Key facts
- Geographic distribution
- West Asia , Central Asia , South Asia , Caucasus
- Linguistic classification
- Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Eastern Iranian
- Subdivisions
- Northeastern , • Scythian , • Sogdo-Bactrian, • Bactrian † , • Khwarezmian † , • Sogdian † , • Sogdian † , • Yaghnobi Southeastern , • Ormuri-Parachi, • Ormuri , • Parachi , • Pashto-Wanetsi, • Pashto , • Wanetsi , • Sanglechi–Ishkashimi , • Shughni-Yidgha , • Munji-Yidgha , • Shughni-Yazghulami
- Glottolog
- east2704
via Wikipedia infobox
~8 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Distribution of the Iranian languages in and around the Iranian plateau. Eastern Iranian languages are indicated in the key. The Eastern Iranian languages or Eastern Iranic languages are an areal subgroup of the Iranian languages, having emerged during the Middle Iranian era (4th century BC to 9th century AD). The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. As opposed to the Middle-era Western Iranian dialects, the Middle-era Eastern Iranian dialects preserve word-final syllables.
The largest living Eastern Iranian language is Pashto, with 40 to 60 million speakers between the Amu River in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan. The second-largest living Eastern Iranian language is Ossetic, with roughly 600,000 speakers across Ossetia (split between Georgia and Russia). All other languages of the Eastern Iranian subgroup have fewer than 200,000 speakers combined.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Eastern Iranian” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.