		*aspə̄m, aspanąm		šyauθnanąm
Loc.		aspaešu		šyauθnaešu

3.2 ā-Stem Nouns, Feminine

Singular:		daēnā 'insight'
Nom.		daēnā
Acc.		daēnąm
Instr.		daēnayā
Dat.		daēnayāi
Abl/Gen.		daēnayo̊
Loc.		daēnayā
Voc.		daēne
Dual:
Nom.		*daēne
Acc.		daēne
Instr/Dat/Abl.		*daēnābya
Gen/Loc.		*daēnayå
Plural:
Nom.		daēnå
Acc.		daēn̊
Instr.		daēnābiš
Dat/Abl.		daēnābyō
Gen.		daēnanąm
Loc.		*daēnāȟu, daēnāhva

4 Verb Inflection

Verbal inflections are added to a stem whose form conveys the tense of a verb. These endings express person, number, mood, and voice.

There are three persons (first, second, and third), and three numbers (singular, dual, and plural).

'Mood' refers to the attitude of the speaker towards an action. The indicative mood conveys a merely descriptive sense and is translated with the simple verb. The imperative mood indicates a command. Avestan also includes two potential moods, a subjunctive and an optative; the former conveys a greater sense of probability than the latter. As in Sanskrit, the subjunctive is found much more frequently in the older language (Vedic, Old Avestan) than in the younger (Classical Sanskrit, Younger Avestan); its functions are gradually replaced, with respect to the degree of probability to be communicated, by the optative mood and the future tense.

'Voice' refers to the nature of the action with respect to the logical subject of a sentence. The active voice indicates direct action. The middle voice signals that a self-reflexive purpose or benefit to the subject motivates the action expressed. The passive is used when the agent of a sentence is not the grammatical subject; it is treated in Lesson 5.

The four tenses -- present, aorist, perfect, and future -- are classified by the formation of the stem, to which endings are added. The present system is divided into two types, thematic and athematic. The thematic classes are presented below; the athematic classes and the other tense systems will be treated in subsequent lessons.

4.1 The Present Tense

The present tense conveys action that occurs at the time of speaking. It may be translated with either a general sense, as in "Zarathustra spins a tale," or with a continuous sense, as in "Zarathustra is spinning a tale."

Stems of the present system that end with the theme-vowel -a- are called thematic. This -a- may be added directly to a verbal root in its stong or weak grade (cf. Section 8.2 on vowel gradation) as in the examples below, or it may be a part of the fuller suffixes -ya- or -aya-. To this stem, various endings are added.

Thematic Present Paradigms: bara- 'carry, bear'

Indicative		Active		Middle
1 sg.		barāmi		baire
2 sg.		barahi		unattested
3 sg.		baraiti		baraite
3 du.		unattested		*baraite
1 pl.		barāmahi		*baramaide
2 pl.		baraθa		*baraθve
3 pl.		barənti		barəṇte
Imperative
2 sg.		bara		baraŋvha
3 sg.		baratu		*baratąm
2 pl.		*barata		*baraδBvəm
3 pl.		barəntu		*barənta
Subjunctive
1 sg.		barāni		*barāne, *barāi
2 sg.		barāhi		*barān̨he
3 sg.		*barāiti, barāṯ		*barāite
3 du.		*barātō		unattested
1 pl.		barāma		unattested
2 pl.		*barāθa		unattested
3pl.		*barąn		barāŋte, *barāire
Optative
1 sg.		unattested		baraya
2 sg.		baraiš		baraiša
3 sg.		baraiṯ		baraita
1 pl.		baraima		*baraimaide
2 pl.		*baraita		*baraiθəm
3 pl.		barayən		*barayan̨ta

4.2 The Imperfect

The present system also includes the imperfect, a past tense; it is discussed in Lesson 5.

5 Word Order

The standard word order of an Avestan clause or sentence is generally Subject-Object-Verb, though the texts in these lessons are poetic in nature and tend to be freer in form. Two common exceptions to the "verb last" rule are when a verb is accompanied by an adverbial preposition, which may appear in the final position, and when a verb is embedded between an adjective and a noun. Adjectives generally precede the nouns they modify, though sometimes separated by other words.

As an example of the "verb last" rule, Yasna 29 opens with a clause ended by the verb gərəždā:

		xšmaibyā		gə̄uš		urvā		gərəždā
		To you		the cow's		soul		laments...

The first line of verse 5 demonstrates typical adjective-noun word order,

		aṯ		vā		ustānāiš		ahvā		zastāiš		frīnəmnā		ahurāi-ā
		And so		we two		with outstretched		dwell		(with) hands		devoting ourselves		to the Lord,

where ustānāiš 'outstretched' precedes the noun zastāiš 'hands' and the phrase ends in the adverb rather than the verb (or, as here, rather than the verbal adjective). The adjective and noun enclosing the clause's main verb ahvā 'we two dwell' is a form of discontinuous word order called 'enclosure'.

These rules are of great help to the translator or interpreter of an Avestan liturgical text. Nevertheless, ambiguity may occasionally occur. A line from Yasna 43.15, for example, may be rendered in two ways:

		... vīspə̄ng angrə̄ng ašanō ādarə
		... They call all the evil (ones) truthful.
		... They call all the truthful (ones) evil.

Here, the accusative plural adjective vīspə̄ng 'all' precedes both of the accusative plural nouns angrə̄ng 'evil' and ašanō 'truthful', and may be taken with either one since the stylistic device of the 'enclosure' may or may not be employed. In such situations one must decide, based on context, which of the meanings best represents the author's intent.

An exception to the standard adjective-noun pattern became formulaic in the later language: ahura- mazdah-, literally 'Lord wise'. The phrase first appeared in the Gathas, but only with a caesura or another [enclosed] word in between, as in 51.15 or 51.5,

caesura:		garō dəmānē ahurō       mazdā jasaṯ ...
		Ahura Mazda went into the house of song ...
enclosure:		ahurō xšaθrā mazdå...
		Ahura Mazda, by (his) power...

The phrase grew increasingly frequent in the Yasna Haptanhaiti and, by the time of the younger language, would become the usual form, with or without caesura or enclosure.

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