Old Persian cuneiform script
Old Persian Cuneiform | ||
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Type | Alphabet with Syllabic elements | |
Spoken languages | Old Persian | |
Time period | 525 BC – 330 BC | |
Parent systems | Cuneiform script Old Persian Cuneiform |
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Unicode range | U+103A0 – U+103D5 | |
ISO 15924 | Xpeo | |
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. |
Old Persian cuneiform is the primary script used in Old Persian writings. It is a semi-alphabetic syllabic cuneiform script.
Old Persian cuneiform is loosely inspired by the Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform, however only one glyph, la (𐎾), derives from that script's la (𒆷). (la didn't occur in native Old Persian words, but was found in Akkadian borrowings.) Scholars today mostly agree that the Old Persian script was invented by about 525 BC to provide monument inscriptions for the Achaemenid king Darius I, to be used at Behistun.
While a few Old Persian texts seem to be inscribed during Cyrus II (CMa, CMb, and CMc, all found at Pasargadae), the first Achaemenid emperor, or Arsames and Ariaramnes (AsH and AmH, both found at Hamadan), grandfather and great-grandfather of Darius I, all five, specially the later two, are generally agreed to have been later inscriptions.
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Alphabetic properties
Although based on a logo-syllabic prototype, the system is essentially alphabetic in character. Thirteen out of twenty-two consonants are invariant, regardless of the following vowel (that is, they are alphabetic), while only six have a distinct form for each consonant-vowel combination (that is, they are syllabic), and among these, only d and m occur in three forms for all three vowels. (k, g, j, and v only occur before two of the vowels, and so only have two forms.) In addition, three consonants, t, n, and r, are partially syllabic, having the same form before a and i, and a distinct form only before u. For instance, 𐎴 could be na or ni, whereas 𐎵 is specifically nu. Ambiguous syllables must be followed by a vowel for clarification, but in practice even unambiguous syllables such as nu, or fully syllabic ma, mi, and mu, are followed by explicit vowels.
The effect is not unlike the English [dʒ] sound, which is typically written g before i or e, but j before other vowels (gem, jam), or the Castillian Spanish [θ] sound, which is written c before i or e and z before other vowels (cinco, zapato): it is more accurate to say that some of the Old Persian consonants are written by different letters depending on the following vowel, rather than classifying the script as syllabic. This situation had its origin in the Assyrian cuneiform syllabary, where several syllabic distinctions had been lost and were often clarified with explicit vowels. However, in the case of Assyrian, the vowel was not always used, and was never used where not needed, so the system remained (logo-)syllabic.
For a while it was speculated that the alphabet could have had its origin in such a system, with a leveling of consonant signs a millennium earlier producing something like the Ugaritic alphabet, but today it is generally accepted that the Semitic alphabet arose from Egyptian hieroglyphs, where vowel notation was not important. (See Middle Bronze Age alphabets.)
Signs
The script encodes three vowels, a, i, u, and twenty-two consonants, k, x, g, c, ç, j, t, θ, d, p, f, b, n, m, y, v, r, l, s, z, š, and h. Compared to the Avestan alphabet Old Persian notably lacks voiced fricatives, but including a voiceless palatal fricative ç (and a sign for the non-native l). Notably, in common with the Brahmic alphabets, there appears to be no distinction between a consonant followed by an a and a consonant followed by nothing.
k- | x- | g- | c- | ç- | j- | t- | θ- | d- | p- | f- | b- | n- | m- | y- | v- | r- | l- | s- | z- | š- | h- | ||
-a | 𐎠 | 𐎣 | 𐎧 | 𐎥 | 𐎨 | 𐏂 | 𐎩 | 𐎫 | 𐎰 | 𐎭 | 𐎱 | 𐎳 | 𐎲 | 𐎴 | 𐎶 | 𐎹 | 𐎺 | 𐎼 | 𐎾 | 𐎿 | 𐏀 | 𐏁 | 𐏃 |
-i | 𐎡 | 𐎪 | 𐎮 | 𐎷 | 𐎻 | ||||||||||||||||||
-u | 𐎢 | 𐎤 | 𐎦 | 𐎬 | 𐎯 | 𐎵 | 𐎸 | 𐎽 |
- logograms:
- Auramazdā: 𐏈, 𐏉, 𐏊 (genitive)
- xšāyaθiya- "king": 𐏋
- dahyāu- "country": 𐏌, 𐏍
- baga- "god": 𐏎
- būmi- "earth": 𐏏
- word divider: 𐏐
- numerals:[1]
- 1 𐏑, 2 𐏒, 5 𐏒𐏒𐏑, 7 𐏒𐏒𐏒𐏑, 8 𐏒𐏒𐏒𐏒, 9 𐏒𐏒𐏒𐏒𐏑
- 10 𐏓, 12 𐏓𐏒, 13 𐏓𐏒𐏑, 14 𐏓𐏒𐏒, 15 𐏓𐏒𐏒𐏑, 18 𐏓𐏒𐏒𐏒𐏒, 19 𐏓𐏒𐏒𐏒𐏒𐏑, 20 𐏔, 22 𐏔𐏒, 23 𐏔𐏒𐏑, 25 𐏔𐏒𐏒𐏑, 26 𐏔𐏒𐏒𐏒, 27 𐏔𐏒𐏒𐏒𐏑, 40 𐏔𐏔, 60 𐏔𐏔𐏔,
- 120 𐏕𐏔
Unicode
The Old Persian script is encoded in Plane 1 (Supplementary Multilingual Plane) of Unicode 4.1, occupying code points 103A0–103DF.
Old Persian Unicode.org chart (PDF) |
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U+ | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F |
123A0 | 𐎠 | 𐎡 | 𐎢 | 𐎣 | 𐎤 | 𐎥 | 𐎦 | 𐎧 | 𐎨 | 𐎩 | 𐎪 | 𐎫 | 𐎬 | 𐎭 | 𐎮 | 𐎯 |
123B0 | 𐎰 | 𐎱 | 𐎲 | 𐎳 | 𐎴 | 𐎵 | 𐎶 | 𐎷 | 𐎸 | 𐎹 | 𐎺 | 𐎻 | 𐎼 | 𐎽 | 𐎾 | 𐎿 |
123C0 | 𐏀 | 𐏁 | 𐏂 | 𐏃 | 𐏈 | 𐏉 | 𐏊 | 𐏋 | 𐏌 | 𐏍 | 𐏎 | 𐏏 | ||||
123D0 | 𐏐 | 𐏑 | 𐏒 | 𐏓 | 𐏔 | 𐏕 |
Notes and references
- ^ Unattested numbers are not listed. The list of attested numbers is based on Kent, Ronald Grubb (1384 AP). Old Persian: Grammar, Text, Glossary, translated into Persian by S. Oryan (in Persian), pages 699–700. ISBN 964-421-045-X.
External links
- Omniglot article on Old Persian cuneiform
- Ancient scripts article on Old Persian cuneiform
- Old Persian cuneiform in contrast with Elamite and Late Babylonian cuneiform
- Stolper, Matthew W. & Jan Tavernier (1995), "From the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, 1: An Old Persian Administrative Tablet from the Persepolis Fortification", Arta, vol. 2007:1, Paris: Achemenet.com