{"history":[],"article":{"id":"768dff4c-c5df-4192-9f2e-3b9f8345c834","title":"Pahlavi scripts","slug":"pahlavi-scripts","content":":::summary\n**Name:** Pahlavi scripts \n**Type:** [Abjad](https://bliptext.com/articles/abjad) \n**Typedesc:** with [logograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/logogram) \n**Languages:** [Middle Iranian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/iranian-languages) \n**Time:** c. 2nd century BC – c. 7th century AD \n**Fam 1:** [Egyptian hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-hieroglyphs) \n**Fam 2:** [Proto-Sinaitic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-sinaitic) \n**Fam 3:** [Phoenician alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/phoenician-alphabet) \n**Fam 4:** [Aramaic alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/aramaic-alphabet) \n**Children:** [Inscriptional Parthian](https://bliptext.com/articles/inscriptional-parthian) · [Inscriptional Pahlavi](https://bliptext.com/articles/inscriptional-pahlavi) · [Psalter Pahlavi](https://bliptext.com/articles/psalter-pahlavi) · Book Pahlavi · [Avestan](https://bliptext.com/articles/avestan-alphabet) \n**Unicode:** U+10B60–U+10B7F Inscriptional Pahlavi · U+10B40–U+10B5F Inscriptional Parthian · U+10B80–U+10BAF Psalter Pahlavi \n**Iso 1 5 9 2 4 Note:** (Inscriptional Parthian) · (Inscriptional Pahlavi) · (Psalter Pahlavi) · (Book Pahlavi) \n**Sample:** Eranshahr.svg \n**Imagesize:** 300px \n**Note:** none \n**Direction:** Mixed \n:::\n\n# \n**Pahlavi** is a particular, exclusively written form of various [Middle Iranian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-iranian-languages).\nThe essential characteristics of Pahlavi are:\nPahlavi compositions have been found for the [dialects](https://bliptext.com/articles/dialect)/[ethnolects](https://bliptext.com/articles/ethnolect) of [Parthia](https://bliptext.com/articles/parthian-language), [Persis](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-persian), [Sogdiana](https://bliptext.com/articles/sogdian-language), [Scythia](https://bliptext.com/articles/scythian-languages), and [Khotan](https://bliptext.com/articles/saka-language).\nIndependent of the [variant](https://bliptext.com/articles/variety-linguistics) for which the Pahlavi system was used, the written form of that language only qualifies as Pahlavi when it has the characteristics noted above.\nPahlavi is then an admixture of:\nPahlavi may thus be defined as a system of writing applied to (but not unique for) a specific language group, but with critical features alien to that language group.\nIt has the characteristics of a distinct language, but is not one.\nIt is an exclusively written system, but much Pahlavi literature remains essentially an oral literature committed to writing and so retains many of the characteristics of oral composition.\n\n# Etymology\nThe term Pahlavi is said to be derived from the Old Iranian word Parθava, meaning [Parthia](https://bliptext.com/articles/parthia), a region just east of the [Caspian Sea](https://bliptext.com/articles/caspian-sea), with the -i suffix denoting the language and people of that region.\nIf this etymology is correct, Parθava presumably became Pahlav through a [semivowel glide](https://bliptext.com/articles/semivowel) rt (or in other cases rd) change to l, a common occurrence in language evolution (e.g. sāl < sard, zāl < zard, gul < vard, sālār < sardar, mīlād < mihrdāt, etc.).\nThe term has also been traced back to [Avestan](https://bliptext.com/articles/avestan) pərəthu- \"broad [as the earth]\", also evident in [Sanskrit](https://bliptext.com/articles/sanskrit) pṛthvi- \"earth\" and parthivi \"[lord] of the earth\".\n\n# History\nThe earliest attested use of Pahlavi dates to the reign of [Arsaces I of Parthia](https://bliptext.com/articles/arsaces-i-of-parthia) (250 BCE) in early Parthian coin in Pahlavi scripts.\nThere are also several Pahlavi texts written during the reign of [Mithridates I](https://bliptext.com/articles/mithridates-i-of-parthia) (r. 171–138 BCE).\nThe cellars of the treasury at Mithradatkird near [Nisa, Turkmenistan](https://bliptext.com/articles/nisa-turkmenistan) revealed thousands of pottery sherds with brief records; several [ostraca](https://bliptext.com/articles/ostracon) that are fully dated bear references to members of the immediate family of the king.\nSuch fragments, as well as the rock inscriptions of Sasanian emperors, which are datable to the 3rd and 4th centuries, do not qualify as a significant literary corpus.\nAlthough in theory Pahlavi could have been used to render any Middle Iranian language and hence may have been in use as early as 300 BC, no manuscripts that can be dated to before the 6th century have yet been found.\nThus, when used for the name of a literary genre, i.e. [Middle Persian literature](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-persian-literature), the term refers to Middle Iranian, mostly [Middle Persian](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-persian), texts dated near or after the fall of the [Sasanian Empire](https://bliptext.com/articles/sasanian-empire) and (with exceptions) extending to about 900, after which Iranian languages enter the \"modern\" stage.\nThe oldest surviving example of the Pahlavi literature is from fragments of the so-called \"[Pahlavi Psalter](https://bliptext.com/articles/pahlavi-psalter)\", a 6th- or 7th-century translation of a Syriac Psalter found at [Bulayïq](https://bliptext.com/articles/bulay-q) on the [Silk Road](https://bliptext.com/articles/silk-road), near [Turpan](https://bliptext.com/articles/turpan) in north-west China.\nIt is in a more archaic script than [Book Pahlavi](https://bliptext.com/articles/).\nAfter the [Muslim conquest of Persia](https://bliptext.com/articles/muslim-conquest-of-persia), the Pahlavi script was gradually replaced by the [Arabic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/arabic-script) except in [Zoroastrian sacred literature](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-persian-literature).\nThe replacement of the Pahlavi script by the [Arabic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/arabic-script) to write Persian was done in the ninth-century by the [Tahirid dynasty](https://bliptext.com/articles/tahirid-dynasty), the governors of [Greater Khorasan](https://bliptext.com/articles/greater-khorasan).\n\n## Modern times\nIn the present day, \"Pahlavi\" is frequently identified with the [prestige dialect](https://bliptext.com/articles/prestige-dialect) of southwest Iran, formerly and properly called [Fārsi](https://bliptext.com/articles/persian-language), after [Fars province](https://bliptext.com/articles/fars-province).\nThis practice can be dated to the period immediately following the Islamic conquest.\n\n# Script\nThe Pahlavi script is one of the two essential characteristics of the Pahlavi system (see above).\nIts origin and development occurred independently of the various [Middle Iranian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/iranian-languages) for which it was used.\nThe Pahlavi script is derived from the [Aramaic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/aramaic-script) as it was used under the [Sasanians](https://bliptext.com/articles/sassanid), with modifications to support the phonology of the Iranian languages.\nIt is essentially a typical [abjad](https://bliptext.com/articles/abjad), where, in general, only long vowels are marked with [matres lectionis](https://bliptext.com/articles/matres-lectionis) (although short /i/ and /u/ are sometimes expressed so as well), and vowel-initial words are marked with an [aleph](https://bliptext.com/articles/aleph).\nHowever, because of the high incidence of [logograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/logogram) derived from Aramaic words, the Pahlavi script is far from always phonetic; and even when it is phonetic, it may have more than one transliterational symbol per sign, because certain originally different Aramaic letters have merged into identical graphic forms – especially in the Book Pahlavi variety.\n(For a review of the transliteration problems of Pahlavi, see [Henning](https://bliptext.com/articles/walter-bruno-henning).) In addition to this, during much of its later history, Pahlavi orthography was characterized by historical or archaizing spellings.\nMost notably, it continued to reflect the pronunciation that preceded the widespread Iranian [lenition](https://bliptext.com/articles/lenition) processes, whereby postvocalic voiceless [stops](https://bliptext.com/articles/stop-consonant) and [affricates](https://bliptext.com/articles/affricate) had become voiced, and voiced [stops](https://bliptext.com/articles/stop-consonant) had become [semivowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/semivowel).\nSimilarly, certain words continued to be spelt with postvocalic ⟨s⟩ and ⟨t⟩ even after the consonants had been [debuccalized](https://bliptext.com/articles/debuccalization) to ⟨h⟩ in the living language.\nThe Pahlavi script consisted of two widely used forms: Inscriptional Pahlavi and Book Pahlavi.\nA third form, Psalter Pahlavi, is not widely attested.\n\n## Inscriptional Parthian\nAlthough the [Parthian Empire](https://bliptext.com/articles/parthian-empire) generally wrote in [ancient Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-greek), some of the coins and seals of the Arsacid period (mid-3rd-century BCE to early 3rd century CE) also include inscriptions in the Parthian language.\nThe script of these inscriptions is called inscriptional Parthian.\nNumerous clay fragments from Arsacid-era Parthia proper, in particular a large collection of fragments from Nisa that date to the reign of Mithridates I (r. 171–138 BEC), are likewise inscribed in inscriptional Parthian.\nThe bilingual and trilingual inscriptions of the 3rd-century Sasanian Empire include Parthian texts, which were then also rendered in inscriptional Parthian.\nThe Parthian language was a Middle Iranian language of Parthia proper, a region in the north-western segment of the Iranian plateau where the Arsacids had their power base.\nInscriptional Parthian script had 22 letters for sounds and 8 letters for numerals.\nThe letters were not joined.\nInscriptional Parthian has [its own Unicode block](https://bliptext.com/articles/inscriptional-parthian-unicode-block).\n\n## Inscriptional Pahlavi\nInscriptional Pahlavi is the name given to a variant of the Pahlavi script as used to render the 3rd–6th-century [Middle Persian language](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-persian-language) inscriptions of the [Sasanian emperors](https://bliptext.com/articles/sasanian-empire) and other notables.\nGenuine Middle Persian, as it appears in these inscriptions, was the Middle Iranian language of Persia proper, the region in the south-western corner of the Iranian plateau where the Sasanians had their power base.\nInscriptional Pahlavi script had 19 characters which were not joined.\n\n## Psalter Pahlavi\nPsalter Pahlavi derives its name from the so-called \"[Pahlavi Psalter](https://bliptext.com/articles/pahlavi-psalter)\", a 6th- or 7th-century translation of a [Syriac](https://bliptext.com/articles/syriac-language) book of psalms.\nThis text, which was found at Bulayiq near [Turpan](https://bliptext.com/articles/turpan) in northwest China, is the earliest evidence of literary composition in Pahlavi, dating to the 6th or 7th century AD.\nThe extant manuscript dates no earlier than the mid-6th century since the translation reflects liturgical additions to the Syriac original by [Mar Aba I](https://bliptext.com/articles/mar-aba-i), who was [Patriarch of the Church of the East](https://bliptext.com/articles/list-of-patriarchs-of-the-church-of-the-east) c. 540–552.\nIts use is peculiar to Christians in [Iran](https://bliptext.com/articles/iran), given its use in a fragmentary manuscript of the Psalms of David.\nThe script of the psalms has altogether 18 graphemes, 5 more than Book Pahlavi and one less than Inscriptional Pahlavi.\nAs in Book Pahlavi, letters are connected to each other.\nThe only other surviving source of Psalter Pahlavi are the inscriptions on a bronze processional cross found at [Herat](https://bliptext.com/articles/herat), in present-day Afghanistan.\nDue to the dearth of comparable material, some words and phrases in both sources remain undeciphered.\nOf the 18 characters, 9 connect in all four traditional abjad positions, while 9 connect only on their right or are isolated.\nNumbers are built from units of 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 20, and 100.\nThe numbers 10 and 20 join on both sides, but the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 only join on the right, and if they are followed by an additional digit, they lose their tail, which is visually evident in their isolated forms.\nThere are 12 encoded punctuation characters, and many are similar to those found in Syriac.\nThe section marks are written in half-red and half-black, and several documents have entire sections in both black and red, as a means of distinction.\n\n## Book Pahlavi\nBook Pahlavi is a smoother script in which letters are joined to each other and often form complicated [ligatures](https://bliptext.com/articles/typographic-ligature).\nBook Pahlavi was the most common form of the script, with only 13 [graphemes](https://bliptext.com/articles/grapheme) representing 24 [sounds](https://bliptext.com/articles/sound).\nThe formal coalescence of originally different letters caused ambiguity, and the letters became even less distinct when they formed part of a ligature.\nIn its later forms, attempts were made to improve the consonantary and reduce ambiguity through [diacritic](https://bliptext.com/articles/diacritic) marks.\nBook Pahlavi continued to be in common use until about AD 900.\nAfter that date, Pahlavi was preserved only by the Zoroastrian clergy.\n\n## Logograms\nIn both Inscriptional and Book Pahlavi, many common words, including even pronouns, particles, numerals, and auxiliaries, were spelled according to their [Aramaic](https://bliptext.com/articles/imperial-aramaic) equivalents, which were used as logograms.\nFor example, the word for \"dog\" was written as ⟨KLBʼ⟩ (Aramaic kalbā) but pronounced sag; and the word for \"bread\" would be written as Aramaic ⟨LḤMʼ⟩ (laḥmā) but understood as the sign for Iranian nān.\nThese words were known as uzwārišn.\nSuch a logogram could also be followed by letters expressing parts of the Persian word phonetically, e.g. ⟨ʼB-tr⟩ for pidar \"father\".\nThe grammatical endings were usually written phonetically.\nA logogram did not necessarily originate from the lexical form of the word in Aramaic, it could also come from a [declined](https://bliptext.com/articles/declension) or [conjugated](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-conjugation) Aramaic form.\nFor example, tō \"you\" (singular) was spelt ⟨LK⟩ (Aramaic \"to you\", including the preposition l-).\nA word could be written phonetically even when a logogram for it existed (pidar could be ⟨ʼB-tr⟩ or ⟨pytr⟩), but logograms were nevertheless used very frequently in texts.\nMany uzwārišn are listed in the lexicon [Frahang ī Pahlavīg](https://bliptext.com/articles/frahang-i-pahlavig).\nThe practice of using these logograms appears to have originated from the use of Aramaic in the [chancelleries](https://bliptext.com/articles/chancellor) of the [Achaemenid Empire](https://bliptext.com/articles/achaemenid-empire).\nPartly similar phenomena are found in the use of [Sumerograms and Akkadograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/sumerogram) in [ancient Mesopotamia](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-mesopotamia) and the [Hittite empire](https://bliptext.com/articles/hittite-empire), and in the adaptation of [Chinese writing](https://bliptext.com/articles/chinese-writing) to [Japanese](https://bliptext.com/articles/japanese-orthography).\n\n## Problems in reading Book Pahlavi\nAs pointed out above, the convergence in form of many of the characters of Book Pahlavi causes a high degree of ambiguity in most Pahlavi writing and it needs to be resolved by the context.\nSome mergers are restricted to particular groups of words or individual spellings.\nFurther ambiguity is added by the fact that even outside of ligatures, the boundaries between letters are not clear, and many letters look identical to combinations of other letters.\nAs an example, one may take the fact that the name of God, [Ohrmazd](https://bliptext.com/articles/ahura-mazda), could equally be read (and, by [Parsis](https://bliptext.com/articles/parsi-people), often was read) Anhoma.\nHistorically speaking, it was spelt ⟨ʼwhrmzd⟩, a fairly straightforward spelling for an [abjad](https://bliptext.com/articles/abjad).\nHowever, ⟨w⟩ had coalesced with ⟨n⟩; ⟨r⟩ had coalesced, in the spelling of certain words, with both ⟨n⟩ and ⟨w⟩; and ⟨z⟩ had been reduced, in the spelling of certain words, to a form whose combination with ⟨d⟩ was indistinguishable from a ⟨ʼ⟩, which in turn had coalesced with ⟨h⟩.\nThis meant that the same orthographic form that stood for ⟨ʼwhrmzd⟩ could also be interpreted as ⟨ʼnhwmh⟩ (among many other possible readings).\nThe logograms could also pose problems.\nFor this reason, important religious texts were sometimes transcribed into the phonetically unambiguous [Avestan alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/avestan-alphabet).\nThis latter system is called [Pazand](https://bliptext.com/articles/pazend).\n\n# Literary dialects\nFrom a formal historical and linguistic point of view, the Pahlavi script does not have a one-to-one correspondence with any Middle Iranian language: none was written in Pahlavi exclusively, and inversely, the Pahlavi script was used for more than one language.\nStill, the vast majority of surviving Pahlavi texts are in Middle Persian, hence the occasional use of the term \"Pahlavi\" to refer to that language.\n\n## Arsacid Pahlavi\nFollowing the overthrow of the [Seleucids](https://bliptext.com/articles/seleucid), the [Parthian](https://bliptext.com/articles/parthia) [Arsacids](https://bliptext.com/articles/arsacid-empire)—who considered themselves the legitimate heirs of the [Achaemenids](https://bliptext.com/articles/achaemenid)—adopted the manner, customs and government of the Persian court of two centuries previously.\nAmong the many practices so adopted was the use of the [Aramaic language](https://bliptext.com/articles/aramaic-language) (\"[Imperial Aramaic](https://bliptext.com/articles/aramaic-language)\") that together with [Aramaic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/aramaic-script) served as the language of the chancellery.\nBy the end of the Arsacid era, the written Aramaic words had come to be understood as [logograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/logogram), as explained above.\nThe use of Pahlavi gained popularity following its adoption as the language/script of the commentaries (Zand) on the [Avesta](https://bliptext.com/articles/avesta).\nPropagated by the priesthood, who were not only considered to be transmitters of all knowledge but were also instrumental in government, the use of Pahlavi eventually reached all corners of the Parthian Arsacid empire.\nArsacid Pahlavi is also called Parthian Pahlavi (or just Parthian), Chaldeo-Pahlavi, or Northwest Pahlavi, the latter reflecting its apparent development from a dialect that was almost identical to that of the Medes.\n\n## Sasanian Pahlavi\nFollowing the defeat of the Parthian Arsacids by the Persian Sasanians ([Sassanids](https://bliptext.com/articles/sassanid)), the latter inherited the empire and its institutions, and with it the use of the Aramaic-derived language and script.\nLike the Parthians before him, [Ardašēr](https://bliptext.com/articles/ardeshir-i), the founder of the Sasanian empire, projected himself as a successor to the regnal traditions of the first, in particular those of [Artaxerxes II](https://bliptext.com/articles/artaxerxes-ii), whose throne name the new emperor adopted.\nFrom a linguistic point of view, there was probably only little disruption.\nSince the Sasanian had inherited the bureaucracy, in the beginning the affairs of government went on as before, with the use of dictionaries such as the [Frahang ī Pahlavīg](https://bliptext.com/articles/frahang-i-pahlavig) assisting the transition.\nMore importantly, being both Western Middle [Iranian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/iranian-languages), Parthian was closely related to the dialect of the southwest (which was more properly called Pārsīg, that is, the language of [Pārsā](https://bliptext.com/articles/fars-province), Persia proper).\nArsacid Pahlavi did not die out with the Arsacids.\nIt is represented in some bilingual inscriptions alongside the Sasanian Pahlavi; by the parchment manuscripts of Auroman; and by certain [Manichaean](https://bliptext.com/articles/manichaeanism) texts from [Turpan](https://bliptext.com/articles/turpan).\nFurthermore, the archaic orthography of Sasanian Pahlavi continued to reflect, in many respects, pronunciations that had been used in Arsacid times (in Parthia as well as Fars) and not its contemporary pronunciation.\nSasanian Pahlavi is also called Sassanid Pahlavi, Persian Pahlavi, or Southwest Pahlavi.\nIt is between 1787 and 1791 that [Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy](https://bliptext.com/articles/antoine-isaac-silvestre-de-sacy) deciphered the Pahlavi inscriptions of the [Sassanid](https://bliptext.com/articles/sassanid-dynasty) kings.\n\n## Post-conquest Pahlavi\nFollowing the Islamic conquest of the Sassanids, the term Pahlavi came to refer to the (written) \"language\" of the southwest (i.e. Pārsi).\nHow this came to pass remains unclear, but it has been assumed that this was simply because it was the dialect that the conquerors would have been most familiar with.\nAs the language and script of religious and semi-religious commentaries, Pahlavi remained in use long after that language had been superseded (in general use) by Modern Persian and Arabic script had been adopted as the means to render it.\nAs late as the 17th century, Zoroastrian priests in Iran admonished their Indian co-religionists to learn it.\nPost-conquest Pahlavi (or just Pahlavi) is also called **Zoroastrian Pahlavi** or **Zoroastrian Middle Persian**.\n\n# Unicode\nTables showing the letters and their names or pronunciations are available online.\nInscriptional Pahlavi and Inscriptional Parthian were added to the [Unicode](https://bliptext.com/articles/unicode) Standard in October 2009 with the release of version 5.2.\nPsalter Pahlavi was added in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0.\nThere have been three main proposals for encoding Book Pahlavi, but as of October 2024 it remains unsupported by Unicode.\nThe Unicode block for Inscriptional Pahlavi is U+10B60–U+10B7F:\nThe Unicode block for Inscriptional Parthian is U+10B40–U+10B5F:\nThe Unicode block for Psalter Pahlavi is U+10B80–U+10BAF:\n\n## Language and literature\n\n## Writing system","current_revision":null,"created_by":"kACnuQmH5k9Nr5VNVEpVeg7XpvUmMctD","created_at":"2025-01-25T22:44:01.909Z","updated_at":"2025-01-25T22:44:01.909Z","search_vector":"'pahlavi':1 'script':2","search_content":" \n**Name:** Pahlavi scripts \n**Type:** [Abjad](https://bliptext.com/articles/abjad) \n**Typedesc:** with [logograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/logogram) \n**Languages:** [Middle Iranian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/iranian-languages) \n**Time:** c. 2nd century BC – c. 7th century AD \n**Fam 1:** [Egyptian hieroglyphs](https://bliptext.com/articles/egyptian-hieroglyphs) \n**Fam 2:** [Proto-Sinaitic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-sinaitic) \n**Fam 3:** [Phoenician alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/phoenician-alphabet) \n**Fam 4:** [Aramaic alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/aramaic-alphabet) \n**Children:** [Inscriptional Parthian](https://bliptext.com/articles/inscriptional-parthian) · [Inscriptional Pahlavi](https://bliptext.com/articles/inscriptional-pahlavi) · [Psalter Pahlavi](https://bliptext.com/articles/psalter-pahlavi) · Book Pahlavi · [Avestan](https://bliptext.com/articles/avestan-alphabet) \n**Unicode:** U+10B60–U+10B7F Inscriptional Pahlavi · U+10B40–U+10B5F Inscriptional Parthian · U+10B80–U+10BAF Psalter Pahlavi \n**Iso 1 5 9 2 4 Note:** (Inscriptional Parthian) · (Inscriptional Pahlavi) · (Psalter Pahlavi) · (Book Pahlavi) \n**Sample:** Eranshahr.svg \n**Imagesize:** 300px \n**Note:** none \n**Direction:** Mixed \n \n\n# \n**Pahlavi** is a particular, exclusively written form of various [Middle Iranian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-iranian-languages).\nThe essential characteristics of Pahlavi are:\nPahlavi compositions have been found for the [dialects](https://bliptext.com/articles/dialect)/[ethnolects](https://bliptext.com/articles/ethnolect) of [Parthia](https://bliptext.com/articles/parthian-language), [Persis](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-persian), [Sogdiana](https://bliptext.com/articles/sogdian-language), [Scythia](https://bliptext.com/articles/scythian-languages), and [Khotan](https://bliptext.com/articles/saka-language).\nIndependent of the [variant](https://bliptext.com/articles/variety-linguistics) for which the Pahlavi system was used, the written form of that language only qualifies as Pahlavi when it has the characteristics noted above.\nPahlavi is then an admixture of:\nPahlavi may thus be defined as a system of writing applied to (but not unique for) a specific language group, but with critical features alien to that language group.\nIt has the characteristics of a distinct language, but is not one.\nIt is an exclusively written system, but much Pahlavi literature remains essentially an oral literature committed to writing and so retains many of the characteristics of oral composition.\n\n# Etymology\nThe term Pahlavi is said to be derived from the Old Iranian word Parθava, meaning [Parthia](https://bliptext.com/articles/parthia), a region just east of the [Caspian Sea](https://bliptext.com/articles/caspian-sea), with the -i suffix denoting the language and people of that region.\nIf this etymology is correct, Parθava presumably became Pahlav through a [semivowel glide](https://bliptext.com/articles/semivowel) rt (or in other cases rd) change to l, a common occurrence in language evolution (e.g. sāl < sard, zāl < zard, gul < vard, sālār < sardar, mīlād < mihrdāt, etc.).\nThe term has also been traced back to [Avestan](https://bliptext.com/articles/avestan) pərəthu- \"broad [as the earth]\", also evident in [Sanskrit](https://bliptext.com/articles/sanskrit) pṛthvi- \"earth\" and parthivi \"[lord] of the earth\".\n\n# History\nThe earliest attested use of Pahlavi dates to the reign of [Arsaces I of Parthia](https://bliptext.com/articles/arsaces-i-of-parthia) (250 BCE) in early Parthian coin in Pahlavi scripts.\nThere are also several Pahlavi texts written during the reign of [Mithridates I](https://bliptext.com/articles/mithridates-i-of-parthia) (r. 171–138 BCE).\nThe cellars of the treasury at Mithradatkird near [Nisa, Turkmenistan](https://bliptext.com/articles/nisa-turkmenistan) revealed thousands of pottery sherds with brief records; several [ostraca](https://bliptext.com/articles/ostracon) that are fully dated bear references to members of the immediate family of the king.\nSuch fragments, as well as the rock inscriptions of Sasanian emperors, which are datable to the 3rd and 4th centuries, do not qualify as a significant literary corpus.\nAlthough in theory Pahlavi could have been used to render any Middle Iranian language and hence may have been in use as early as 300 BC, no manuscripts that can be dated to before the 6th century have yet been found.\nThus, when used for the name of a literary genre, i.e. [[Middle Persian](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-persian) literature](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-persian-literature), the term refers to Middle Iranian, mostly [Middle Persian](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-persian), texts dated near or after the fall of the [Sasanian Empire](https://bliptext.com/articles/sasanian-empire) and (with exceptions) extending to about 900, after which Iranian languages enter the \"modern\" stage.\nThe oldest surviving example of the Pahlavi literature is from fragments of the so-called \"[Pahlavi Psalter](https://bliptext.com/articles/pahlavi-psalter)\", a 6th- or 7th-century translation of a Syriac Psalter found at [Bulayïq](https://bliptext.com/articles/bulay-q) on the [Silk Road](https://bliptext.com/articles/silk-road), near [Turpan](https://bliptext.com/articles/turpan) in north-west China.\nIt is in a more archaic script than [Book Pahlavi](https://bliptext.com/articles/).\nAfter the [Muslim conquest of Persia](https://bliptext.com/articles/muslim-conquest-of-persia), the Pahlavi script was gradually replaced by the [Arabic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/arabic-script) except in [Zoroastrian sacred literature](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-persian-literature).\nThe replacement of the Pahlavi script by the [Arabic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/arabic-script) to write Persian was done in the ninth-century by the [Tahirid dynasty](https://bliptext.com/articles/tahirid-dynasty), the governors of [Greater Khorasan](https://bliptext.com/articles/greater-khorasan).\n\n## Modern times\nIn the present day, \"Pahlavi\" is frequently identified with the [prestige dialect](https://bliptext.com/articles/prestige-dialect) of southwest Iran, formerly and properly called [Fārsi](https://bliptext.com/articles/persian-language), after [Fars province](https://bliptext.com/articles/fars-province).\nThis practice can be dated to the period immediately following the Islamic conquest.\n\n# Script\nThe Pahlavi script is one of the two essential characteristics of the Pahlavi system (see above).\nIts origin and development occurred independently of the various [Middle Iranian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/iranian-languages) for which it was used.\nThe Pahlavi script is derived from the [Aramaic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/aramaic-script) as it was used under the [Sasanians](https://bliptext.com/articles/sassanid), with modifications to support the phonology of the Iranian languages.\nIt is essentially a typical [abjad](https://bliptext.com/articles/abjad), where, in general, only long vowels are marked with [matres lectionis](https://bliptext.com/articles/matres-lectionis) (although short /i/ and /u/ are sometimes expressed so as well), and vowel-initial words are marked with an [aleph](https://bliptext.com/articles/aleph).\nHowever, because of the high incidence of [logograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/logogram) derived from Aramaic words, the Pahlavi script is far from always phonetic; and even when it is phonetic, it may have more than one transliterational symbol per sign, because certain originally different Aramaic letters have merged into identical graphic forms – especially in the Book Pahlavi variety.\n(For a review of the transliteration problems of Pahlavi, see [Henning](https://bliptext.com/articles/walter-bruno-henning).) In addition to this, during much of its later history, Pahlavi orthography was characterized by historical or archaizing spellings.\nMost notably, it continued to reflect the pronunciation that preceded the widespread Iranian [lenition](https://bliptext.com/articles/lenition) processes, whereby postvocalic voiceless [stops](https://bliptext.com/articles/stop-consonant) and [affricates](https://bliptext.com/articles/affricate) had become voiced, and voiced [stops](https://bliptext.com/articles/stop-consonant) had become [semivowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/semivowel).\nSimilarly, certain words continued to be spelt with postvocalic ⟨s⟩ and ⟨t⟩ even after the consonants had been [debuccalized](https://bliptext.com/articles/debuccalization) to ⟨h⟩ in the living language.\nThe Pahlavi script consisted of two widely used forms: Inscriptional Pahlavi and Book Pahlavi.\nA third form, Psalter Pahlavi, is not widely attested.\n\n## Inscriptional Parthian\nAlthough the [Parthian Empire](https://bliptext.com/articles/parthian-empire) generally wrote in [ancient Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-greek), some of the coins and seals of the Arsacid period (mid-3rd-century BCE to early 3rd century CE) also include inscriptions in the Parthian language.\nThe script of these inscriptions is called inscriptional Parthian.\nNumerous clay fragments from Arsacid-era Parthia proper, in particular a large collection of fragments from Nisa that date to the reign of Mithridates I (r. 171–138 BEC), are likewise inscribed in inscriptional Parthian.\nThe bilingual and trilingual inscriptions of the 3rd-century Sasanian Empire include Parthian texts, which were then also rendered in inscriptional Parthian.\nThe Parthian language was a Middle Iranian language of Parthia proper, a region in the north-western segment of the Iranian plateau where the Arsacids had their power base.\nInscriptional Parthian script had 22 letters for sounds and 8 letters for numerals.\nThe letters were not joined.\nInscriptional Parthian has [its own Unicode block](https://bliptext.com/articles/inscriptional-parthian-unicode-block).\n\n## Inscriptional Pahlavi\nInscriptional Pahlavi is the name given to a variant of the Pahlavi script as used to render the 3rd–6th-century [Middle Persian language](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-persian-language) inscriptions of the [Sasanian emperors](https://bliptext.com/articles/sasanian-empire) and other notables.\nGenuine Middle Persian, as it appears in these inscriptions, was the Middle Iranian language of Persia proper, the region in the south-western corner of the Iranian plateau where the Sasanians had their power base.\nInscriptional Pahlavi script had 19 characters which were not joined.\n\n## Psalter Pahlavi\nPsalter Pahlavi derives its name from the so-called \"[Pahlavi Psalter](https://bliptext.com/articles/pahlavi-psalter)\", a 6th- or 7th-century translation of a [Syriac](https://bliptext.com/articles/syriac-language) book of psalms.\nThis text, which was found at Bulayiq near [Turpan](https://bliptext.com/articles/turpan) in northwest China, is the earliest evidence of literary composition in Pahlavi, dating to the 6th or 7th century AD.\nThe extant manuscript dates no earlier than the mid-6th century since the translation reflects liturgical additions to the Syriac original by [Mar Aba I](https://bliptext.com/articles/mar-aba-i), who was [Patriarch of the Church of the East](https://bliptext.com/articles/list-of-patriarchs-of-the-church-of-the-east) c. 540–552.\nIts use is peculiar to Christians in [Iran](https://bliptext.com/articles/iran), given its use in a fragmentary manuscript of the Psalms of David.\nThe script of the psalms has altogether 18 graphemes, 5 more than Book Pahlavi and one less than Inscriptional Pahlavi.\nAs in Book Pahlavi, letters are connected to each other.\nThe only other surviving source of Psalter Pahlavi are the inscriptions on a bronze processional cross found at [Herat](https://bliptext.com/articles/herat), in present-day Afghanistan.\nDue to the dearth of comparable material, some words and phrases in both sources remain undeciphered.\nOf the 18 characters, 9 connect in all four traditional abjad positions, while 9 connect only on their right or are isolated.\nNumbers are built from units of 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 20, and 100.\nThe numbers 10 and 20 join on both sides, but the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 only join on the right, and if they are followed by an additional digit, they lose their tail, which is visually evident in their isolated forms.\nThere are 12 encoded punctuation characters, and many are similar to those found in Syriac.\nThe section marks are written in half-red and half-black, and several documents have entire sections in both black and red, as a means of distinction.\n\n## Book Pahlavi\nBook Pahlavi is a smoother script in which letters are joined to each other and often form complicated [ligatures](https://bliptext.com/articles/typographic-ligature).\nBook Pahlavi was the most common form of the script, with only 13 [graphemes](https://bliptext.com/articles/grapheme) representing 24 [sounds](https://bliptext.com/articles/sound).\nThe formal coalescence of originally different letters caused ambiguity, and the letters became even less distinct when they formed part of a ligature.\nIn its later forms, attempts were made to improve the consonantary and reduce ambiguity through [diacritic](https://bliptext.com/articles/diacritic) marks.\nBook Pahlavi continued to be in common use until about AD 900.\nAfter that date, Pahlavi was preserved only by the Zoroastrian clergy.\n\n## Logograms\nIn both Inscriptional and Book Pahlavi, many common words, including even pronouns, particles, numerals, and auxiliaries, were spelled according to their [Aramaic](https://bliptext.com/articles/imperial-aramaic) equivalents, which were used as logograms.\nFor example, the word for \"dog\" was written as ⟨KLBʼ⟩ (Aramaic kalbā) but pronounced sag; and the word for \"bread\" would be written as Aramaic ⟨LḤMʼ⟩ (laḥmā) but understood as the sign for Iranian nān.\nThese words were known as uzwārišn.\nSuch a logogram could also be followed by letters expressing parts of the Persian word phonetically, e.g. ⟨ʼB-tr⟩ for pidar \"father\".\nThe grammatical endings were usually written phonetically.\nA logogram did not necessarily originate from the lexical form of the word in Aramaic, it could also come from a [declined](https://bliptext.com/articles/declension) or [conjugated](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-conjugation) Aramaic form.\nFor example, tō \"you\" (singular) was spelt ⟨LK⟩ (Aramaic \"to you\", including the preposition l-).\nA word could be written phonetically even when a logogram for it existed (pidar could be ⟨ʼB-tr⟩ or ⟨pytr⟩), but logograms were nevertheless used very frequently in texts.\nMany uzwārišn are listed in the lexicon [Frahang ī Pahlavīg](https://bliptext.com/articles/frahang-i-pahlavig).\nThe practice of using these logograms appears to have originated from the use of Aramaic in the [chancelleries](https://bliptext.com/articles/chancellor) of the [Achaemenid Empire](https://bliptext.com/articles/achaemenid-empire).\nPartly similar phenomena are found in the use of [Sumerograms and Akkadograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/sumerogram) in [ancient Mesopotamia](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-mesopotamia) and the [Hittite empire](https://bliptext.com/articles/hittite-empire), and in the adaptation of [Chinese writing](https://bliptext.com/articles/chinese-writing) to [Japanese](https://bliptext.com/articles/japanese-orthography).\n\n## Problems in reading Book Pahlavi\nAs pointed out above, the convergence in form of many of the characters of Book Pahlavi causes a high degree of ambiguity in most Pahlavi writing and it needs to be resolved by the context.\nSome mergers are restricted to particular groups of words or individual spellings.\nFurther ambiguity is added by the fact that even outside of ligatures, the boundaries between letters are not clear, and many letters look identical to combinations of other letters.\nAs an example, one may take the fact that the name of God, [Ohrmazd](https://bliptext.com/articles/ahura-mazda), could equally be read (and, by [Parsis](https://bliptext.com/articles/parsi-people), often was read) Anhoma.\nHistorically speaking, it was spelt ⟨ʼwhrmzd⟩, a fairly straightforward spelling for an [abjad](https://bliptext.com/articles/abjad).\nHowever, ⟨w⟩ had coalesced with ⟨n⟩; ⟨r⟩ had coalesced, in the spelling of certain words, with both ⟨n⟩ and ⟨w⟩; and ⟨z⟩ had been reduced, in the spelling of certain words, to a form whose combination with ⟨d⟩ was indistinguishable from a ⟨ʼ⟩, which in turn had coalesced with ⟨h⟩.\nThis meant that the same orthographic form that stood for ⟨ʼwhrmzd⟩ could also be interpreted as ⟨ʼnhwmh⟩ (among many other possible readings).\nThe logograms could also pose problems.\nFor this reason, important religious texts were sometimes transcribed into the phonetically unambiguous [Avestan alphabet](https://bliptext.com/articles/avestan-alphabet).\nThis latter system is called [Pazand](https://bliptext.com/articles/pazend).\n\n# Literary dialects\nFrom a formal historical and linguistic point of view, the Pahlavi script does not have a one-to-one correspondence with any Middle Iranian language: none was written in Pahlavi exclusively, and inversely, the Pahlavi script was used for more than one language.\nStill, the vast majority of surviving Pahlavi texts are in Middle Persian, hence the occasional use of the term \"Pahlavi\" to refer to that language.\n\n## Arsacid Pahlavi\nFollowing the overthrow of the [Seleucids](https://bliptext.com/articles/seleucid), the [Parthian](https://bliptext.com/articles/parthia) [Arsacids](https://bliptext.com/articles/arsacid-empire)—who considered themselves the legitimate heirs of the [Achaemenids](https://bliptext.com/articles/achaemenid)—adopted the manner, customs and government of the Persian court of two centuries previously.\nAmong the many practices so adopted was the use of the [Aramaic language](https://bliptext.com/articles/aramaic-language) (\"[Imperial Aramaic](https://bliptext.com/articles/aramaic-language)\") that together with [Aramaic script](https://bliptext.com/articles/aramaic-script) served as the language of the chancellery.\nBy the end of the Arsacid era, the written Aramaic words had come to be understood as [logograms](https://bliptext.com/articles/logogram), as explained above.\nThe use of Pahlavi gained popularity following its adoption as the language/script of the commentaries (Zand) on the [Avesta](https://bliptext.com/articles/avesta).\nPropagated by the priesthood, who were not only considered to be transmitters of all knowledge but were also instrumental in government, the use of Pahlavi eventually reached all corners of the Parthian Arsacid empire.\nArsacid Pahlavi is also called Parthian Pahlavi (or just Parthian), Chaldeo-Pahlavi, or Northwest Pahlavi, the latter reflecting its apparent development from a dialect that was almost identical to that of the Medes.\n\n## Sasanian Pahlavi\nFollowing the defeat of the Parthian Arsacids by the Persian Sasanians ([Sassanids](https://bliptext.com/articles/sassanid)), the latter inherited the empire and its institutions, and with it the use of the Aramaic-derived language and script.\nLike the Parthians before him, [Ardašēr](https://bliptext.com/articles/ardeshir-i), the founder of the Sasanian empire, projected himself as a successor to the regnal traditions of the first, in particular those of [Artaxerxes II](https://bliptext.com/articles/artaxerxes-ii), whose throne name the new emperor adopted.\nFrom a linguistic point of view, there was probably only little disruption.\nSince the Sasanian had inherited the bureaucracy, in the beginning the affairs of government went on as before, with the use of dictionaries such as the [Frahang ī Pahlavīg](https://bliptext.com/articles/frahang-i-pahlavig) assisting the transition.\nMore importantly, being both Western Middle [Iranian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/iranian-languages), Parthian was closely related to the dialect of the southwest (which was more properly called Pārsīg, that is, the language of [Pārsā](https://bliptext.com/articles/fars-province), Persia proper).\nArsacid Pahlavi did not die out with the Arsacids.\nIt is represented in some bilingual inscriptions alongside the Sasanian Pahlavi; by the parchment manuscripts of Auroman; and by certain [Manichaean](https://bliptext.com/articles/manichaeanism) texts from [Turpan](https://bliptext.com/articles/turpan).\nFurthermore, the archaic orthography of Sasanian Pahlavi continued to reflect, in many respects, pronunciations that had been used in Arsacid times (in Parthia as well as Fars) and not its contemporary pronunciation.\nSasanian Pahlavi is also called Sassanid Pahlavi, Persian Pahlavi, or Southwest Pahlavi.\nIt is between 1787 and 1791 that [Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy](https://bliptext.com/articles/antoine-isaac-silvestre-de-sacy) deciphered the Pahlavi inscriptions of the [Sassanid](https://bliptext.com/articles/sassanid-dynasty) kings.\n\n## Post-conquest Pahlavi\nFollowing the Islamic conquest of the Sassanids, the term Pahlavi came to refer to the (written) \"language\" of the southwest (i.e. Pārsi).\nHow this came to pass remains unclear, but it has been assumed that this was simply because it was the dialect that the conquerors would have been most familiar with.\nAs the language and script of religious and semi-religious commentaries, Pahlavi remained in use long after that language had been superseded (in general use) by Modern Persian and Arabic script had been adopted as the means to render it.\nAs late as the 17th century, Zoroastrian priests in Iran admonished their Indian co-religionists to learn it.\nPost-conquest Pahlavi (or just Pahlavi) is also called **Zoroastrian Pahlavi** or **Zoroastrian Middle Persian**.\n\n# Unicode\nTables showing the letters and their names or pronunciations are available online.\nInscriptional Pahlavi and Inscriptional Parthian were added to the [Unicode](https://bliptext.com/articles/unicode) Standard in October 2009 with the release of version 5.2.\nPsalter Pahlavi was added in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0.\nThere have been three main proposals for encoding Book Pahlavi, but as of October 2024 it remains unsupported by Unicode.\nThe Unicode block for Inscriptional Pahlavi is U+10B60–U+10B7F:\nThe Unicode block for Inscriptional Parthian is U+10B40–U+10B5F:\nThe Unicode block for Psalter Pahlavi is U+10B80–U+10BAF:\n\n## Language and literature\n\n## Writing system","revisionCount":0},"hasMore":false,"nextCursor":null}