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"We have worked out that the so-called 'Kushan script' was used to record a previously unknown Middle Iranian language," lead study author Svenja Bonmann, a comparative linguist at the University of Cologne in Germany, said in a video posted by the university on July 13.

This Middle Iranian language was likely one of the official languages of the Kushan Empire, which sprawled across Central Asia and northwestern India between 200 B.C. and A.D.

Bactrian, with its middle Iranian roots, gave the Kushans influence in the region, even as their use of Greek letters spoke of continuity with the past.