Frahang-i Pahlavig

Frahang-i Pahlavig (meaning Pahlavig dictionary) is a dictionary of (mostly) Aramaic language ideograms with Middle Persian translations (in Pahlavi script) and transliterations (in Pazend/Avestan script).harvnb|West|1904|p=120.] The glossary was previously known to Indian Zoroastrians (the Parsis) as the "mna-xvatay" (traditionally pronounced "mona khoda"), a name derived from the first two words of the first entry/lemma.harvnb|MacKenzie|2001|loc=para. 1.] The "Frahang-i Pahlavig" should not be confused with the "Frahang-i Oim-evak", which is a glossary of Avestan language terms.

Manuscripts and interpretations

The oldest surviving example of a "Frahang"-like text is a one-page fragment discovered at Turfan that is believed to date to the 9th or 10th century CE. Several more complete manuscripts exist in Bombay, Oxford, Paris and Copenhagen, but the oldest of these dates to the 15th century and is missing a second folio and all of folio 28 onwards. In the earliest edition made available to European scholarship, the "Frahang" is arranged serially, that is, according to the shape of the Aramaic characters. That edition, obtained by Abraham Anquetil-Duperron in the mid-1700s, is today in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. In 1867, Hoshangji Jamaspji Asa and Martin Haug published a transcript of a manuscript that was arranged thematically by chapter.

The existence of similar glossaries from Akkadian times (there explaining Sumerian ideograms) led an Assyriologist - Erich Ebeling - to explain that many of the words in the "Frahang" were derived from Sumerian or Akkadian. This led to a number of "far-fetched interpretations,"harvnb|MacKenzie|2001|loc=para. 5.] which were then subsequently incorporated into a number of later interpretations, including those of Iranists, so effectively making even these unreliable.

tructure and content

The glossary encompasses approximately five hundred (not counting variations) Semitic language ideograms ("huzvarishn", "probably mean [ing] 'obsoleteness, antiquity, or archaism'"harvnb|West|1904|p=121.] ), "in the form used by Zoroastrians in writing Middle Persian (Book Pahlavi), each explained by a "phonetic" writing of the corresponding Persian word."harvnb|MacKenzie|2001|loc=para. 1.] Besides ideograms of Aramaic origin, the "Frahang" also has a handful of pseudo-ideograms from "Arabic words coined by later scribes" and "scattered examples of historical spellings of Iranian words, no longer recognized as such."harvnb|MacKenzie|2001|loc=para. 5.] Altogether about 1300 words (including word forms) are represented, "but its original extent appears to have been only 1000 words, excluding the appendices."harvnb|West|1904|p=120.] Several ideograms are not attested in any other text.

While the one-page Turfan fragment lists various forms for verbs followed by one Middle Persian translation (in the infinitive), other manuscripts list at most three verb forms, but then provide Middle Persian equivalents of each. The primary elements (ideogram(s) and translation) "are then transcribed interlinearly, and more or less corruptly, into Avestan letters, i.e., into Pāzand, whereby the ideograms appear in their traditional mnemonic pronunciation. Because of the ambiguity of the Pahlavi script this is often far removed from the original Aramaic spellings."harvnb|MacKenzie|2001|loc=para. 2.] In the manuscript examined by Asa and Haug, the "huzvarishn" and translations are in black, and the Pazend transliterations are in red (the first chapter is an exception, and is entirely in black).

Substituting Latin characters (and written left-to-right) for Pahlavi and Pazend ones (which are written right-to-left), "Frahang" glosses look like this:
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References

Bibliography

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