From Old to New Persian

This chapter looks at the long evolution of Persian, which is the only Iranian language to be substantially documented in all three periods of Old, Middle, and New Iranian on account of its close association with the main political centres for most of the time over the centuries: Old Persian with the Achaemenids, Middle Persian with the Sasanians, and New Persian with Islamic powers. The chapter ideally includes two parts, preceded by a brief survey of research on the three stages of the language. The first part, besides presenting the documentation of Old Persian and the various texts groups of Inscriptional, Manichaean, Zoroastrian, and Christian Middle Persian, discusses the innovations of Old Persian and considers the transition from Old Persian to Middle Persian. The second part deals with the rise of New Persian by taking into account Early Judaeo-Persian, Persian in Syriac script, Manichaean New Persian, and the early texts in Arabic script. It then discusses the main changes of the language in both its literary and non-literary varieties until Contemporary New Persian.