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Southwestern Iranian languages The Old Persian language is one of the two attested Old Iranian languages (besides Avestan). Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets, seals of the Achaemenid era (c. 600 BCE to 300 BCE). Examples of Old Persian have been found in present-day Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt[1] the most important attestation by far being the contents of the Behistun inscription (dated to 525 BCE). Old Persian is an Old Iranian language, a member of the Southwestern Iranian language group. As an Iranian language, Old Persian is a member of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. By the 4th. century, the late Achaemenid period, the inscriptions of Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III differ enough from the language of Darius's inscriptions to be called a "pre-Middle Persian," or "post-Old Persian."[2] Old Persian subsequently evolved into Middle Persian, which is in turn the nominal ancestor of New Persian. Professor. Gilbert Lazard, a famous Iranologist and also the writer of the book Persian Grammar states The language known as New Persian, which usually called at this period (early Islamic times) by the name of Dari or Parsi-Dari, can be classified linguistically as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanian Iran, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenids. Unlike the other languages and dialects, ancient and modern, of the Iranian group such as Avestan, Parthian, Soghdian, Kurdish, Pashto, etc., Old Middle and New Persian represent one and the same language at three states of its history. It had its origin in Fars (the true Persian country from the historical point of view) and is differentiated by dialectical features, still easily recognizable from the dialect prevailing in north-western and eastern Iran[3]. Consequently, Modern Persian is one of the few Indo-European languages which has extant writing in its old, middle and modern form. Comparison at each stage of the language shows great simplification in grammar and syntax.
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