Languages

From the first millennium BCE, peoples whom ancient writers called Scythians or Saka lived across the northern Black Sea region and the Eurasian steppe, with related groups in Central Asia. From the second century BCE, some Saka communities moved south and established Indo-Scythian kingdoms in parts of Afghanistan and northwestern South Asia. These labels describe related but distinct regional histories, not one continuous empire or a single, uniform language community.

Languages associated with Scythian peoples belong to the Iranian family, which also includes Persian. Scholars commonly place them among the eastern Iranian languages. Pontic Scythian survives mainly in names and a few words written by Greek and Persian authors, while later eastern Saka communities left much longer manuscripts.

Reconstructing speech from names and records

Achaemenid Persian inscriptions and Greek accounts provide some of the earliest written references to Saka and Scythian peoples. The inscriptions classify groups by names and descriptions, including the Sakā tigraxaudā , commonly understood as Saka who wore pointed caps, and the Sakā tayaiy paradraya , or Saka who lived beyond the sea. The latter designation was associated with the Pontic Scythians. Such labels tell us how the Persian court grouped populations.

Greek writers used the name Scythian and recorded names, a small number of words, and accounts of customs and speech. Herodotus, for example, described Sarmatian speech as related to Scythian but altered from an older form. This is useful evidence that an ancient author perceived a relationship, but it is not a linguistic description detailed enough to establish exactly how the languages were related. Greek spellings also adapted unfamiliar sounds to Greek writing conventions, and names could pass through interpreters or other speakers before being recorded.

Greek inscriptions around the Black Sea preserve many personal names with Iranian elements. Names such as Ariapeithes and Spargapeithes share a recurring ending. Linguists compare such elements and their sounds with better-recorded Iranian languages to identify relationships. This repeated pattern is more informative than the apparent meaning of one isolated name.

Regional languages were not one uniform system

In the western steppe, evidence often comes from Greek records of Pontic Scythians and, in later periods, Sarmatian groups. The names attributed to Sarmatians show affinities with Ossetian, a modern Eastern Iranian language that continues the Alanic branch of the western steppe linguistic tradition. The relationship traces linguistic descent across centuries of change.

Eastern Saka evidence has a different character. Khotanese and Tumshuqese, known from the Tarim Basin, are related Eastern Iranian languages often grouped as Saka. Documents in these languages include Buddhist and medical texts, and many surviving manuscripts date to the tenth century CE. They offer far more continuous evidence than the scattered names available for ancient Pontic Scythians, but they belong to eastern communities and a later period. Wakhi is often identified as a close living linguistic relative of Khotanese and Tumshuqese.

Khotanese writers adapted Brahmi, an Indian writing system, to represent their language. Buddhist translators brought Sanskrit vocabulary and texts into Khotanese. Manuscript fragments now at the Library of Congress include Khotanese and Sanskrit Buddhist works copied around the eleventh century CE, showing two languages used within the same religious manuscript world.

The western record includes Scythian, later Sarmatian and Alanic names. Ossetian continues the Alanic linguistic tradition in the Caucasus. Eastern Khotanese and Tumshuqese developed in the Tarim Basin. These separate histories explain why related languages appear far apart on a modern map.

Writing in Indo-Scythian kingdoms

The ancient steppe languages are not represented by surviving bodies of long texts comparable to those from Khotan. Instead, Indo-Scythian kingdoms in northwestern South Asia left evidence of varied written practices. Their coins draw on Greek and South Asian traditions, using the Greek alphabet on one face and the Kharosthi script on the other. Kharosthi wrote languages such as Gandhari Prakrit, an Indo-Aryan language of the region. Script and language are different: a writing system can be adapted to more than one language.

Inscriptions show how writing served particular political and religious purposes. The Mathura lion capital, a stone inscription from the first century CE, uses Kharosthi to record royal relationships and a Buddhist dedication by a ruler’s queen. The inscription makes a public record of a courtly gift, using a regional language and script that its intended readers could recognise.

Khotan illustrates this layered use of languages particularly clearly. Gandhari Prakrit, written in Kharosthi, initially had an official role there, and first-century coins carried inscriptions in Chinese and Gandhari Prakrit. Iranian speech also remained in use. Later Khotanese documents include royal texts as well as religious and practical writing. The evidence points to changing uses of languages and scripts, rather than a sudden replacement of one language throughout the region.

For the wider setting, see Scythian historical context.