The Indo-Iranian languages (also Indo-Iranic languages or Aryan languages) constitute the largest and southeasternmost extant branch of the Indo-European language family (with over 400 languages), predominantly spoken in the geographical subregion of Southern Asia.They have more than 1.5 billion speakers, stretching from Europe (), Mesopotamia (Kurdish languages, …

The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of Indo-European peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural similarities.. The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separate branch of the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia around the mid-2nd millennium BC. At their peak of expansion in the mid-1st millennium BC, …

Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire).Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as ariya (Iranian).. Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets and seals of the Achaemenid era (c. 600 BCE to 300 BCE).

A daeva (Avestan: ???????????????????????? daēuua) is a Zoroastrian supernatural entity with disagreeable characteristics. In the Gathas, the oldest texts of the Zoroastrian canon, the daevas are "gods that are (to be) rejected". This meaning is – subject to interpretation – perhaps also evident in the Old Persian "daiva inscription" of the 5th century BCE.

The majority of the population of Iran (approximately 67–80%) consists of Iranic peoples. The largest groups in this category include Persians (who form the majority of the Iranian population) and Kurds, with smaller communities including Gilakis, Mazandaranis, Lurs, Tats, Talysh, and Baloch.. Turkic peoples constitute a substantial minority of about 7–24%, the largest group …

The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau.. The Iranian languages are grouped in three stages: Old Iranian (until 400 BCE), Middle Iranian (400 BCE–900 CE) and New Iranian (since 900 CE).

The Slavic languages share a term for "werewolf" derived from a Common Slavic vuko-dlak "wolf-furr". The wolf as a mythological creature is greatly linked to Balkan and Serbian mythology and cults. It has an important part in Serbian mythology. In the Slavic, old Serbian religion and mythology, the wolf was used as a totem.

The official languages of Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari, both of which are Iranic languages.Dari, an Afghan standardized register of the Persian language, is considered the lingua franca of Afghanistan and used to write Afghan literature. Tajik is spoken by people closer to Tajikistan, although officially the language is regarded same as Dari.A few Turkic languages …

The Achaemenid or Achaemenian Empire (/ ə ˈ k iː m ə n ɪ d /; Old Persian: ????????????, Xšāça, lit. 'The Empire' or 'The Kingdom'), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest empire in history, spanning a total of 5.5 million square kilometres (2.1 million square ...

Different publications have reported different statistics for the languages of Iran. There have been some limited censuses taken in Iran in 2001, 1991, 1986 and 1949–1954. ... Classification categories of the spoken languages: Indo-European (Iranic mainly, smaller amounts of other branches represented mainly by Armenian, amongst others ...