OLD PERSIAN CUNEIFORM SCRIPT

'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, ''l^a'' (), derives from that script's ''la'' (). (''l^a'' 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.

Contents

Alphabetic properties

Signs

Unicode

Notes and references

External links

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 sound, which is typically written ''g'' before ''i'' or ''e'', but ''j'' before other vowels (''gem'', ''jam''), or the Castillian Spanish 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'': , , (genitive)

★
★ ''xšāyaθiya-'' "king":

★
★ ''dahyāu-'' "country": ,

★
★ ''baga-'' "god":

★
★ ''būmi-'' "earth":

★ word divider:

★ numerals:^[1]

★
★ 1 , 2 , 5 , 7 , 8 , 9

★
★ 10 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 22 , 23 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 40 , 60 ,

★
★ 120

Unicode

The Old Persian script is encoded in Plane 1 (Supplementary Multilingual Plane) of Unicode 4.1, occupying code points 103A0–103DF.

Notes and references

1. Unattested numbers are not listed. The list of attested numbers is based on Old Persian: Grammar, Text, Glossary, , Ronald Grubb, Kent, , 1384 AP,

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

★ Xerxes, a free Unicode-compatible Old Persian font

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