From Middle to New Persian: written materials from Northern Iran and Khorasan

Abstract

The linguistic situation in Iran at the beginning of the Islamic era is described in a famous
passage going back to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ that has been discussed at length by scholars. Here new
evidence based on Middle Persian inscriptions from the northern regions of historical Iran are
introduced. These texts show that literacy was comparatively widespread in Late Sasanian and Early
Islamic Iran, opening the way for a new understanding of linguistic developments in the years that
have been dubbed do qarn-e sokut “two centuries of silence”.