Bactrians,Arachosians,Gandharians,Persians,Medes

Bactria (Bâkhtriš): country in the south of oxus (Amu-Daria )northern Afghanistan, in Antiquity famous for its fierce warriors and its ancient religion, which was founded by the prophet Zarathustra. If there was ever a region that can be described with the old geographical cliché that it is a country of opposites, it must be Bactria. Situated between the Hindu Kush mountain range in the south and the river Oxus (Amudar'ya) in the north, it is essentially an east-west zone that consists of extremely fertile alluvial plains, a hot desert, and cold mountains.Bactria (Bactriana, Bākhtar in Persian, also Bhalika in Arabic and Indian languages, and Ta-Hsia in Chinese) was the ancient Greek name of the country between the range of the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya (Oxus); its capital, Bactra or Balhika or Bokhdi (now Balkh), was located in what is now Afghanistan. It is a mountainous region with a moderate climate. Water is abundant and the land is very fertile.Bactria was the homeland of Aryan tribes who moved south-west into Iran and into North-Western India around 2500-2000 BC Later it became the north province of the Persian Empire in Central Asia.(Cotterell, 59) It was in these regions, where the fertile soil of the mountainous country is surrounded by the Turanian desert, that the prophet Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) was said to have been born and gained his first adherents. Avestan, the language of the oldest portions of the Zoroastrian Avesta, was once called "old-iranic" which is related to Sanskrit. Today some scholars believe the Avestan-Language was the western dialect of the Sanskrit because both languages are the oldest Indo-Iranian language of Aryans we know. With the time the Avestan-Language became developed by own western style.Bactria was bounded on the south by the ancient region of Gandhara. The Bactrian language is an Iranian language of the Indo-Iranian sub-family of the Indo-European family.Bactrian was completely assimilated by the Persian and later by Turkish language, which spread in Tocharistan. This process is believed to take place until the 12th century. Some Bactrians moved south, some north-west who saved partially thier languages

Channel: Education
Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am
Author: Plovdiv33

Length: 07:25
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Tags: Afghans  Alans  Arachosia  Arya  Aryan  Bactria  Bulgaria  bulgarian  Gandhara  hindu-kush  Imeon  Iranic  myzia  Pamir  persian  saka  sarmatians  Scythians  Sogdiana  

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