The Western Iranian languages, or Western Iranic languages, are a branch of the Iranian languages attested from the time of Old Persian and Median. Languages belonging to this branch are spoken across a vast geographical area stretching to Anatolia in the west, the Caucasus in the north, southern Iran in the south and Tajikistan in the east. The most widely spoken Western Iranian language is Persian, a pluricentric language.
Facts
Disputed
Proto-Language StatusWestern Iranian is directly attested rather than comparatively reconstructed from its earliest stage: Old Persian survives in Achaemenid royal inscriptions from roughly 600 to 300 BCE, most importantly the Behistun Inscription of 522 BCE, with the related Median language known only through loanwords preserved in Old Persian texts. Its modern grouping has no settled genetic classification: linguists Ludwig Paul and Gernot Windfuhr describe its languages as sitting on a scale of Northwesternness or Southwesternness rather than forming discrete daughter branches. 1 The historical attestation (Old Persian, Median) is solid; what is debated is only whether the modern Neo-Iranian languages form discrete genetic sub-branches at all. RegionSouthwest Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus and western South Asia. 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia: Western Iranian languages
Wikimedia Foundationinfobox, region field
Southwest Asia, Central Asia, Caucasus, and western South Asia
Historical Development and classification sections
the Western Iranian languages exist on a scale of 'Northwesternness' or 'Southwesternness', on which each language is 'more or less' NW or SW
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