Between the old and new Iranian languages lies the Middle Iranian group. The most important languages of this group are Parthian and Middle Persian, also known as Pahlavi. The beginning of the middle period may be placed at the beginning of the Parthian era (c. 350 BC).<\/p>\n
Middle Persian<\/strong> (also called Pahlavi<\/strong>) is a further development of Old Persian. As is normal (even in the case of Old Persian, which borrowed from Median, Avestan, etc.), Middle Persian also borrowed vocabulary from other dialects. This is intermittently reflected in its extant literature. Words such as dar\u0101\u03b3<\/em> (pronounced dar\u0101gh<\/em>) \u2018bell\u2019 from Parthian<\/strong> (New Persian [NP] dar\u0101[y]); yad<\/em> \u2018until, so that\u2019 from Parthian, f\u012bl\u0101s\u014df\u0101 \u2018philosopher\u2019 from Greek; bid<\/em> \u2018again\u2019 from Parthian, etc., and almost all the religious terminology (from Avestan, as in gar\u014ddm\u0101n <\/em>[as a single word] \u2018paradise\u2019 < Avestan gar\u014d n\u0259m\u0101na<\/em>-, a phrase meaning \u2018house of praise\u2019, with n\u0259m\u0101h<\/em>– \u2018praise\u2019, related to New Persian nam\u0101z<\/em>) show such influences.<\/p>\n In the following table from MacKenzie\u2019s A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary<\/em>, the different variations of the Aramaic script used for writing Middle Iranian are shown.<\/p>\n [img persian_online_e1]history_4_1.jpg[\/img] The script used for Middle Persian is a variation of Aramaic<\/strong> script. It is written from right to left. The so called Book Pahlavi<\/strong> consists of 14 characters, which represent all the basic Imperial Aramaic alphabetical system. Therefore some of these characters represent several sounds; such as a stroke \u201c\u0399\u201d, which could be \/n\/, \/r\/, \/w\/, and in the ideograms (words of Aramaic origin), \/\u2018ayn\/ (as can be seen in the table below). The Psalter Pahlavi <\/strong>consists of 18 characters with an extra glyph for \/y\/ (that is to say, \/y\/ has two signs). The Psaltert<\/strong> was primarily used for writing Christian materials, especially the Psalms of David, whose manuscripts were discovered in northern China in an area called Turfan (hence, the denomination the Turfan Manuscripts).<\/p>\n In their inscriptions, Persians used a variation of Aramaic, which was slightly different in shape and number than the Book Pahlavi. It consisted of 19 characters, with \/w\/, \/\u2018ayn\/, and \/r\/ sharing the same sign (here, unlike the Book Pahlavi, \/n\/ uses a different glyph) and \/m\/ and \/q\/ sharing the same.<\/p>\n Aramaic (and the Middle Persian variation of it) is a consonantal writing system, that is, a system in whose orthography the short vowels are not incorporated. For example, instead of writing daftan \u2018to breathe, blow\u2019, only dptn| is written (notice the \/p\/ for \/f\/). If the vowel is long, however, it is incorporated; e.g., d\u2019t\u2019l, d\u0101d\u0101r <\/em>\u2018creator\u2019 (notice the \/t\/ for \/d\/ and \/l\/ for \/r\/).<\/p>\n Normally a stroke is placed after each word, as a word divider; as in dptn| above. However, this stroke does not follow some of the terminal signs, such as \/c\/ (= \/\u010d\/ = ch), \/g\/, \/l\/; e.g.:<\/p>\n Middle Persian script has the following main characteristics:<\/strong><\/p>\n The following fragment is from the Pahlavi text of Bundahi\u0161n<\/em><\/strong> \u2018The Origin of Creation\u2019:<\/p>\n [img persian_online_e1]history_4_2.gif[\/img]<\/p>\n Transliteration:<\/strong> Transcription:<\/strong> Translation:<\/strong> Between the old and new Iranian languages lies the Middle Iranian group. The most important languages of this group are Parthian and Middle Persian, also known as Pahlavi. The beginning of the middle period may be placed at the beginning of the Parthian era (c. 350 BC). Middle Persian (also called Pahlavi) is a further […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":289,"featured_media":0,"parent":18,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-22","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/persian_online_resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/persian_online_resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/persian_online_resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/persian_online_resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/289"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/persian_online_resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/persian_online_resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2164,"href":"http:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/persian_online_resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22\/revisions\/2164"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/persian_online_resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/persian_online_resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u00a9 1971, Oxford University Press.<\/p>\n\n
\n
\nnzdst| \u2019sm\u2019n| YHBWN-t| lw\u0161n| Y pyt\u2019k| Y \u2019 pyl dwl W h\u2019dkdys Y hwn\u2019hyn| AYT gwhl [Y] \u2019lm\u2019st| Y ZKL AP\u0161 L\u201bY\u0160\u1e24 BRA \u201bL \u2019sl lw\u0161n| ptwst|.<\/p>\n
\nnazdist asm\u0101n d\u0101d r\u014d\u0161n \u012b payd\u0101g \u012b ab\u0113r d\u016br ud x\u0101yagd\u0113s \u012b xwan-\u0101hen ast g\u014dhr [\u012b] alm\u0101st \u012b nar u-\u0161 sar be \u014d a-sar r\u014d\u0161n paywast<\/em><\/p>\n
\n\u2018First [he] created the Heavens: bright, visible, very far, and egg-shaped, that was steel-bright, which is the essence of a strong metal; its end joined the boundless brightness.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"