ANCIENT AND ARYAN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT 

The Ancient and Aryan Languages Department was established by the resolution of the Board of the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan (NAST) dated August 29, 2022 and unites research groups in the field of the history of language, the Ancient and Aryan languages of the Institute of Language and Literature named after Rudaki of NAST. The department employees are specialists in the field of ancient and modern Aryan languages, especially in the history of the Tajik language and synchronous and diachronic analysis of the languages of the eastern Iranian branch, engaged in the study of structural and functional study of these languages.

The head of the Department is Candidate of Philological Sciences Mirboboev A., and currently, the following employees are working in the Department: candidates of Philology S. Mirzoev (leading researcher), Z.Mahmadaminova (senior researcher), a well-known specialist of ancient languages B.Bobokhanov (senior researcher), S. Latifov (researcher), Z. Khojaniyozova (junior researcher), Umarova F. (laboratory assistant). In recent years, the scientific staff of the department has published more than 60 scientific papers in international and domestic publications regarding the actual problems of Iranian linguistics. A member of department defended her PhD thesis last year.

Aryan languages are one of the most widespread groups of the Indo-European language family with a history of more than five thousand years. Since the beginning of the III millennium BC, with the settlement of Aryan Europeans in Central Asia, these languages have spread throughout this region, and then expanded on the Indian continent and are now the only language group of the Indo-European family on the Asian continent. Historical conditions contributed to the fact that the Aryan languages, depending on the region in which they operate, were divided into branches of Hindi and Iranian languages. The first languages of the Iranian branch were formed precisely in Central Asia, and in a later era various languages emerged from it, which expanded in the East–Western lands of historical Iran, which led to the emergence of two branches of Iranian languages i.e.Eeastern and Western.

The purpose and task of the department are fundamental and applied research in the direction of "Diachronic and synchronous research of Aryan languages". It is expected that in the near future a series of research will be conducted on the historical grammar of Iranian languages (morphophonological study of special sounds of Tajik Koine, morphophonological study of consonantism of Western Iranian languages, study of clusters in Western Iranian languages, analysis of the initial language and culture of Orion), structural and functional, lexical-lexical and lexicographic study of Eastern Iranian languages, Linguio-Folklore studies and scientific publication of oral works of Eastern Iranian languages.

The scientific materials obtained from research in this field will contribute to clarifying the general landscape of the historical development of the Aryan languages, especially its Iranian branch, and determining the historical place of these languages in the historical system of Indo-European languages. A monographic study of the history of these languages, a comprehensive and in-depth research of phonetic, lexical and grammatical structure of ancient and modern languages of this group is one of the actual tasks of modern Oriental studies.