What alphabet did Persians use before Arabic?

Pahlavi alphabet
Pahlavi alphabet, Pahlavi also spelled Pehlevi, writing system of the Persian people that dates from as early as the 2nd century bce, some scholars believe, and was in use until the advent of Islam (7th century ce). The Zoroastrian sacred book, the Avesta, is written in a variant of Pahlavi called Avestan.

Is Avestan Persian?

Avestan /əˈvɛstən/, also known historically as Zend, comprises two languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). Both are early Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages within the Indo-European family.

How old is modern Persian?

The history of the Persian language is divided into three eras: Old Persian (ca. 525 BC- 300 BC), Middle Persian (c. 300 BC- 800 AD), and Modern Persian (800 AD to the present day).

What alphabet did Persian use?

Arabic script
The speakers of Persian use an alphabet that is based on the Arabic script. The difference between the Persian and Arabic alphabets is the addition of a couple of letters in the former. Otherwise, they are identical. Interestingly enough Persian has also been written in Armenian script.

What was the Avestan alphabet used for?

The Avestan alphabet is a writing system developed during Iran’s Sassanid era (226–651 CE) to render the Avestan language. As a side effect of its development, the script was also used for Pazend, a method of writing Middle Persian that was used primarily for the Zend commentaries on the texts of the Avesta.

Which letters are not connected in Avestan script?

Some letters (e.g. ŋ́, ṇ, ẏ, v ), are free inventions. Avestan script, like Pahlavi script and Aramaic script also, is written from right to left. In Avestan script, letters are not connected, and ligatures are “rare and clearly of secondary origin”.

What is the alphabet of Zoroastrianism?

In the texts of Zoroastrian tradition, the alphabet is referred to as “the religion’s script” ( dēn dibīrih in Middle Persian and din dabireh in New Persian ). The development of the Avestan alphabet was initiated by the need to represent recited Avestan language texts correctly.

What are the letters of the Pahlavi alphabet?

The alphabet included many characters ( a, i, k, t, p, b, m, n, r, s, z, š, xv) closely resembling Book Pahlavi of the early Islamic Persia, while some ( ā, γ) are characters that only exist in the older (6th-7th c. AD) Psalter Pahlavi script (in later cursive Pahlavi γ and k have the same symbol).

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