Iranian languages

The Iranian languages, alternately called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau.

This article is about the language family. For languages spoken in the modern country of Iran, see Languages of Iran. For the official language of Iran, see Persian language.
Iranian
Iranic
EthnicityIranian peoples
Geographic
distribution		West Asia, Eastern Europe, Caucasus, Central Asia, and South Asia
Linguistic classificationIndo-European
Proto-languageProto-Iranian
Subdivisions
ISO 639-2 / 5ira
Linguasphere58= (phylozone)
Glottologiran1269
Distribution of the Iranic languages in and around the Iranian plateau

The Iranian languages are grouped in three stages: Old Iranian (until 400 BCE), Middle Iranian (400 BCE – 900 CE) and New Iranian (since 900 CE). The two directly-attested Old Iranian languages are Old Persian (from the Achaemenid Empire) and Old Avestan (the language of the Avesta). Of the Middle Iranian languages, the better understood and recorded ones are Middle Persian (from the Sasanian Empire), Parthian (from the Parthian Empire), and Bactrian (from the Kushan and Hephthalite empires).

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