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Zoroaster's Many Languages CHAPTER 10 Zoroaster’s Many Languages Kevin van Bladel The polymath* al-Bīrūnī (fl. ca. 1000–1050 AD) delivers the following report about the language of the Avesta, the large collection of liturgies and hymns comprising the chief scripture of Zoroastrianism: “[Zoroaster] brought a book they name Abistā. It is in a language different from the languages of all the nations, indeed built upon a unique structure, in letters the number of which exceeds those of all languages, so that people of [one] language cannot claim it as their own to the exclusion of those of another language.”1 The statement, no doubt deriving ultimately from a Zoroastrian informant, is basically true in that the Avestan language is written in a script of more than fifty letters intended to differentiate fine contextual phonetic differences in the Avestan recitation. It was also somewhat unlike most other languages of al-Bīrūnī’s world. This passage has, however, the taste of the apology of priests who no longer truly knew the language of their scripture. The incomprehensibility of the ancient language of their recitation and its elaborate script are, unexpect- edly, the basis for a claim to the religion’s universality. In al-Masʿūdī’s earlier accounts of the Avesta (in his Murūǧ al-ḏahab and his Kitāb al-Tanbīh wa-l-išrāf, both finished in 956),2 the incomprehensibility of its language was supposed to appear almost miraculous. He identifies it as “the First (or Original) Persian language,” al-Fārisiyya al-ūlā, strikingly like our modern term Old Persian. He writes, “No one known today understands the meaning of that language,” which was written in a script exceeding the number of letters of other languages, having “about sixty letters” for which each conso- nant and vowel got its own unique sign.3 All this is basically correct, too. But he adds that the Avestan language is so peculiar and difficult that it is beyond * I dedicate this essay to Everett Rowson in thanks for years of good advice and support, gener- osity with his deep learning, and friendship. I thank Kayla Dang and Yuhan Vevaina for pro- viding thoughtful comments on and some corrections of my rendering of some Zoroastrian terms here; they are not to blame when I failed to heed them. 1 Text in Fück, Ergänzungen 75.15–17. See also Taqizadeh, New contribution 949 (text) and 952 (trans.). 2 Pellat, al-Masʿūdī. 3 Al-Masʿūdī, Murūǧ i, 270 §547; al-Masʿūdī, Tanbīh 91. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004343�90_0�� Zoroaster’s Many Languages 191 human grasp. “Zoroaster brought this book of theirs in a language the likes of which they cannot produce, nor can they grasp the essence of its purport.”4 It was so obscure, he clearly delights to remark, that Zoroaster himself had to provide a commentary, the Zand, and then a commentary to his commen- tary called Bāzand (Pāzand). This is an obvious assimilation to the idea of the inimitability (iʿǧāz) of the Quran and its challenge (Q Hūd 11:13; Ṭūr 52:33–34) to produce something like it (which allegedly nobody could).5 Again, his idea is probably derived from a Zoroastrian source; it has an apologetic tone. A claim like this about a language of ancient Iran smacks of the sentiment known derisively as šuʿūbī, which pitted non-Arab cultural goods against those of the Arabs, but the incomprehensibility of the Avesta was no threat to the support- ers of the supremacy of Arabic.6 Al-Masʿūdī merely appreciates this as one of the many curiosities on which he built his literary production. Differently, Ibn al-Nadīm, in his book catalogue the Fihrist (composed in 377/987), makes an odd remark in which the Avesta is made universal, not because it is in an otherwise unknown language or a comprehensive script, but because it is purportedly written in all languages. In his section on the scripts of the world, he writes, “When Bištāsb7 became king, the art of writing became widespread. Zarādušt ibn Isbitamān,8 chief of the Zoroastrian religion (šarīʿat al-Maǧūs), appeared and produced his marvelous book in all the lan- guages. The people became eager to study penmanship and writing so that they [scribes] became numerous and skilled.”9 The claim that the Avesta was composed in all languages and inspired scribes is extraordinary but has a long history of development behind it. I cannot claim to have discovered the origin of this misconception but I hope to shed some light on it in what follows. In fact, the Avesta is composed in more than one language. Modern schol- ars have discerned two different, closely related ancient Iranian languages in the Avestan corpus. One of them, called Old Avestan today, is certainly more ancient and grammatically more conservative, comprising the core of the 4 Al-Masʿūdī Murūǧ i, 270 §548: wa-atā Zarāduštu bi-kitābihim hāḏā bi-luġatin yaʿǧazūna ʿan īrādi miṯlihā wa-lā yudrikūna kunha murādihā. 5 Martin, Inimitability. 6 Enderwitz, Shuʿūbiyya. 7 Middle Persian Wištāsp, Avestan Vištāspa, was famous as the king who received the teaching from and supported Zoroaster. See Skjærvø, Kayāniān ix. 8 The nasab Ibn Isbitamān reflects the fairly common mistake of rendering Middle Persian names into Arabic with the patronymic suffix -ān as an integral part of the father’s name. The Middle Persian on which this is based would have said Zardušt ī Spitāmān, meaning Zardušt the Spitamid (son of Spitām, Avestan Spitāma-). 9 Ibn al-Nadīm, ed. Sayyid, i/1.31.9–11; ed. Flügel, 12.30–13.1..
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