TEHRAN –  A national webinar has invited linguistics, historians, anthropologists, and experts of other disciplines to discuss characteristics and changes of texts and oral heritage of Iran from prehistorical times to the present. 

Dialectology, which is the study of dialect variation that commonly occurs as a result of relative geographic or social isolation and may affect vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation, is one of the topics of the virtual webinar to be held on February 21.

Moreover, the experts will debate linguistic features of inscriptions from various epochs of Medes, Achaemenids, Sassanids, Elamites, Islamic era, to name a few.

The history of coins and coinage, linguistic features of historical documents, manuscripts, and oral heritage of the natation are amongst other issues to be discussed by the experts.

Iranian languages have been written in many different scripts during their rich yet stormy history of the nation. Old Persian was written with a cuneiform syllabary, the origin of which is still hotly disputed. Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian, and Old Khwarezmian were recorded in various forms of Aramaic script.

Furthermore, it benefited from the Pahlavi language, which is currently an extinct member of the Iranian language group, a subdivision of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Pahlavi is a Middle Persian (sometimes called Middle Iranian) language, meaning that it was primarily used from the end of the Achaemenian dynasty (559–330 BC) to the advent of Islam in the 7th century CE. Modern Persian is written in Arabic script, which is of Aramaic origin.

In terms of coins and coinage, the Sasanian dynasty of Iran introduced the concept of thin flan coins in about 220 CE. The conquering Muslims at first mimicked the coinage of their predecessors. In the western provinces, they issued gold and copper pieces imitated from contemporary Byzantine coins, modifying the cross on the reverse of the latter somewhat to suit Muslim sensibilities. In the eastern provinces, the Arab governors issued silver dirhams that were copies of late Sasanian coins (mostly of those of Khosrow II; with the addition of short Arabic inscriptions on the margin and often the name of the Arab governor in Pahlavi; even the crude representation of the fire altar was retained.

AFM