Hubbry Logo
Pahlavi scriptsPahlavi scriptsMain
Open search
Pahlavi scripts
Community hub
Pahlavi scripts
logo
8 pages, 0 posts
0 subscribers
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Pahlavi scripts
Pahlavi scripts
Pahlavi scripts
View on Wikipedia
from Wikipedia
For other uses, see Pahlavi (disambiguation).
Pahlavi scripts
The word Ērānšahr in Book Pahlavi
Script type with logograms
Period
c. 2nd century BC – c. 7th century AD[1]
DirectionMixed[citation needed]
LanguagesMiddle Iranian languages
Related scripts
Parent systems
Child systems
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Prti, 130
 (Inscriptional Parthian)

Phli, 131
 (Inscriptional Pahlavi)
Phlp, 132
 (Psalter Pahlavi)

Phlv, 133
 (Book Pahlavi)
Unicode
History of the alphabet

Pahlavi is an exclusively written form of various Middle Iranian languages, derived from the Aramaic script. It features Aramaic words used as heterograms (called huzwārišn, "archaisms").[2]

Pahlavi compositions have been found for the dialects/ethnolects of Parthia, Persis, Sogdiana, Scythia, and Khotan.[3] Independent of the variant for which the Pahlavi system was used, the written form of that language only qualifies as Pahlavi when it is both Aramaic-derived and features huzwārišn.

Pahlavi is then an admixture of:[citation needed]

  • written Imperial Aramaic, from which Pahlavi derives its script, logograms, and some of its vocabulary.
  • spoken Middle Iranian, from which Pahlavi derives its terminations, symbol rules, and most of its vocabulary.

Pahlavi 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. It has the characteristics of a distinct language, but is not one. It 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.

Etymology

[edit]

The term Pahlavi is said[4] to be derived from the Old Iranian word Parθava, meaning Parthia, a region just east of the Caspian Sea, with the -i suffix denoting the language and people of that region. If this etymology is correct, Parθava presumably became Pahlav through a semivowel glide rt (or in other cases rd) change to l, a common occurrence in language evolution (e.g., sāl < sard, zāl < zard, sālār < sardar and so on). The term has also been traced back[4] to Avestan pərəthu- "broad [as the earth]", also evident in Sanskrit pṛthvi- "earth" and parthivi "[lord] of the earth".

History

[edit]

The earliest documented use of the Pahlavi language (dialect) dates back to reign of Arsaces I of Parthia (250 BCE) written in greek alphabet .[5] The oldest evidence of Pahlavi script is from the reign of Mithridates I (r. 171–138 BCE[6]).[7] The cellars of the treasury at Mithradatkird near Nisa, Turkmenistan revealed thousands of pottery sherds with brief records; several ostraca that are fully dated bear references to members of the immediate family of the king.[8]

Such 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. Although 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. Thus, when used for the name of a literary genre, i.e. Middle Persian literature, the term refers to Middle Iranian, mostly Middle Persian, texts dated near or after the fall of the Sasanian Empire and (with exceptions) extending to about 900, after which Iranian languages enter the "modern" stage.[citation needed]

The oldest surviving example of the Pahlavi literature is from fragments of the so-called "Pahlavi Psalter", a 6th- or 7th-century translation of a Syriac Psalter found at Bulayïq on the Silk Road, near Turpan in north-west China. It is in a more archaic script than Book Pahlavi.[9]

After the Muslim conquest of Persia, the Pahlavi script was gradually replaced by the Arabic script except in Zoroastrian sacred literature, until the present day.[citation needed]

The replacement of the Pahlavi script by the Arabic script to write Persian was done in the ninth-century by the Tahirid dynasty, the governors of Greater Khorasan.[10][11]

Modern times

[edit]

In the present day, "Pahlavi" is frequently identified with the prestige dialect of southwest Iran, formerly and properly called Fārsi, after Fars province. This practice can be dated to the period immediately following the Islamic conquest.[7]

Script

[edit]

The Pahlavi script is one of the two essential characteristics of the Pahlavi system (see above). Its origin and development occurred independently of the various Middle Iranian languages for which it was used. The Pahlavi script is derived from the Aramaic script as it was used under the Sasanians, with modifications to support the phonology of the Iranian languages. It is essentially a typical abjad, where, in general, only long vowels are marked with matres lectionis (although short /i/ and /u/ are sometimes expressed so as well), and vowel-initial words are marked with an aleph. However, because of the high incidence of logograms 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. (For a review of the transliteration problems of Pahlavi, see Henning.[12]) In addition to this, during much of its later history, Pahlavi orthography was characterized by historical or archaizing spellings. Most notably, it continued to reflect the pronunciation that preceded the widespread Iranian lenition processes, whereby postvocalic voiceless stops and affricates had become voiced, and voiced stops had become semivowels. Similarly, certain words continued to be spelled with postvocalic ⟨s⟩ and ⟨t⟩ even after the consonants had been debuccalized to ⟨h⟩ in the living language.

The Pahlavi script consisted of two widely used forms: Inscriptional Pahlavi and Book Pahlavi.[13] A third form, Psalter Pahlavi, is not widely attested.[citation needed]

Inscriptional Parthian

[edit]
Main article: Inscriptional Parthian

Although the Parthian Empire generally wrote in 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. The script of these inscriptions is called inscriptional Parthian. Numerous 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 BCE), are likewise inscribed in inscriptional Parthian. The bilingual and trilingual inscriptions of the 3rd-century Sasanian Empire include Parthian texts, which were then also rendered in inscriptional Parthian. The 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.

Inscriptional Parthian script had 22 letters for sounds and 8 letters for numerals. The letters were not joined. Inscriptional Parthian has its own Unicode block.[citation needed]

This section is an excerpt from Inscriptional Parthian § Gallery.[edit]

Inscriptional Pahlavi

[edit]
Main article: Inscriptional Pahlavi

Inscriptional Pahlavi is the name given to a variant of the Pahlavi script as used to render the 3rd–6th-century Middle Persian language inscriptions of the Sasanian emperors and other notables. Genuine 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.

Inscriptional Pahlavi script had 19 characters, which were not joined.[17]

This section is an excerpt from Inscriptional Pahlavi § Gallery.[edit]

Psalter Pahlavi

[edit]
Main article: Psalter Pahlavi

Psalter Pahlavi derives its name from the so-called "Pahlavi Psalter", a 6th- or 7th-century translation of a Syriac book of psalms. This text, which was found at Bulayiq near Turpan in northwest China, is the earliest evidence of literary composition in Pahlavi, dating to the 6th or 7th century AD.[20] The extant manuscript dates no earlier than the mid-6th century since the translation reflects liturgical additions to the Syriac original by Mar Aba I, who was Patriarch of the Church of the East c. 540–552.[21] Its use is peculiar to Christians in Iran, given its use in a fragmentary manuscript of the Psalms of David.[22]

The script of the psalms has altogether 18 graphemes, 5 more than Book Pahlavi and one less than Inscriptional Pahlavi. As in Book Pahlavi, letters are connected to each other. The only other surviving source of Psalter Pahlavi is the inscriptions on a bronze processional cross found at Herat, in present-day Afghanistan. Due to the dearth of comparable material, some words and phrases in both sources remain undeciphered.[citation needed]

Of the 18 characters, 9 connect in all four traditional abjad positions, while 9 connect only on their right or are isolated. Numbers are built from units of 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 20, and 100. The 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. There are 12 encoded punctuation characters, and many are similar to those found in Syriac. The 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.[citation needed]

Book Pahlavi

[edit]
Main article: Book Pahlavi

Book Pahlavi is a smoother script in which letters are joined to each other and often form complicated ligatures. Book Pahlavi was the most common form of the script, with only 13 graphemes representing 24 sounds. The formal coalescence of originally different letters caused ambiguity, and the letters became even less distinct when they formed part of a ligature.[17] In its later forms, attempts were made to improve the consonantary and reduce ambiguity through diacritic marks.

Book Pahlavi continued to be in common use until about AD 900. After that date, Pahlavi was preserved only by the Zoroastrian clergy.[citation needed]

This section is an excerpt from Book Pahlavi § Gallery.[edit]

Logograms

[edit]
See also: Heterogram (linguistics)

In both Inscriptional and Book Pahlavi, many common words, including even pronouns, particles, numerals, and auxiliaries, were spelled according to their Aramaic equivalents, which were used as logograms. For example, the word for "dog" was written as ⟨KLBʾ⟩ (Aramaic kalbā) but pronounced sag; and the word for "bread" would be written as Aramaic ⟨LḤMʾ⟩ (laḥmā) but understood as the sign for Iranian nān.[27] These words were known as huzwārišn. Such a logogram could also be followed by letters expressing parts of the Persian word phonetically, e.g. ⟨ʾB-tr⟩ for pidar "father". The grammatical endings were usually written phonetically. A logogram did not necessarily originate from the lexical form of the word in Aramaic, it could also come from a declined or conjugated Aramaic form. For example, tō "you" (singular) was spelt ⟨LK⟩ (Aramaic "to you", including the preposition l-). A 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.

Many huzwārišn are listed in the lexicon Frahang ī Pahlavīg. The practice of using these logograms appears to have originated from the use of Aramaic in the chancelleries of the Achaemenid Empire.[28] Partly similar phenomena are found in the use of Sumerograms and Akkadograms in ancient Mesopotamia and the Hittite empire, and in the adaptation of Chinese writing to Japanese.

Problems in reading Book Pahlavi

[edit]

As pointed out above, the convergence in the 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. Some mergers are restricted to particular groups of words or individual spellings. Further 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. As an example, one may take the fact that the name of God, Ohrmazd, could equally be read (and, by Parsis, often was read) Anhoma. Historically speaking, it was spelt ⟨ʼwhrmzd⟩, a fairly straightforward spelling for an abjad. However, ⟨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⟩. This meant that the same orthographic form that stood for ⟨ʼwhrmzd⟩ could also be interpreted as ⟨ʼnhwmh⟩ (among many other possible readings). The logograms could also pose problems. For this reason, important religious texts were sometimes transcribed into the phonetically unambiguous Avestan alphabet. This latter system is called Pazand.

Literary dialects

[edit]

From 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. Still, the vast majority of surviving Pahlavi texts are in Middle Persian, hence the occasional use of the term "Pahlavi" to refer to that language.[citation needed]

Arsacid Pahlavi

[edit]
Main article: Parthian language

Following the overthrow of the Seleucids, the Parthian Arsacids—who considered themselves the legitimate heirs of the Achaemenids—adopted the manner, customs, and government of the Persian court of two centuries previously. Among the many practices so adopted was the use of the Aramaic language ("Imperial Aramaic") that together with Aramaic script served as the language of the chancellery. By the end of the Arsacid era, the written Aramaic words had come to be understood as logograms, as explained above.

The use of Pahlavi gained popularity following its adoption as the language/script of the commentaries (Zand) on the Avesta.[4][29] Propagated 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.

Arsacid 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.[3]

Sasanian Pahlavi

[edit]
Main article: Middle Persian

Following the defeat of the Parthian Arsacids by the Persian Sasanians (Sassanids), the latter inherited the empire and its institutions, and with it the use of the Aramaic-derived language and script. Like the Parthians before him, Ardašēr, the founder of the Sasanian empire, projected himself as a successor to the regnal traditions of the first, in particular those of Artaxerxes II, whose throne name the new emperor adopted.[citation needed]

From a linguistic point of view, there was probably only a little disruption. Since the Sasanians had inherited the bureaucracy, in the beginning, the affairs of government continued as before, with the use of dictionaries such as the Frahang ī Pahlavīg assisting the transition. More importantly, being both Western Middle Iranian languages, Parthian was closely related to the dialect of the southwest (which was more properly called Pārsīg,[7] that is, the language of Pārsā, Persia proper).

Arsacid Pahlavi did not die out with the Arsacids. It is represented in some bilingual inscriptions alongside the Sasanian Pahlavi; by the parchment manuscripts of Auroman; and by certain Manichaean texts from Turpan. Furthermore, 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.[citation needed]

Sasanian Pahlavi is also called Sassanid Pahlavi, Persian Pahlavi, or Southwest Pahlavi.[citation needed]

It is between 1787 and 1791 that Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy deciphered the Pahlavi inscriptions of the Sassanid kings.[30][31]

Post-conquest Pahlavi

[edit]

Following the Islamic conquest of the Sassanids, the term Pahlavi came to refer to the (written) "language" of the southwest (i.e., Pārsi). How this came to pass remains unclear, but it has been assumed[7] that this was simply because it was the dialect that the conquerors would have been most familiar with.

As 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. As late as the 17th century, Zoroastrian priests in Iran admonished their Indian co-religionists to learn it.[32]

Post-conquest Pahlavi (or just Pahlavi) is also called Zoroastrian Pahlavi or Zoroastrian Middle Persian.[citation needed]

Unicode

[edit]
Main articles: Inscriptional Pahlavi (Unicode block), Inscriptional Parthian (Unicode block), and Psalter Pahlavi (Unicode block)

Tables showing the letters and their names or pronunciations are available online.[33]

Inscriptional Pahlavi and Inscriptional Parthian were added to the Unicode Standard in October 2009 with the release of version 5.2. Psalter Pahlavi was added in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0. There have been three main proposals for encoding Book Pahlavi,[34][35][36] but as of October 2024 it remains unsupported by Unicode.[37]

The Unicode block for Inscriptional Pahlavi is U+10B60–U+10B7F:

Inscriptional Pahlavi[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+10B6x 𐭠 𐭡 𐭢 𐭣 𐭤 𐭥 𐭦 𐭧 𐭨 𐭩 𐭪 𐭫 𐭬 𐭭 𐭮 𐭯
U+10B7x 𐭰 𐭱 𐭲 𐭸 𐭹 𐭺 𐭻 𐭼 𐭽 𐭾 𐭿
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 17.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

The Unicode block for Inscriptional Parthian is U+10B40–U+10B5F:

Inscriptional Parthian[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+10B4x 𐭀 𐭁 𐭂 𐭃 𐭄 𐭅 𐭆 𐭇 𐭈 𐭉 𐭊 𐭋 𐭌 𐭍 𐭎 𐭏
U+10B5x 𐭐 𐭑 𐭒 𐭓 𐭔 𐭕 𐭘 𐭙 𐭚 𐭛 𐭜 𐭝 𐭞 𐭟
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 17.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

The Unicode block for Psalter Pahlavi is U+10B80–U+10BAF:

Psalter Pahlavi[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+10B8x 𐮀‎ 𐮁‎ 𐮂‎ 𐮃‎ 𐮄‎ 𐮅‎ 𐮆‎ 𐮇‎ 𐮈‎ 𐮉‎ 𐮊‎ 𐮋‎ 𐮌‎ 𐮍‎ 𐮎‎ 𐮏‎
U+10B9x 𐮐‎ 𐮑‎ 𐮙‎ 𐮚‎ 𐮛‎ 𐮜‎
U+10BAx 𐮩‎ 𐮪‎ 𐮫‎ 𐮬‎ 𐮭‎ 𐮮‎ 𐮯‎
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 17.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]

References

[edit]

Bibliography

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Pahlavi scripts

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
The Pahlavi scripts constitute a family of writing systems derived from the alphabet, adapted for recording such as (also known as Pahlavi) and Parthian during the Parthian (247 BCE–224 CE) and Sasanian (224–651 CE) empires. These scripts, which evolved into four primary variants—, , Psalter Pahlavi, and Book Pahlavi—served as the primary medium for official inscriptions, religious texts, and administrative documents, primarily functioning as abjads that denoted consonants while omitting vowels. Characterized by right-to-left directionality, progressive letter merging, and the use of heterograms (Aramaic logograms read with Iranian pronunciations), the Pahlavi scripts facilitated the expression of Zoroastrian, Manichaean, and across the and until their gradual replacement by the following the Islamic conquests in the CE. Inscriptional Pahlavi, the earliest and most monumental variant, emerged around the 1st–2nd century BCE in (Pars) and was employed for rock reliefs, coins, and seals during the Sasanian period up to the CE. This form features angular, non- letters with merged shapes for sounds like waw, , and , along with swash tails on certain characters such as beth, reflecting its adaptation from for epigraphic purposes. In contrast, Psalter Pahlavi, a more conservative and fully variant attested primarily in a 6th–7th century CE translation of the discovered in , incorporates 18 distinct letters with advanced joining behaviors and punctuation marks like dots for word separation and semantic breaks. It notably includes script-specific numerals and was used by Christian communities in , highlighting the script's adaptability beyond Zoroastrian contexts. The most widespread and complex form, Book Pahlavi, developed as a highly ligatured cursive script in the 3rd century CE for manuscript production and persisted among Zoroastrian priests until the 11th century CE, even as it declined in broader use. With fewer than 20 distinct letter forms, it exhibits significant ambiguity due to homophonous characters and the absence of notation, relying heavily on and heterograms (e.g., the mlk' pronounced as Persian šāh for "king") to convey meaning. This variant's intricate joining and phonetic complements preserved key religious texts like the commentaries and ethical treatises, underscoring the Pahlavi scripts' enduring role in Iranian cultural and linguistic heritage despite challenges in decipherment.

Origins and Terminology

Etymology

The term "Pahlavi" derives from the Old Iranian *Parθava- (or Parthava-), the ancient name for , a region in northeastern , which evolved through Middle Persian forms like Pahlav to denote not only the geographic area but also the associated language and during the Parthian period. This etymological root reflects the Parthian Empire's (247 BCE–224 CE) cultural and linguistic influence, where the term encapsulated the northwestern Iranian dialect and its script. In Zoroastrian literature composed in Pahlavi, the term often evokes heroic or Parthian origins, symbolizing valor and ancient Iranian heritage, as seen in texts like the , where "Pahlav" references Parthian lineages and their role in mythic narratives of creation and kingship. Such usage distinguishes Pahlavi as a marker of epic tradition, blending regional identity with Zoroastrian cosmology, and appears alongside "Pārsīg" (Persian) to denote the dual linguistic strands of Middle Iranian expression in religious works. While "Pahlavi" initially named the Parthian script and dialect, it was extended under Sasanian rule (224–651 CE) to encompass the cursive script used for texts, blurring the line between language and . European orientalists in the , including scholars like Martin Haug, formalized this broader application, adopting "Pahlavi" to designate both the language of Zoroastrian scriptures and its derived script in their studies and editions of manuscripts.

Historical Origins

The Pahlavi scripts trace their origins to the widespread adoption of as the primary administrative and chancery script of the , spanning approximately the 6th to 4th centuries BCE. This Semitic writing system, originally developed in the , was imposed across the vast Persian territories to facilitate imperial governance, record-keeping, and communication among diverse ethnic groups, including Iranian populations. Local scribes in regions like and Media began adapting the formal Aramaic script into more fluid cursive forms to suit everyday administrative needs and the phonetic requirements of emerging , laying the groundwork for later Middle Iranian adaptations. Following Alexander the Great's conquest and the establishment of the in the late BCE, persisted as a in the eastern satrapies, where it underwent further evolution amid Hellenistic influences. A pivotal example of this transitional phase appears in the ostraca from Old Nisa (modern ), an administrative center of the early Parthian kingdom dating to the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE. These clay shards, inscribed with short economic notations, demonstrate the initial use of heterograms— logograms intended to be pronounced with equivalent Iranian words—marking an early step toward integrating Semitic script elements with Parthian and . Further evidence of this shift is provided by a Parthian document in script from the cave in , dated to 33 CE, that reflects hybrid linguistic practices under Parthian rule. These legal texts, such as property deeds, illustrate the progressive phonetic adaptation of the Aramaic script to render Parthian sounds more accurately, bridging the gap between imperial administrative traditions and localized Iranian expression. This process established the foundational morphology that would characterize subsequent Pahlavi variants.

Historical Development

Parthian Era

During the Parthian Empire (247 BCE–224 CE), the Inscriptional Parthian script, derived from Imperial Aramaic, underwent standardization around the 2nd century BCE, evolving into a distinct form adapted for official Iranian usage. This development facilitated its primary application in royal inscriptions, particularly on coinage and rock reliefs, where it served to proclaim Arsacid legitimacy and imperial authority. Notable examples include the ostraca inscriptions from the Parthian capital at Nisa (modern Turkmenistan), dating from the late 2nd to 1st century BCE, which document administrative and economic activities in Parthian script. Similarly, rock reliefs such as that of Mithradates II (r. 124–91 BCE) at Behistun feature Inscriptional Parthian text, marking early monumental uses of the script. At Hatra in Mesopotamia, while predominantly Aramaic, inscriptions from the 1st–3rd centuries CE reflect Parthian stylistic influences, blending local traditions with imperial script elements. Administrative functions of the script were widespread across the empire, supporting bureaucratic operations in diverse regions. Excavations at on the have yielded numerous ostraca and parchments in Parthian script from the 2nd–3rd centuries CE, often mixing logograms with Iranian terms to record transactions, , and daily . These documents illustrate the script's practicality in imperial administration, where it coexisted with for efficiency in multilingual contexts. The use of such mixed scripts underscores the Parthian adaptation of earlier systems for Iranian linguistic needs. The script's evolution bore influences from Mesopotamian Aramaic conventions, evident in its cursive tendencies and heterogrammatic features, while facilitating eastward expansion into regions like . In , early 1st-century CE documents, such as the Ancient Letters, employed Aramaic-derived scripts influenced by Parthian models, aiding the transmission of writing practices along routes. Precursors to later Sasanian inscriptions appear in late Parthian examples, including the Parthian component of trilingual texts that foreshadowed more elaborate imperial proclamations.

Sasanian Era

During the (224–651 CE), the Pahlavi script underwent significant refinement and became the primary medium for official and monumental writing in , marking a period of standardization and expansion from its Parthian precursors. , a formal variant characterized by clear, lapidary letter forms derived from , was prominently employed for rock reliefs, steles, and architectural inscriptions spanning the 3rd to 7th centuries CE. This script facilitated the recording of royal proclamations, genealogies, and military achievements, reflecting the empire's emphasis on imperial legitimacy and Zoroastrian orthodoxy. A quintessential example is the trilingual inscription of (r. 240–270 CE) at near , dated around 260 CE, which stands as the longest surviving Pahlavi text of the era. Carved in (using ), Parthian, and Greek, it details Shapur's victories over Roman emperors Valerian and , territorial expansions, and divine favor from Ohrmazd, underscoring the script's role in propagating Sasanian propaganda and cultural dominance. The inscription's structure—divided into historical narrative, divine invocation, and administrative lists—exemplifies how Pahlavi adapted to convey complex ideological and historical content in a monumental context. As the empire matured, Pahlavi evolved toward more fluid, styles to accommodate growing literary and administrative needs, with Book Pahlavi emerging as a key variant for religious texts and records. This form, more compact and suited to or , was instrumental in translating and commenting on Zoroastrian scriptures, particularly the Zand (Pahlavi renderings of the ), which included exegeses of liturgical texts like the under royal sponsorship from the onward. Evidence of this transition appears in the Paikuli inscription of (r. 293–302 CE), erected around 293 CE at the site near modern , ; this bilingual Middle Persian and Parthian text in recounts Narseh's ascension amid dynastic strife, blending formal monumental style with hints of influence in its narrative flow. Pahlavi reached its zenith in Sasanian bureaucracy, where it underpinned a sophisticated administrative apparatus of taxation, land management, and provincial oversight, evidenced by thousands of inscribed seals and clay bullae that authenticated documents and goods. These artifacts, often bearing titles like mowbed (priest) or wahram-xšāthrān (noble satrap), illustrate the script's utility in denoting hierarchy and jurisdiction across the empire's 30 provinces. Excavations at Istakhr, the fortified treasury hub in Fars province, have yielded numerous such bullae with Pahlavi legends referencing local districts like Istakhr-Bishapur, highlighting centralized control over economic flows and royal estates until the empire's fall to the Arab conquest in 651 CE. This epigraphic proliferation not only ensured administrative efficiency but also reinforced Zoroastrian cultural hegemony in daily governance.

Post-Sasanian Decline and Persistence

Following the fall of the in 651 CE to the Arab Muslim conquest, the Pahlavi scripts experienced a marked decline as the dominant writing system for , primarily due to the widespread adoption of the for administrative, religious, and literary purposes across the Islamic world. This shift was accelerated by the integration of Persian elites into the new Islamic , where Arabic became the , rendering Pahlavi increasingly obsolete for everyday and official use. Despite this, Pahlavi persisted in Zoroastrian and Manichaean communities for religious and scholarly purposes well into the 9th and 10th centuries CE. Zoroastrian priests continued to compose and copy texts in Book Pahlavi, such as the Dēnkard, a comprehensive theological edited by Ādurbād Ēmēdān in the 9th–10th centuries that summarizes Mazdean doctrines, cosmology, and . Similarly, Manichaean texts, written in a variant of the Pahlavi script adapted for phonetic clarity, were produced and circulated in isolated enclaves, preserving Mani's teachings through hymns, confessions, and doctrinal works until the 10th century. Regional survivals extended the script's use beyond Iran proper. In , Pahlavi influences shaped the cursive Sogdian script employed in Manichaean and Buddhist manuscripts from the 8th to 10th centuries, where loanwords and heterograms appeared in trade and religious documents along the . Among Zoroastrian emigrants known as who fled to around the 8th–10th centuries, Pahlavi remained in use for copying sacred texts and commentaries until at least the , as evidenced by priestly manuscripts and rivayats that bridged Sasanian traditions with local adaptations. The decline was further exacerbated by the reliance on oral transmission within Zoroastrian communities, where memorized liturgies and Pahlavi interpretations, reducing the need for widespread script amid and assimilation pressures. By the , the emergence of Early as a spoken , coupled with the loss of native speakers due to linguistic evolution and demographic shifts, effectively marginalized Pahlavi to niche religious contexts before its near-total replacement.

Script Variants

Inscriptional Parthian

is the formal variant of the Parthian script, employed primarily for monumental inscriptions on public monuments, rock reliefs, and coins during the Arsacid period. This script, an system, consists of 22 consonant letters with no dedicated marks for vowels, which were inferred from context, and is written from right to left, typically with spaces separating words. Its letters exhibit angular, wedge-shaped forms adapted for carving into stone or metal, reflecting a monumental style suited to durable media. Minimal diacritics appear, such as occasional swash tails on certain letters like sadhe and that extend under adjacent characters, aiding in ligation but not vowel indication. The script emerged around the 2nd century BCE and persisted into the 3rd century CE, serving as an official medium for royal proclamations in the . The script's origins trace directly to the alphabet used in the Achaemenid administration, evolving through Seleucid and early Parthian influences to suit the . Early examples include ostraca from Nisa dating to the 2nd century BCE. By the CE, it features prominently in reliefs, such as a problematic one-line inscription above figures on a rock-cut panel at Khong-a Kamālvand, dated to the late CE and illustrating the script's application in architectural and commemorative contexts. These inscriptions often employ ligation—joined letter forms like gw or yw—for aesthetic and space efficiency, though not obligatorily. Paleographically, evolved from earlier influences evident in administrative documents, transitioning to a more rigid, angular ductus for inscriptional purposes. This development is seen in the refinement of letter shapes over time, with distinct forms for consonants like (pe), rendered as a vertical stroke often with a small loop or hook, and (), characterized by a crossbar intersecting a vertical, creating a compact, wedge-like profile. Such variations distinguish it from later scripts, emphasizing clarity and monumentality while preserving roots. Key sites like Nisa and Hecatompylos yield ostraca and fragments showing this progression, highlighting the script's adaptation for both official and practical use.

Inscriptional Pahlavi

Inscriptional Pahlavi represents the monumental variant of the Pahlavi script primarily employed during the Sasanian Empire for official inscriptions, characterized by its adaptation to durable media such as rock faces and metal objects. This script evolved from earlier Aramaic-derived forms, featuring rounded, cursive-inspired letter shapes that allowed for elegant carving while maintaining legibility on hard surfaces. It consists of 19 basic signs, which include both phonetic elements and logograms, enabling the expression of Middle Persian in a concise manner suitable for public proclamations. Employed from the 3rd to the 7th centuries CE, it served as the standard for imperial records, reflecting the administrative and ideological priorities of Sasanian rulers. A prominent example of its use appears in the inscriptions commissioned by the high priest around 270 CE, where the script adorns rock reliefs detailing religious reforms and royal patronage under . These texts demonstrate the script's role in propagating Zoroastrian orthodoxy and Sasanian legitimacy through monumental displays. The writing proceeds from right to left, with no spaces between words, a convention that demands familiarity with the language for interpretation and contributes to the script's compact, flowing appearance on stone. Royal titles, such as Šāhān šāh Ērān ("King of Kings of Iran"), are recurrent motifs, often rendered in prominent positions to assert sovereignty, as seen in Kartir's dedications linking the monarch to divine authority. Designed for inscriptional permanence, Inscriptional Pahlavi incorporates adaptations like enlarged, proportional letter scaling to suit the irregularities of stone and metal substrates, ensuring visibility from a distance in outdoor settings. This is particularly evident in bilingual texts pairing Pahlavi with Greek, where character heights and alignments are adjusted to harmonize the two systems on shared surfaces, facilitating diplomatic or multicultural communication in border regions. Such refinements highlight the script's versatility beyond purely linguistic function, serving as a tool for imperial etched into the landscape.

Psalter Pahlavi

Psalter Pahlavi is a rare variant of the Pahlavi script, attested primarily through fragments of a translation of the Syriac , representing an intermediate form between the more angular inscriptional scripts and the fully cursive Book Pahlavi. This script emerged in the 6th to 7th century CE, during the late Sasanian period, and is characterized by a semi-cursive style that maintains clearer distinctions between letters compared to later manuscript forms, facilitating readability in religious texts. The manuscript, known as the Pahlavi , consists of about 12 legible pages containing 72:12–81:1 and 81:15–93:20, alongside an interlinear Sogdian gloss, highlighting its role in multilingual Christian liturgical practices. The Psalter fragments were discovered in 1905 during the second German Turfan expedition led by Albert von Le Coq at the ruins of Bulayiq, near Turfan in eastern Turkestan (modern Xinjiang, China), amid a cache of Christian, Manichaean, and Buddhist manuscripts from Nestorian or Syriac Christian communities. These finds, dating to the post-Sasanian era, illustrate the script's adaptation in peripheral regions following the Islamic conquest, where Iranian Christian groups preserved Middle Persian religious translations. The script's cursive nature, derived from Aramaic antecedents, employs 19 characters—18 for consonants and one for the long vowel /ā/—with forms that bridge epigraphic rigidity and manuscript fluidity, as seen in its use for rendering Syriac psalmody into Middle Persian. A distinctive feature of Psalter Pahlavi is its use of matres lectionis to indicate long vowels, such as aleph (ʾ) for /ā/ and yodh (y) for /ī/, which provides more explicit vocalization than the defectively written Book Pahlavi, aiding in the accurate recitation of sacred texts. It also incorporates mixed Aramaic heterograms—ideographic representations of words using Aramaic forms pronounced as Persian equivalents—alongside Syriac loanwords, as evident in phrases like šlm (peace, from Aramaic š-l-m) rendered in the Psalms context to convey theological concepts. This orthographic strategy, combining logographic elements with phonetic supplements, underscores the script's adaptation for Christian devotional literature, distinguishing it from Zoroastrian-dominated Sasanian usages.

Book Pahlavi

Book Pahlavi, also known as cursive Pahlavi, served as the primary script for manuscripts during the and into the early Islamic period, spanning roughly the 3rd to 9th centuries CE. This variant was highly ligatured, employing 12 to 15 basic signs that represented up to 23 consonants through extensive joining and complex combinations, making it compact and fluid for rapid writing. Optimized for use on and with and , it facilitated the production of portable codices essential for religious and literary transmission. The script flowed from right to left without consistent word separation, requiring readers to rely on contextual cues and linguistic knowledge for parsing ambiguous sequences, a feature that heightened its challenges for modern decipherment. Surviving examples appear predominantly in Zoroastrian codices, such as the Arda Viraf Namag, a 9th- or 10th-century visionary text describing a journey through the afterlife, preserved in manuscripts like those held in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Other key texts include compilations like the Dēnkard, which document theological and philosophical works, illustrating the script's role in safeguarding Sasanian intellectual heritage amid cultural shifts. Book Pahlavi evolved from administrative chancellery scripts of the Sasanian bureaucracy, adapting the more angular inscriptional precursors—such as those seen in rock reliefs—for the demands of manuscript production. By the 5th and 6th centuries CE, its form had matured, incorporating ligatures that streamlined writing with quills on flexible surfaces, thus enhancing portability for scholars and in post-Sasanian Persia. This development marked a shift from monumental to intimate, everyday literary use, sustaining Zoroastrian traditions through the .

Script Features

Logographic Elements

The Pahlavi scripts extensively employ logographic elements, referred to as heterograms, ideograms, or , which consist of -derived signs representing entire words or . These signs, numbering approximately 200 to 400 in total with around 200 commonly appearing in textual corpora, function semantically or phonetically to denote Iranian terms while retaining their original Aramaic orthography. The Frahang ī Pahlavīk provides a glossary of about 400 such heterograms with their Iranian readings. This system originated from the adaptation of the script for Middle , allowing scribes to write in a mixed that bridged administrative traditions with native vocabulary. A key feature of these logograms is their dual reading convention: the signs are inscribed in Aramaic form but vocalized according to the corresponding Iranian pronunciation, often without explicit indication in the script itself. For instance, the Aramaic sequence *MLK (transliterated as *mlkʾ), meaning "king" in Aramaic, is systematically read as *šāh in Middle Persian contexts, such as in royal titles like šāhān šāh ("king of kings"). In more elaborate texts, phonetic complements—additional letters spelling out portions of the Iranian word—may follow the heterogram to disambiguate or complete the reading, as seen in examples like ʾB-tr for pidar ("father"), where the heterogram ʾB (Aramaic for "father") is supplemented by -tr. This integration occurs uniformly across Pahlavi variants, enhancing the script's efficiency for legal, religious, and administrative purposes. The use of heterograms served to preserve lexical continuity during the script's evolution from Aramaic prototypes to a distinctly Iranian system, embedding archaic and foreign terms into everyday writing. This conservation is particularly evident in Sasanian legal documents, such as the Madigān ī Hazār Dādestān (Book of a Thousand Judgments), a late Sasanian law code where heterograms like PQDWNʾ (Aramaic puqdana, "disposition") fuse with cursive Iranian forms to denote concepts such as dastafjar ("trustee"). In Book Pahlavi manuscripts, these elements constitute a substantial portion of the , facilitating the transmission of Zoroastrian and judicial terminology across generations.

Reading Challenges and Ambiguities

One of the primary reading challenges in Pahlavi scripts, particularly Book Pahlavi, stems from its extreme cursive form, where letters frequently merge into ligatures and distinct characters coalesce, such as the WAW, , , and all rendering as a single Ñ-like shape. This convergence creates high degrees of ambiguity, as a given sequence of signs can plausibly represent multiple word-forms, often leaving modern editors unable to reconstruct the original intent without external aids. In many cases, transmitted manuscripts contain irrecoverable passages due to scribal variations and the script's inherent opacity. Heterograms exacerbate these issues through , where logograms are read with equivalent words, but a single sign may admit several possible Iranian interpretations depending on syntactic and semantic context. The system introduces further interpretive layers, as these elements allow for phonetic complements but demand familiarity with unexpressed sound changes. The absence of dedicated letters for short vowels compounds these ambiguities, forcing readers to supply them based on linguistic , while word boundaries, though sometimes marked by spaces, are often unclear in manuscripts, blending terms into continuous streams. Decipherment breakthroughs occurred in the , notably through Westergaard's 1852–1854 Zendavesta edition, which elucidated the script's heterogrammatic conventions and peculiarities, enabling systematic readings of Zoroastrian texts. Contemporary approaches mitigate these challenges via , drawing parallels with and to infer readings, supplemented by Manichaean Middle Persian parallels and Zoroastrian exegetical traditions. Unpublished manuscripts nonetheless reveal persistent transcription errors, with ambiguities leading to variant interpretations in up to several dozen instances per text.

Linguistic Applications

In Arsacid Parthian

The script was adapted to the of the during the Arsacid period (ca. 247 BCE–224 CE), serving as the primary medium for recording this Northwestern Iranian language in official and administrative contexts. Derived from the cursive script, it employed a 22-letter that provided a predominantly phonetic rendering of Parthian consonants, with adaptations for Iranian sounds not present in , such as the introduction of a distinct letter <ž> for the /ʒ/. Vowels were largely unindicated, relying on reader knowledge. This adaptation allowed the script to capture Parthian grammatical structures, including verb conjugations and nominal declensions typical of Middle Iranian languages, while integrating heterograms—Aramaic words read as Parthian equivalents—for efficiency in writing. Dialectal variations in Parthian, particularly in northwestern , are reflected in the script's application across the empire's diverse regions, from proper to areas like and . These variations include phonetic shifts, such as the treatment of sibilants and fricatives, which the script recorded with regional inconsistencies, underscoring Parthian's position as a influenced by local substrates. The administrative lexicon in these texts drew heavily on loanwords and heterograms, comprising a substantial portion of terminology for , , and law—often retaining Aramaic forms for concepts like taxation and titles—due to Aramaic's role as the longstanding of the . This lexical integration facilitated bureaucratic continuity from Achaemenid times while adapting to Parthian and vocabulary. The surviving corpus of Parthian inscriptions and ostraca, totaling around 10,000 words, primarily derives from rock reliefs, coins, and clay documents that exemplify the script-language synergy in Arsacid . Royal inscriptions, such as those at Bisotun and , employed the script to proclaim dynastic legitimacy, military victories, and divine favor, blending Parthian narrative with ideogrammatic elements to reach multilingual audiences across the empire. This use reinforced the Arsacid identity, portraying kings as protectors of Iranian traditions amid Hellenistic and local influences.

In Sasanian Middle Persian

The Pahlavi script was adapted for writing Sasanian , particularly to accommodate the language's simplified grammatical structures, including verb conjugations and case endings, which were essential for rendering complex theological and legal commentaries. In texts such as the Vidēvdād Sādah, the plain Pahlavi rendering and exegesis of the Avestan , the script employed periphrastic constructions and prepositions to indicate cases, as had largely lost inflectional endings; for instance, ablative relations were marked by particles like min ("from"), while direct objects used ra, allowing the cursive script to convey nuanced ritual purity laws without full declensional paradigms. Verb conjugations relied on stem-based forms, blending Iranian roots with Semitic loan elements readable in Persian, such as aorist stems for present and future tenses (e.g., khur- from khur-tan "to eat"), integrated into the script's limited alphabet to support interpretive discussions on demonic impurities and expiatory rites. This adaptation facilitated the script's in Zoroastrian priestly scholarship during the Sasanian era (224–651 CE), where it preserved doctrinal precision amid the empire's centralized religious authority. It also extended to Christian contexts, such as the 6th–7th century Pahlavi translation of the . The religious corpus in Pahlavi script constitutes a substantial body of Zoroastrian literature, estimated at approximately 687,000 words across about 54 texts, encompassing cosmological, ethical, and eschatological treatises that reinforced the faith's dualistic theology. Prominent examples include the Bundahišn ("Primal Creation"), an encyclopedic work of around 13,000 words detailing the world's origins, elemental forces, and divine order, which used the script's inherent ambiguities—such as heterograms and cursive ligatures—to enable layered, esoteric interpretations accessible primarily to initiated clergy. These features allowed for symbolic readings of creation myths, where terms like mēnōg (spiritual realm) intertwined literal and allegorical meanings, aiding theological debates on Ahura Mazda's sovereignty over chaos. The script thus served as a medium for safeguarding sacred knowledge, ensuring its transmission through priestly lineages despite the language's evolution. In administrative contexts, the Pahlavi script documented the evolution of lexicon for Sasanian governance, incorporating terms that reflected the empire's bureaucratic and judicial systems. For example, dādwar denoted a or administrator of justice, appearing in legal inscriptions and texts to signify officials enforcing royal edicts and , evolving from earlier Iranian roots to encompass roles like the hāmšahr dādwar (imperial judge). This terminological development, seen in documents like the Mādayān ī Hazār Dādestān (Book of a Thousand Judgments), highlighted the script's utility in codifying hybrid legal principles blending Zoroastrian ethics with state administration, such as property disputes and taxation under divine kingship.

In Post-Conquest Contexts

Following the Islamic conquest of the in the 7th century CE, the Pahlavi script persisted in limited use among non-Muslim communities, particularly Manichaeans in and Zoroastrians in and , serving as a vehicle for religious and cultural continuity. Some Manichaean texts from Turfan were written in Pahlavi script, blending ideographic heterograms with phonetic elements. Among Zoroastrian who migrated to around the 8th–10th centuries CE, Pahlavi adaptations emerged in religious manuscripts and inscriptions, often with phonetic simplifications to accommodate scribal practices in the new environment. Examples include Pahlavi signatures on copperplate grants from ca. 850 CE in southern , inscriptions dated 1009 and 1021 CE in the near , and a copy from 1025 CE prepared in for an Indian mobed. The 9th–10th century Pahlavi Rivayat accompanying the Dadestan i Denig exemplifies such usage, featuring simplified to aid recitation and of Zoroastrian law amid declining native speakers. These adaptations preserved doctrinal texts like the Zand commentaries on the , with Indian scribes occasionally incorporating local conventions for vowel notation. The cultural role of Pahlavi in these post-conquest contexts centered on safeguarding pre-Islamic Iranian lore, including cosmology, ethics, and rituals, against assimilation pressures. Scattered Zoroastrian manuscripts, totaling approximately 687,000 words across 54 texts, document this preservation, while a reconstructed of around 7,000 lemmas underscores the script's endurance in elite clerical circles. Manichaean Turfan fragments similarly sustained heterodox Iranian traditions, bridging Sasanian heritage with Central Asian until the religion's suppression.

Modern Aspects

Unicode Encoding

The Unicode Standard provides encoding for three variants of the Pahlavi scripts: , , and Psalter Pahlavi. The block spans U+10B40 to U+10B5F and includes 30 characters, consisting of 22 letters (U+10B40 to U+10B55) and 8 numeral forms (U+10B58 to U+10B5F). The block occupies U+10B60 to U+10B7F and encodes 27 characters, with 19 letters (U+10B60 to U+10B72) and 8 numerals (U+10B78 to U+10B7F). These two blocks were introduced in version 5.2, released in October 2009. The Psalter Pahlavi block, located at U+10B80 to U+10BAF, was added later in version 7.0, released in June 2014, and contains 29 characters: 18 letters (U+10B80 to U+10B91), 4 marks (U+10B99 to U+10B9C), and 7 numerals (U+10BA9 to U+10BAF). Book Pahlavi, the cursive variant used in manuscripts, remains unencoded in the Unicode Standard due to its extensive system of contextual ligatures and variant forms, which pose significant challenges for standardization; ongoing proposals address these issues but have not yet resulted in inclusion. As right-to-left scripts derived from , Pahlavi encodings require bidirectional algorithm support for proper rendering in mixed-direction text, with characters classified in the Bidi_Mirrored and Right_To_Left categories to handle overrides and embedding. While the inscriptional forms exhibit limited joining behavior, Pahlavi includes some positional variants that benefit from font features for accurate display, though full ligature support is constrained by the block's atomic character design. Fonts such as Sans Inscriptional Pahlavi and Sans Pahlavi provide comprehensive coverage, enabling consistent rendering across platforms. For example, the letter aleph in its initial form is represented by U+10B60 (𐭠) in the Inscriptional Pahlavi block. Compatibility between the encoded variants and unencoded Book Pahlavi is limited, often relying on custom font mappings or provisional proposals rather than standard variant selectors, as the scripts' forms differ significantly in cursive connectivity.

Contemporary Scholarship and Revival

Contemporary scholarship on Pahlavi scripts has built upon early 20th-century foundational works, particularly those of Henrik Samuel Nyberg, a Swedish Iranist whose Manual of Pahlavi (first drafted in the 1920s and published posthumously in 1974) provided the first comprehensive grammar and dictionary of Book Pahlavi, enabling systematic analysis of texts. Nyberg's efforts addressed the script's ambiguities, such as its cursive forms and heterograms, influencing subsequent linguistic studies. Since the mid-20th century, major collaborative projects have advanced the documentation of Pahlavi inscriptions. The Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum (CII), established in 1955 under the auspices of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the , systematically collects, edits, and publishes Iranian , including extensive volumes on Pahlavi inscriptions from Sasanian and post-Sasanian contexts. Ongoing since its inception, the CII has produced over 20 volumes by the 2020s, facilitating comparative studies across Parthian, , and Book Pahlavi variants. Digitization initiatives have significantly enhanced access to Pahlavi materials in the . The Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) of the has supported projects to digitize Zoroastrian manuscripts containing texts with Pahlavi interlinear glosses and commentaries, including efforts like EAP888 and EAP1014 that have preserved several such items from private collections since 2014. These efforts mitigate physical deterioration and enable global scholarly access. Recent advancements incorporate for script analysis and restoration. The 2005 development of a restoration and segmentation algorithm for historic Pahlavi manuscripts used image processing to handle degraded forms, laying groundwork for AI applications. In 2025, the PahGen system employed grammar-guided zero-shot to generate synthetic Pahlavi text in Book Pahlavi script from English inputs, aiding in the and study of heterogrammatic structures across approximately 1,000 digitized Zoroastrian manuscripts. Similarly, the ParsiPy toolkit, released in 2025, provides NLP tools for processing historical Persian texts, including Pahlavi, despite encoding challenges. Cultural revival efforts within the Parsi Zoroastrian community have gained momentum post-2010, emphasizing educational programs to teach Pahlavi script and . Initiatives like the online courses offered by the Ferdowsi Academy since 2015 introduce Book Pahlavi fundamentals to learners, fostering interest among diaspora youth in ancestral scripts. Scholars and community leaders have advocated for Pahlavi's role in preserving Zoroastrian heritage, with workshops highlighting its continuity in liturgical texts. These programs counter the script's decline by linking it to modern identity, though full revival remains limited to academic and religious spheres. New archaeological discoveries underscore ongoing research vitality. In 2022, a previously undocumented Pahlavi inscription was identified in Tang-e Bulaghi near , featuring Sasanian-era script that provides insights into regional administrative terminology. More recently, in 2025, a Sasanian bearing a brief Pahlavi inscription was unearthed at , naming a deceased individual and dated to the CE, enriching understandings of funerary practices. Such finds, integrated into digital corpora like the CII, highlight Pahlavi's interdisciplinary relevance to and .

References

  1. https://escholarship.org/content/qt2hm6b38h/qt2hm6b38h.pdf
  2. http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2007/07234-n3294-pahlavi.pdf
  3. https://scriptsource.org/scr/Phlp
  4. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7817/jameroriesoci.132.1.0116
  5. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118830390.ch7
  6. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Pahlavi
  7. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/persian-language-1-early-new-persian/
  8. https://www.avesta.org/mp/bundahis.html
  9. http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/parthia/index.htm
  10. https://ramiyarkaranjia.com/pahlavi/
  11. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/middle-persian-literature-1-pahlavi/
  12. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/aramaic
  13. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/avroman-documents
  14. https://www.academia.edu/105730689/Inscriptional_Parthian_Script_250_B_C_E_3
  15. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/dates-and-dating/
  16. https://revistas.uam.es/isimu/article/download/19725/17455/67412
  17. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/hatra/
  18. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/dura-europos/
  19. https://www.jstor.org/stable/599959
  20. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/documents/
  21. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iran-vi3-writing-systems/
  22. https://parthiansources.com/texts/skz/
  23. https://www.academia.edu/43994033/Quantifying_Middle_Persian_inscriptions_a_new_approach_to_the_epigraphic_culture_of_Sasanian_Iran
  24. https://sacred-texts.com/zor/sbe37/sbe37002.htm
  25. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290753763_The_middle_persian_and_parthian_inscriptions_on_the_paikuli_tower_New_blocks_and_preliminary_studies
  26. https://www.academia.edu/37693184/Some_Inscribed_Sasanian_Seals_and_Bullae
  27. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/denkard/
  28. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/manichean-script/
  29. https://www.avesta.org/antia/History_of_the_Parsi_migration_to_India.pdf
  30. https://www.academia.edu/7711110/Zoroastrianism_under_the_Sasanians
  31. https://scriptsource.org/scr/Prti
  32. https://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Archaeology/Ashkanian/parthian_archaeology.htm
  33. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2007/07207r-n3286r-parthian-pahlavi.pdf
  34. https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/3rd_century_iran.pdf
  35. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/pahlavi-psalter/
  36. https://www.academia.edu/3634713/The_Importance_of_the_Psalter_at_Turfan
  37. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305809703_Multilingual_Christian_Manuscripts_from_Turfan
  38. https://www.academia.edu/112170766/Psalter_Pahlavi_Pahlavi_Psalter_Reconsidering_Aramaeograms_in_the_Pahlavi_Psalter_Conceptualizing_Sacred_Languages_and_Their_Visual_Inimitability_SOAS_London_7_8_12_2023_
  39. https://www.omniglot.com/writing/psalter.htm
  40. https://invisibleeast.web.ox.ac.uk/article/middle-persian
  41. https://www.scriptsource.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=script_detail&key=Phlv
  42. https://www.omniglot.com/writing/mpersian.htm
  43. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18276-book-pahlavi.pdf
  44. https://www.academia.edu/41997308/Carlo_G_Cereti_On_the_Pahlavi_cursive_script_and_the_Sasanian_Avesta_Studia_Iranica_vol_37_2_2008_pp_175_195
  45. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/huzwares/
  46. https://languagestudy.ihcs.ac.ir/article_7240_acbe87e40f2e2f2b88aebce04a8c8510.pdf
  47. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ideographic-writing-i-terminology-and-conventions/
  48. https://pdfcoffee.com/madigan-i-hazar-dadestan-transcription-and-translation-pdf-free.html
  49. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/madayan-i-hazar-dadestan/
  50. https://www.academia.edu/109249528/The_interpretatio_iranica_of_Heterograms_in_Book_Pahlavi_The_Case_of_YTYBWN_To_Sit_Down_to_Dwell_and_to_Set_and_Some_Related_Problems
  51. https://sacred-texts.com/zor/sbe05/sbe0503.htm
  52. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/aramaic/
  53. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/parthian-language
  54. https://ia801402.us.archive.org/32/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.42405/2015.42405.Studies-In-The-Pahlavi-Grammar_text.pdf
  55. https://cceh.uni-koeln.de/en/portfolio/middle-persian/
  56. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bundahisn-primal-creation/
  57. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/dadwar-dadwarih-respectively-judge-administrator-of-justice-lawgiver-lit/
  58. https://sites.uci.edu/sasanika/files/2020/09/vdocuments.mx_sasanian-law-janos-2010.pdf
  59. https://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp024_iran_language_writing.pdf
  60. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/zoroastrianism-02-arab-conquest-to-modern/
  61. https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U10B40.pdf
  62. https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U10B60.pdf
  63. https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U10B80.pdf
  64. https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode7.0.0/
  65. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/14077-book-pahlavi.pdf
  66. https://www.unicode.org/charts/fonts.html
  67. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/nyberg-henrik-samuel/
  68. https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Manual_of_Pahlavi.html?id=gkcIAQAAIAAJ
  69. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/corpus-inscriptionum-iranicarum-c/
  70. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000245450
  71. https://eap.bl.uk/project/eap888
  72. https://eap.bl.uk/project/eap1014
  73. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/11558484_85
  74. https://aclanthology.org/2025.loresmt-1.16.pdf
  75. https://arxiv.org/html/2503.17810v1
  76. https://ferdowsi.org/an-advanced-course-of-middle-persian/
  77. https://ajammc.com/2018/01/08/parsig-and-pahlavi/
  78. https://nbsh.basu.ac.ir/article_5883_en.html
  79. https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/516743/Sasanian-ossuary-inscription-discovered-at-Naqsh-e-Rostam
Add your contribution
Related Hubs
User Avatar
No comments yet.