Iranian languages

The Iranian languages or Iranic languages form a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, which in turn are a branch of the Indo-European language family. The speakers of Iranian languages are known as Iranian peoples. Historical Iranian languages are grouped in three stages: Old Iranian (until 400 BCE), Middle Iranian (400 BCE – 900 CE), and New Iranian (since 900 CE). Of the Old Iranian languages, the better understood and recorded ones are Old Persian (a language of Achaemenid Iran) and Avestan (the language of the Avesta). Middle Iranian languages included Middle Persian (a language of Sassanid Iran), Parthian, and Bactrian.

As of 2008, there were an estimated 150–200 million native speakers of Iranian languages.Ethnologue estimates there are 86 Iranian languages, the largest amongst them being Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, and Balochi.

Term

The term Iranian is applied to any language which descends from the ancestral Proto-Iranian language.Iranian derives from the Persian and Sanskrit origin word Arya.