The Western Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family and its subfamily, Indo-Iranian. They are spoken by the Iranian peoples. Avestan is the oldest recorded Iranian language, attested from the time of Old Persian The Old Persian language is one of the two attested Old Iranian languages . Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets, seals of the Achaemenid era (c. 600 BCE to 300 BCE). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now present-day Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt the most important attestation by far being the contents of (6th century BC).
The two sub-branches are:
- Northwestern Iranian languages
- Southwestern Iranian languages
The opposition of these two dialect groups is apparent already in Old Iranian times, from the opposition of Old Persian and Median The Median language was the language of the Medes. Together with Gilaki, Mazandarani, Kurdish language and Baluchi are classified as a northwestern Iranian language.
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