Pre-Aryan Origins of the Persian Perfect

THE DISCOVERIES OF recent years tend more and more to demonstrate that the invasion of Asia Minor by the Indo-Europeans was a slow process of infiltration which began at a much earlier period than is generally admitted. In his startling little book, The War and the Bagdad Railway, Dr. Jastrow has emphasized the composite nature of the Hittite nation. While the reading of their inscriptions by Hrozny and other scholars has almost conclusively shown that they spoke an Indo-European language, their physical type is clearly Mongoloid, as is shown by their representations both on their own sculptures and on Egyptian monuments. They had high cheek-bones and retreating foreheads in the manner of the Tartar races (Jastrow, op. cit., p. 37). This is true in our times of the Armenians, who much resemble the ancient Hittites, and who are still in immediate contact with the remnants of the same races in the Caucasus. There is every reason to believe that in Kurdistan and in the Median mountains a similar amalgamation took place. The constitution of the Median empire was a sudden one, but Aryan tribes were for centuries in contact with the Assyro-Babylonians before the times when the Medes became really dangerous. Their power was preceded by that of the Chaldees, whose language, according to Hommel (Grund. der Geog. u. Gesch. des alten Orients., p. 38 f.), shows resemblances with those of the Northern Caucasic peoples. These Chaldees, who lived around Ararat and Lake Urumiah, were gradually absorbed by the Indo-Europeans. 'Their Aryanization was preceded by a period of amalgamation, during which the worship of their national god Chaldi became associated with that of the Iranian deity Bagmashtu (Prasek, Gesch. Med. u. Pers., p. 65 ff.). The appearance of the Persians in Southern Iran was not sudden, either, and cannot have taken -place without the absorption of Elamitic populations. Till the ethnology of these important regions is more advanced, it will -not be altogether devoid of interest to look for pre-Aryan and more specifically Caucasic influence on the language of the Ira

Ancient history · Aryan race · Linguistics · Persian · Ancient Near East History · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy