The Afrassiabi Distinguished Lectures in Persian and Iranian Studies 2022

Prof. Adam Benkato, UC Berkeley

This presentation will survey the later stages of the Middle Iranian languages Bactrian, Chorasmian, Parthian, and Middle Persian. Although the coming of Islam to Iran and Central Asia is often thought of as a rupture in the transmission of Middle Iranian languages and literatures, evidence from Iranian textual corpora as well as Arabic reports suggests that a different perspective is needed. Bringing a sociolinguistic approach to bear on this evidence helps revise our understanding of the later stages of these languages and shed light on their fate at the end of Late Antiquity and the early Islamic period.