This introductory course initiates the students into the Iranian languages and dialects from a historic and modern perspective.  Iranian languages have been spread throughout the ages over the vast territories of modern Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia.  The latter is a region which has contributed greatly to the cultural development of humanity and its history.  The region has been the birthplace of several religions, great philosophers and thinkers and has given rise to a world popular literature.  An outstanding feature of the Iranian languages is that they have preserved their continuity, while Iranians have kept their ethnical identity since ancient times, despite the change of several civilizations in the region.  Though the focus of the course is on languages it addresses a wide range of cultural, ethnographical and historic issues, which make it also useful for students with other than purely linguistic interests.