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Middle
Persian Language and Scripts
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Five
and a half centuries separated the end of the Achamaenian
empire and the beginning of the Sasanian dynasty. The Persians
through Ardashir Pabagan were able to regain power
by defeating the Parthians. His son Shapur I
(d. AD 272)
consolidated the empire by defeating the Romans in the
west and the Kushans in the east. He took an interest in
the great Iranian teacher, Mani (AD
216-274) the
founder of a universal religion. Shapur left long inscriptions
in several languages in Naqshe Rostam.
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During
the Sasanian
time, the
phonetic Avestan
alphabet
was developed based on the Middle Persian Aramaic, in order
to preserve the ancient Zoroastrian scriptures.
The Sasanians were also great patrons of the arts. Iranian
art of this era radiated over an area stretching from China
to the Atlantic.
The
Middle Persian language
Middle
Persian, also known as Pahlavi, was the official language
of the Sasanian empire (226-652 AD). It existed from the
3rd to the 10th century and was replaced by the New Persian
language. It was a continuation, albeit not a linear one,
of Old Persian.
Among all middle Iranian languages,
middle Persian has the most number of records left. Coins
with inscriptions in Pahlavi from the era of the Persian
kings (circa 2nd century BC) still remain. The major part
of Pahlavi literature is religious, including translations
from and commentaries on the Avesta. Little has survived
from pre-Islamic times, and the Bundahishn
and Denkart, both Zoroastrian religious works, date from
the Islamic period. Manuscripts were preserved by the Parsis
(Zoroastrians) of India. Middle Persian was also the language
of the Manichaean and books written during the 3rd to the
10th century AD. Some
texts have survive unchanged from the 3rd
century AD, the time of Mani himself. Major
discoveries of Manichaean
manuscripts were made early in the 20th century in Turfan
in eastern Turkestan. The most
important of the Middle Persian inscriptions is that of
Shapur I, which has parallel
versions in Parthian and Greek.
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The
Middle Persian scripts
The script of Middle Persian derives ultimately from that
of the official Aramaic of Old Persian used during the Achaemenian
empire. This script is also called the Imperial Aramaic.
In the course of time, however, a high degree of development
occurred in the script. The Imperial Aramaic alphabet evolved
into four different forms and various heterograms
which were all used to inscribe the Middle Persian language.
These four alphabets are:
- Inscriptional
- Pslater
- Book
- Early
Cursive
Inscriptional
- This type of alphabet was to inscribe on rocks, papyrus,
metals, precious stones, etc. The inscriptions relate to
the Sasanian kings starting from Ardashir I (224 - 242 AD)
. This alphabet was written from right to left with many
Aramaic ideograms. Although written in Aramaic, these ideograms
were read in Middle Persian.
Psalter - A variant of the Persian script used for
writing on paper is so-called Psalter script,
known from the Psalms of David written on a fragmentary
manuscript found in Chinese Turkestan.
Early Cursive and Book - The Psalter script developed
from a simplified variant called the Early Cursive,
into the so-called Book script, so named after the
script used in Zoroastrian books.
The table below shows the four Middle Persian alphabets,
their Aramaic root and phonetic values. [1]
Aramaic
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Inscriptional
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Pslater
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Early
Cursive
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Book
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Phonetic
Values
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Heterograms
(ideograms) - The written Aramaic language of the
Achamaenid period evolved into local Iranian, and the
scribes began to insert Iranian words into their texts.
The text language therefore turned into a "mixed"
or "bastardized" Aramaic, but eventually the
entire language was Iranian. However, Aramaic words were
still written, but they became mere symbols for the corresponding
Iranian words. These so-called "Semitic masks"
are called "ideograms" or more recently called
heterograms.
Manichaean
Middle Persian - In addition to Aramaic, Middle Persian
was also written in the Manichaean script which
is a variant of the Syriac script known as Estrangelo.
The Manichaean script was used also to write many other
Iranian languages, such as Sogdian
and non-Iranian languages such as Old Turkish.
The table
below indicates the Manichaean alphabet, its Aramaic equivalent,
and phonetic values. [1]
Aramaic
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Manichaean
Mid Persian
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Phonetic
Values
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[1] The
World's Writing Systems;
By P. Oktor Skjaervo; Editors: Peter T. Daniels , William Bright;
Oxford University Press 1996
Samples
of text
Bibliography
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