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Parthian language   One of Western Iranian languages, Parthian used to be a state language in Parthia, together with Persian and Greek. Before the Parthian Kingdom was ruled by Arshakides dynasty, Parthian was only a tongue spoken in the small region, but later it spread to all Iran, Armenia, was used in Central Asia. It was spoken widely even in Sasanide Empire, until the 6th century AD.

There are three pairs of vowel phonemes in Parthian - long and short a, i, u, and two single long vowels e, o which appeared from ancient diphthongs. Consonant mutations included the following: *z, *d > z, *dv > b and some others. The grammar structure can be characterized by analytism: ancient categories of gender and case were lost in noun declension, final endings of verbs were replaced by analytic construction using the ancient participle in -ta-. However, in early inscriptions indirect cases and verb inflections can be somehow seen.

Parthian script was a descendant of Aramaic alphabets. The oldest documents found include the economic documents from Nisa (1st century BC). They are written in Parthian script with additions of ideograms, as well as rock inscriptions dating back to the 3rd century AD.