Psalter Pahlavi

In today's world, Psalter Pahlavi has become a topic of great relevance and interest to a large number of people. Its impact extends to different aspects of daily life, from politics to entertainment. Without a doubt, Psalter Pahlavi has captured the attention of society as a whole and has generated an intense debate in different areas. In this article, we will explore in detail the various aspects related to Psalter Pahlavi, in order to provide a broad and complete overview of this fascinating topic.

Psalter Pahlavi
Sample of text taken from the Cross of Herat
Script type
Time period
Mid-6th to 7th century CE
DirectionRight-to-left script Edit this on Wikidata
LanguagesMiddle Persian
Related scripts
Parent systems
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Phlp (132), ​Psalter Pahlavi
Unicode
Unicode alias
Psalter Pahlavi
U+10B80–U+10BAF

Psalter Pahlavi is a cursive abjad that was used for writing Middle Persian on paper; it is thus described as one of the Pahlavi scripts. It was written right to left, usually with spaces between words.

It takes its name from the Pahlavi Psalter, part of the Psalms translated from Syriac to Middle Persian and found in what is now western China.

Letters

Letters (Isolated Form)
Name Image Text IPA
Aleph 𐮀 /a/, /aː/
Beth 𐮁 /b/, /w/
Gimel 𐮂 /g/, /j/
Daleth 𐮃 /d/, /j/
He 𐮄 /h/
Waw-Ayin-Resh 𐮅 /w/, /r/
Zayin 𐮆 /z/
Heth 𐮇 /h/, /x/
Yodh 𐮈 /j/, /ē̆/, /ī̆/, /d͡ʒ/
Kaph 𐮉 /k/, /g/
Lamedh 𐮊 /l/, /r/
Mem-Qoph 𐮋 /m/, /q/
Nun 𐮌 /n/
Samekh 𐮍 /s/, /h/
Pe 𐮎 /p/, /b/, /f/
Sadhe 𐮏 /t͡ʃ/, /d͡ʒ/, /z/
Shin 𐮐 /ʃ/
Taw 𐮑 /t/, /d/

Punctuation

Four different large section-ending punctuation marks were used:

Mark Description
Image Text
𐮙 Section mark
𐮚 Turned section mark
𐮛 Four dots with cross
𐮜 Four dots with dot

Numbers

Psalter Pahlavi had its own numerals:

Value 1 2 3 4 10 20 100
Sign Image
Text 𐮩 𐮪 𐮫 𐮬 𐮭 𐮮 𐮯

Some numerals have joining behavior (with both numerals and letters). Numbers are written right-to-left. Numbers without corresponding numerals are additive. For example, 96 is written as 𐮮𐮮𐮮𐮮𐮭𐮫𐮫‎ (20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 10 + 3 + 3).

Unicode block

Psalter Pahlavi script was added to the Unicode Standard in June, 2014 with the release of version 7.0.

The Unicode block is U+10B80–U+10BAF:

Psalter Pahlavi
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 15.1
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

Notes

  1. ^ The names are based on the corresponding Imperial Aramaic characters

References

  1. ^ a b c d Everson, Michael; Pournader, Roozbeh (2011-05-06). "N4040: Proposal for encoding the Psalter Pahlavi script in the SMP of the UCS" (PDF). Working Group Document, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2.
  2. ^ Encyclopædia Iranica: Pahlavi Psalter
  3. ^ Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, Inc. pp. 518. ISBN 978-0195079937.