Learn Avestan Through Topics You Actually Care About

LingoBear creates short Avestan passages on topics you choose. Tap any word for an instant English translation and build your vocabulary as you read. Extinct Eastern Iranian language of the Zoroastrian scriptures, recorded in the Avestan alphabet around the 4th century AD, sister to Vedic Sanskrit.

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Every word in your Avestan reading passage is clickable. Get English translations and grammar help without leaving the text — handy for parsing inflected forms.

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Type any topic and LingoBear generates a fresh Avestan reading passage — from Zoroastrian theology to comparative Indo-European exercises.

What is Avestan and why study it?

Avestan is the language of the Avesta, the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in eastern Iran roughly between 1500 and 500 BC. It is divided into Old (Gathic) Avestan and Younger Avestan, and is one of the closest known relatives of Vedic Sanskrit. It is no longer spoken but remains a liturgical language for Parsi and Zoroastrian communities.

What script and grammar does Avestan use?

The Avestan alphabet was created around the 4th century AD specifically to transcribe the language with full phonetic detail; it has 53 letters and is written right to left. Grammatically Avestan has eight noun cases, three numbers (singular, dual, plural), and complex verb forms, much like Vedic Sanskrit.