Zend

Zend, a word meaning 'commentary' (zend = zand, from Sansk. jñā, 'to know'), which is a misnomer of European origin when applied (as seems now inevitable) to the ancient East-Iranian and purely Aryan language, in which the Zend-Avesta was long orally preserved and at last written. 'Zend' is closely related on the one side to the Vedic Sanskrit, of which it has been called the elder sister, and on the other to the Ancient Persian (its still younger sister) on the Behistun and Persepolis inscriptions. Its alphabet was elaborated (probably a thousand years after the composition of the Old Avesta, and for the particular purpose of preserving it) out of the obscure Pahlavi (Pehlevi) forms, which have been still retained in its translations or commentaries. Parsi is the daughter-language of Zend, but showing a quasi-hybrid character by the admission of some Semitic elements; it is written either in the Zend character or the Perso-Arabic. Pahlavi may be said to be the same language, but rendered difficult by the use of the most obscure of all characters, and by the presence of some hundreds of logograms which were spoken Aryan but written Semitic, Malkán Malkā ('king of kings') being spoken Sháhán Sháh. A knowledge of their languages as well as the Vedic Sanskrit is essential to the complete criticism of the Avesta, many correct definitions not suggested by Vedic analogies being offered by their uses.