The Bactrian alphabet (block and cursive letters, here in black). The Bactrian script was directly adapted from the Greek script (here in grey), with the addition of the letter sho ().[1]
Pronunciation
[arjaː]
Native to
Bactria
Region
Central Asia
Era
300 BC – 1000 AD[2]
Language family
Indo-European
Indo-Iranian
Iranian
Eastern Iranian
Bactrian
Writing system
Greek script Manichaean script
Official status
Official language in
Kushan Empire Hephthalite Empire
Language codes
ISO 639-3
xbc
Linguist List
xbc
Glottolog
bact1239
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
Bactrian (Bactrian: Αριαο, romanized: ariao, [arjaː], meaning "Iranian")[3] is an extinct Eastern Iranian language formerly spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria (present-day Afghanistan)[4] and used as the official language of the Kushan and the Hephthalite empires.
^Davary (1982). Illustrations(PDF). p. Fig.93.
^Bactrian at MultiTree on the Linguist List
^Foundation, Encyclopaedia Iranica. "Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica". iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 2023-07-31.
^Sims-Williams, N. "Bactrian Language". Encyclopaedia Iranica.
Bactrian (Bactrian: Αριαο, romanized: ariao, [arjaː], meaning "Iranian") is an extinct Eastern Iranian language formerly spoken in the Central Asian region...
Bactria (/ˈbæktriə/; Bactrian: βαχλο, Bakhlo), or Bactriana, was an ancient Iranian civilization in Central Asia based in the area south of the Oxus River...
the Achaemenid Empire Bactrianlanguage, an extinct Eastern Iranian languageBactrian camel, a species of camel in Asia Bactrian deer Balkh (disambiguation)...
Old Persian language The Avestan language The Bactrianlanguage The term Proto-Aryan is an alternative name of the Proto-Indo-Iranian language In works published...
documents in the Bactrianlanguage in the Bactrian script (a variation of the Greek script dating back to the rule of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom in the...
The wild Bactrian camel (Camelus ferus) is a critically endangered species of camel living in parts of northwestern China and southwestern Mongolia. It...
Empire (c. 30–c. 375 AD) was a syncretic empire formed by the Yuezhi in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. It spread to encompass much of what...
statement that the language is affiliated with eastern Iranian languages there is ample evidence to consider it a Bactrianlanguage. Comrie, Bernard (2009)...
Eastern Iranian language. It shares features with the Munji language, which is the closest existing language to the extinct Bactrian, but also shares...
The Hephthalites (Bactrian: ηβοδαλο, romanized: Ebodalo), sometimes called the White Huns (also known as the White Hunas, in Iranian as the Spet Xyon and...
Shams-i-Balkh, a Bactrian sun temple. The old name of Balkh was Bami which was named after the Indo-Scythian Naga queen, Bami. The Bactrianlanguage name of the...
written from right to left, used to record a Middle Iranian language related to Bactrian. It was used in parts of Central Asia between 600-200 BCE (depending...
Karakoram range to China. Around 127 CE, he replaced Greek with Bactrian as the official language of administration in the empire. Earlier scholars believed...
Kushan political history derives from coins. The language of inscriptions is typically the Bactrianlanguage, written in a script derived from Greek. Many...
code), South Korea Sho (board game), Tibet Sho (letter), for the Bactrianlanguage Shō (unit) (升), a Japanese unit of volume Shō River, Japan Regulation...
displays the closest possible linguistic affinity with the now-extinct Bactrianlanguage. The Garam Chashma area became important during the Soviet–Afghan...
to be called Aornos (Bactrian: οαρνο, romanized: warn) and later Walwalij or Varvaliz, a compound of the old name Warn and Bactrian: λιζο, romanized: liz...
Sogdian language is one of the Iranian languages, along with Bactrianlanguage, Khotanese Saka, Persian language, Tajik language, Pashto language, the Kurdish...
Persian (from the Sasanian Empire), Parthian (from the Parthian Empire), and Bactrian (from the Kushan and Hephthalite empires). As of 2008[update], there were...
Turkic word for "red"; however, this interpretation is disputed as the Bactrian word for "Hun" is *uono (plural uonono). Different scholars have taken...
and Modern Iranian languages. Modern Yaḡnōbi belongs to the same dialect group as Sogdian, but is not a direct descendant; Bactrian may be closely related...
can recognize definite Iranian elements, notably the Bactrianlanguage as an administrative language and coin inscriptions. Göbl's first group were the...
Bible was written in Greek letters in Origen's Hexapla. The Bactrianlanguage, an Iranian language spoken in what is now Afghanistan, was written in the Greek...
the Kushans, were influenced culturally by them and had adopted the Bactrianlanguage. They had attacked the Sassanid Empire, but later (led by a chief...