'The Expedition for the survey of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, carried on by order of the British government, in the years 1835, 1836, and 1837; preceded by geographical and historical notices of the regions situated between the rivers Nile and Indus. In four volumes. With fourteen maps and charts, and embellished with ninety-seven plates, besides numerous wood-cuts. Volume the first.' [‎84] (131/905)

84
LANGUAGE OF IRIN.
[CHAP. IV.
The Pehlevi
and Parsi.
The first
Chaldean
creed.
The Aramaic
probably a
common
language.
the court language in the time of the Sassanian monarchs,
and, according to some authorities, as far back as that of
Cyrus: it contains many words which belong to the Chaldaic
and Syriac tongues, and Sir William Jones was of opinion
that one of these must have been its root; but it is now
generally .presumed that the root of the Pehlevi is the
Aramaic itself. The cognates of the latter spread westward
and eastward, and one of them, the Chaldee, can scarcely be
distinguished from the parent root. Another, the Parsi,
being a softer language than the Pehlevi, became general in
Farsistan, and gave rise to the Deri, or modern Persian.
The Pehlevi, however, is still partially used in Shirvan, 1 and
also by some of the Gabrs of the eastern provinces, as well as
by a numerous section of the natives of India; but among the
Parsees it is largely intermixed with the Hindustani and
other native dialects, which are less or more connected with
the Sanscrit. The affinity of the latter to the Parsi is so
great that a learned philologist has pronounced it to be one
of its derivatives.
The number of words which are identical among the differ
ent dialects of Iran, Turan, and some portion of the territory
more eastward, goes far to show, that at a period anterior to
anything like connected history, there must have been some
common language; and this was probably the Aramaic. Per
haps one-third of the inhabitants of Iran are nomadic, and
this section, by its habits, as well as mode of life, constitutes
a race separate from the other, or fixed portion; which, as we
know, consists of Persians, Kurds, Armenians, Arabs, Jews,
and Parsees.
The religion of the last, or that of the Gabrs, naturally
carries us back to that particular period, anterior to the time
of the Magi, when the Iranians followed the Chaldean creed,
which acknowledged one supreme, eternal, incomprehensible
Being, the maker and governor of the world. At first, sacri
fices were offered on the tops of mountains, without any other
temple or altar; 2 and subsequently in the Mithraic cave. 3
1 Khanat of Tdlish.—Apenju des Possessions Russes, &c., Tome III.,
p. 197, &c. 8 Herod., lib. I., cap. 132. 8 Ibid., cap. 131.