Let's Learn some Gathic Words!

The language of the Gathas is called Gathic which is very old. The Gathic belongs to the family of Indo-European languages. English, Persian and Hindu are all part of the family of Indo-European languages too. The closest language to the Gathic is the Vedic Sanskrit.


Because English and Gathic come from the same family of languages, we can find many similar words between them. Here is a list of some of these words:

Gathic             English
Mart                 Man
Mag                  Magic, Magus
Piter                 Father
Daeva               Devil
Navan              Nine
Matr                Mother
Yavan              Youth

By the time the Persian Empire was established in 539 BC, people had forgotten the Gathic language. However, the Gathas survived through the oral tradition because people believed the Gathic words to have special power. Only recently, the scholars have begun to understand what the Gathas say.

If you'd like to hear how the Gathic words sound, listen to this recitation of the Gathas. This is the first Song of the Gathas (Yasna 28) and it is recited by Dr. Mobed Koroush Niknam.