Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 10, 2025
It becomes necessary, therefore, to examine this theory, in order to justify our abstention from an inquiry on which, if the theory were sound, we should be now called upon to enter. The notion that the Zend language was the idiom of ancient Media originated with Anquetil du Perron. He looked on Zoroaster as a native of Azerbijan, contemporary with Darius Hystaspis.
Grimm, and Rask the first great Zend scholar were among these early explorers, who have been followed by so many scholars, until some knowledge not merely of Greek and Latin, but of the relations of all languages, has become essential to a truly good education. Yet after all, Sanscrit, it was soon seen, was not the parent, but 'the elder sister' of the Indo-Germanic languages.
In 1826 the Danish philologist Rask, and later Eugène Burnouf, with his profound knowledge of Sanskrit, and by the help of a translation in that language recently discovered in India, turned once more to the study of the Zend. In 1834 Burnouf published a masterly treatise on the Yacna, which marked an epoch.
Now, wouldst thou credit it? despite the mathematical plainness of the facts, other Alemanni agree neither with Muellerus, nor yet with Benfeius, and will neither hear that Athene was the Dawn, nor yet that she is 'the feminine of the Zend Thra'eta'na athwya'na. Lo, you! how Prellerus goes about to show that her name is drawn not from Ahana' and the old Brachmanae, nor athwya'na and the old Medes, but from 'the root aith*, whence aither*, the air, or ath*, whence anthos*, a flower. Yea, and Prellerus will have it that no man knows the verity of this matter.
Thus was revealed the existence, at the time of the first Achaemenian kings, of a language closely connected with that of the "Avesta," and the last doubts as to the authenticity of the Zend books were at length removed.
The commentary is not written in the Zend language, but in Pahlavi or Persian. The Avesta, which is written in the older Zend, the sacred language of Persia, is, like other Bibles, a collection of books written in different ages, and even, it may be, in different lands. The books were brought together into one only at some period after the Christian era.
It is only by the remains of their language that we can trace them; and we do this through the sacred books of the Hindus and Persians-the Vedas and the Zend Avesta in which remains of their language are found, and by means of which, therefore, we get to know something about their dwelling-place, their manners, their customs, their religion, and their legends the source and origin of our Fairy Tales.
In 1798 Father Paulo de St. Barthélemy further developed Jones's remark in an essay on the antiquity of the Zend language. He showed its affinity with the Sanscrit by a list of such Zend and Sanscrit words as were least likely to have been borrowed, viz., those that designate the degrees of relationship, the limbs of the body, and the most general and essential ideas.
He showed that the list of the Jehangiri referred to an epoch later than that to which Zend must have belonged, and to parts of Persia different from those where it must have been spoken; he showed further that modern Persian is not derived from Zend, but from a dialect closely connected with it; and, lastly, he showed what was still more important, that Zend was not derived from Sanscrit.
We find in the Zend texts the names of Gayo-marathan, who corresponds to Kaiomars; of Haoshyanha, or Hosheng; of Yima-shaeta, or Jemshid; of Ajisdahaka, or Zohak; of Athwya, or Abtin; of Thraetona, or Feridun; of Keresaspa, or Gershasp; of Kava Uq, or Kai Kavus; of Kava Hucrava, or Kai Khosroo; and of Kava Vistaspa, or Gushtasp.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking