TURNING POINTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE PERSIAN LANGUAGE

Previously, it was believed that after the common Iranian state, the languages were divided into Western and eastern. The works of A. Korn (2016 and 2019) show that the existence of a common Eastern Iranian language is not confirmed by isoglosses. Therefore, she introduces the concept of ^Central Iranian languages“ and refers to them the idioms previously assumed by Northwestern and Eastern Iranian. It also invalidates the division of the Eastern Iranian languages into northern and southern ones. The annotated article describes a number of Iranian languages according to the new hypothesis. During its existence, the Persian language changed its social status several times: in 550 BC, it became the official language of the Achaemenid Kingdom from the provincial language of Media; in 330 BC, it turned from an official language into a persecuted one (under Alexander the Great and the Seleucids); in 247 BC, it moved from the persecuted to the category of prestigious languages of the Parthian kingdom; in 651 BC - from the official language of the Sassanid kingdom to the business (clerical) language of Arabic; in 819 BC, it became the official language of the Samanid state from the unofficial language of the Arab Caliphate.