vestan is the sacred language of Zoroastrianism, which is practiced by a small community living across the New York metro region. Originally spoken around 1500 BCE and thus an important linguistic key to the Indo-European past, Avestan was revitalized as a written-only liturgical language nearly two thousand years later. Named for Zoroastrianism's central text, the Avesta, the language employed a new alphabet that descends to an extent from (Semitic) Aramaic, though linguistically it is closer to (Indo-European) Sanskrit. In daily life, Zoroastrians from Iran may speak Zoroastrian Dari (closely related to Persian), while those from South Asia (notably Parsis) may speak Gujarati or English, but Avestan continues to serve as a common liturgical language for worshippers at the Dar-e-Mehr Zoroastrian Temple in Pomona, New York.