Iran (word) - Etymology

Etymology

The gentilic ēr- and ary- (in e.g. ērān/aryān) in the Middle Iranian languages of Persian and Parthian derives from Old Iranian *arya- (in e.g. Old Persian: ariya-, Avestan: airiia-, etc.), meaning "Aryan," in the sense of "of the Iranians." This word (i.e. *arya-) is attested as an ethnic designator in Achaemenid inscriptions and in Zoroastrianism's Avesta tradition, and in Middle Iranian era (ca. 400 BCE - 700 CE) it seems "very likely" that the word ērān in Ardashir's inscription still retained the same meaning as in the Old era, i.e. denoting the people rather than the empire while the empire was properly named as ērānšahr.

Notwithstanding this inscriptional use of ērān to refer to the Iranian peoples, the use of ērān to refer to the empire (and the antonymic anērān to refer to the Roman territories) is also attested by the early Sassanid period. Both ērān and anērān appear in 3rd century calendrical text written by Mani. In an inscription of Ardashir's son and immediate successor, Shapur I "apparently includes in Ērān regions such as Armenia and the Caucasus which were not inhabited predominantly by Iranians." In Kartir's inscriptions (written thirty years after Shapur's), the high priest includes the same regions (together with Georgia, Albania, Syria and the Pontus) in his list of provinces of the antonymic Anērān. Ērān also features in the names of the towns founded by Sassanid dynasts, for instance in Ērān-xwarrah-šābuhr "Glory of Ērān (of) Shapur". It also appears in the titles of government officers, such as in Ērān-āmārgar "Accountant-General (of) Ērān" or Ērān-dibirbed "Chief Scribe (of) Ērān".

Shapur's trilingual inscription at Ka'ba-i Zartosht also introduces the term ērānšahr, "kingdom of the Iranians", that is however not attested in any other texts of this period other than in royal inscriptions (it is however preserved in post-Sassanid-era Zoroastrian texts). Because an equivalent of ērānšahr does not appear in Old Iranian (where it would have been *aryānām xšaθra- or in Old Persian *- xšaça-, "rule, reign, sovereignty"), the term is presumed to have been a Sassanid-era development. In the Greek portion of Shapur's trilingual inscription the word šahr "kingdom" appears as ethnous "nation". For speakers of Greek, the idea of an Iranian ethnous was not new: In the 1st century BCE, Strabo had noted a relationship between the various Iranian peoples and their languages: " beyond the Indus Ariana is extended so as to include some part of Persia, Media, and the north of Bactria and Sogdiana; for these nations speak nearly the same language." (Geography, 15.2.1-15.2.8).