RE: VMs: RE: flowers & stars: Zoroastrian stuff, Pahlavi

["Joseph H Peterson" <joe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The image actually does contain ideographs. That gets to the heart of the
difficulty. In Pahlavi, the same set of graphemes could be either Persian or
Aramaic. The ideagraphs are common words which are written using the Aramaic
word, but read in Persian. The common practice is to transcribe them in
capital letters. "Thus" (to quote MacKenzie) "the same letters are
transliterated lhyk when they stand for "rahig" 'child', but LHYK when they
represent the ideogram for "dur" 'far'." (the same grapheme - a single
vertical stroke - can represent Persian l, r, n, or w, or the ideographic L,
R, O, N, or W!) This is much like reading "perscription" when you see "Rx",
or "and" when you see the symbol "&" in an English text.

For example here is a sample of a transcription from Hansen,
Mittelpersisches Lesebuch, pg. 5 (from MX60.72):

<72.1> rt|-y w'yyndk'n MNW rt|-y dt'n MNW rt|-y gwrt'y'n MNW
   .: mynwy-y hrt| pshw| krt| 'YK GBR'-y d'n'k-y dyn|
   'stwb'n-y hwsp's-y r'st'-gwbcn| MDM hm'hl'n
   rt| ·: NYCH|-y gwb'n-y drwyst| gwhr-y 'wstb'r-y
<72.5> hwsrwb|-y hwhym-y kt(k)'prwj|. MNW crm| W bym nywk| NPCH
   pt| W nyy'k W cwy W srd'r dwst| W hwjyhr W nmyhkwn MDM
   NYCH-y NPCH hm'hl'n rt| .: TWR'-y GDH-'wmnd-y
   bwrj-gwc-y rmk'wmnd MDM TWR"n rt| ·: jyhr'p| mwrw'n
   rt| .: 'sp|-y . 'rwnd 'sp|'n rt| .: hrgwc dt'n rt|
<72.10> 'G gwrt''n rt| .: pwrsyt| d'n'k `L mynwy-y hrt|
   'YK kngdj| 'YK gyw'k| YK`YMWNyt| wr-y ymkrt| 'YK krt|
   YK`YMWNyt| .: tn|-y s''m 'YK gyw'k CKBHWNyt : m'ncn|-y
   srwc 'YK HMR|-y 3 p'y 'YK gyw'k YK`YMWNyt| hwm-y
   ryst| W 'r'st'r MNW ryst| ptc wyr'yynd W tn|-y psyn|
   ptc `BYDWNd 'YK rwst YK`YMWNyt gwpyt|ych pt| kt|m

Here MNW = Aramaic MANNU, and would be understood to represent the Persian
ke='who?', Similarly MDM is an ideograph, and would be read "abar" (meaning
"higher").

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Jacques Guy
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 10:59 PM
To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: VMs: RE: flowers & stars: Zoroastrian stuff, Pahlavi


23/02/2005 6:45:09 PM, "Joseph H Peterson" <joe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


>· Pahlavi freely mixes MP graphemes with ideographs, which derive from
>Aramaic

That is news to me. Phalavi is apparently derived from Aramaic, but Aramaic
is purely alphabetical. No ideographs in it all. Unlike, say, their
neighbours
the Ancient Egyptians.

>· The Pahlavi script was so difficult towards the end of its official use,

It became more and more difficult because it became more and more
cursive. It is far more difficult to read Egyptian Demotic, the cursive
script, than the hieroglyphs you see on monuments. Likewise,
reading Chinese or Japanese cursive (called caoshu in Chinese, soosho
in Japanese) requires an excellent knowledge of the literary languages.
It's like reading a medical doctor's scribbles: you need to know not only
English, but the medical jargon and how they use it. The Chinese and
he Japanese, however, cultivated their "scribbles" for aesthetic purposes.

>There is a sample of the script at
http://www.avesta.org/denkard/denkard.htm

It looks strikingly like Mongolian, rotated 90 degrees (the Mongolian script
has
the same origin, so no surprise there)

>It is not trivial to transcribe Pahlavi because of its use of ideographs,

The image on the link above shows no ideographs.

If you know of an image of Pahlavi texts with ideographs,
post the links here.

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