Introduction   The Iranian languages belong to the Aryan (Indo-Iranian) family of languages and are among the oldest languages that are a sub-family of the Indo-European languages. The Aryans came to be divided into two major groups in the 2nd Millennium BC. One group migrated to north-west India (Punjab and the surrounding areas) via the present-day Afghanistan and then permeated into other lands while the other group gradually entered the Iranian plateau and settled down in its various parts. Since then, the Aryan language branched into the Indian and Iranian languages, each following its own course. Like many other languages, the Iranian languages, too, have passed through the three - Old, Middle, and Modern – phases.   * source: Rezaie Baghbidi , Hasan " Iran Entry " The Great Islamic Encyclopedia . Ed. Kazem Musavi Bojnourdi.Tehran: The Center of Great Islamic Encyclopaedia , 1989-, V.10 , pp.544 - 545