Old Avestan: The Earliest Recorded Iranian Language

Old Avestan (c. 1500–500 BCE) is the oldest attested member of the Iranian branch of Indo-European. Preserved in the Gathas and Yasna Haptanghaiti—the core hymns of the Zoroastrian Avesta—it reflects the language of early Iranian pastoralists. Its archaic morphology and vocabulary are crucial for reconstructing Proto-Indo-Iranian.