Apas ( / ˈ ɑː p ə s , æ p -/ , Avestan : āpas ) is the Avestan language term for "the waters", which, in its innumerable aggregate states, is represented by the Apas, the hypostases of the waters.
106-402: Āb (plural Ābān ) is the Middle Persian -language form. "To this day reverence for water is deeply ingrained in Zoroastrians , and in orthodox communities offerings are regularly made to the household well or nearby stream." The ape zaothra ceremony—the culminating rite of the Yasna service (which is in turn the principal act of worship)—is literally for the "strengthening of
212-487: A Christian Psalter fragment, which still retains all the letter distinctions that Inscriptional Pahlavi had except the one between t and ṭ ; and the Pahlavi found in papyri from the early 7th century CE, which displays even more letter coincidences than Book Pahlavi. The Manichaean script was an abjad introduced for the writing of Middle Persian by the prophet Mani (216–274 CE), who based it on his native variety of
318-662: A crater on Ariel , one of the moons of Uranus , is named after aban . In the seven-chapter Yasna Haptanghaiti , which interrupts the sequential order of the Gathas and is linguistically as old as the Gathas themselves, the waters are revered as the Ahuranis , wives of the Ahura ( Yasna 38.3). Although not otherwise named, Boyce associates this Ahura with Apam Napat (middle Persian: Burz Yazad ), another divinity of waters. In Yasna 38, which
424-536: A currently more popular one reflecting the Sassanid-era pronunciation, as used by C. Saleman, W. B. Henning and, in a somewhat revised form, by D. N. MacKenzie (1986). The less obvious features of the usual transcription are: A common feature of Pahlavi as well as Manichaean spelling was that the Aramaic letters ṣ and ḥ were adapted to express the sounds /t͡ʃ/ and /h/ , respectively. In addition, both could use
530-468: A different shape from a historical point of view, by under- or overlining them: e.g. the heterogram for andar 'in' is transliterated B YN , since it corresponds to Aramaic byn , but the sign that 'should' have been b actually looks like a g . Within Arameograms, scholars have traditionally used the standard Semitological designations of the Aramaic (and generally Semitic) letters, and these include
636-921: A large number of diacritics and special signs expressing the different Semitic phonemes, which were not distinguished in Middle Persian. In order to reduce the need for these, a different system was introduced by D. N. MacKenzie , which dispenses with diacritics as much as possible, often replacing them with vowel letters: A for ʾ , O for ʿ , E for H , H for Ḥ , C for Ṣ , for example ORHYA for ʿRḤYʾ ( bay 'god, majesty, lord'). For ''ṭ'', which still occurs in heterograms in Inscriptional Pahlavi, Θ may be used. Within Iranian words, however, both systems use c for original Aramaic ṣ and h for original Aramaic ḥ , in accordance with their Iranian pronunciation (see below). The letter l , when modified with
742-558: A less common view is that /x/ and /ɣ/ were uvular instead. Finally, it may be pointed out that most scholars consider the phoneme /w/ as being still a labial approximant, but a few regard it as a voiced labial fricative /v/ . The initial clusters of /s/ and a stop ( /sp-/ , /st-/ , /sk-/ ) had acquired a prosthetic vowel /i/ by the time of the Manichaean Middle Persian texts: istāyišn ( ՙst՚yšn ) 'praise' vs Pahlavi stāyišn ( ՙst՚dšn' ) 'praise'. Stress
848-409: A regular pattern, but during the reign of Artaxerxes II (circa 380 BCE) astronomers utilised a 19-year cycle which required the addition of a month called Addaru II in years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14 and 19, and the month Ululu II in year 17 of the cycle. The first known intercalation is recorded for 309 BCE. The first month of the year was called Frawardin, and the first day of Frawardin
954-461: A script derived from Aramaic . This occurred primarily because written Aramaic had previously been the written language of government of the former Achaemenids , and the government scribes had carried that practice all over the empire. This practice had led to others adopting Imperial Aramaic as the language of communications, both between Iranians and non-Iranians. The transition from Imperial Aramaic to Middle Iranian took place very slowly, with
1060-561: A slow increase of more and more Iranian words so that Aramaic with Iranian elements gradually changed into Iranian with Aramaic elements. Under Arsacid hegemony , this Aramaic-derived writing system for Iranian languages came to be associated with the Parthians in particular (it may have originated in the Parthian chancellories ), and thus the writing system came to be called pahlavi "Parthian" too. Aside from Parthian, Aramaic-derived writing
1166-467: A special horizontal stroke that shows that the pronunciation is /l/ and not /r/, is rendered in the MacKenzie system as ɫ . The traditional system continues to be used by many, especially European scholars. The MacKenzie system is the one used in this article. As for Pahlavi, c is used for the transliteration of original Aramaic ṣ and h for the transliteration of original ḥ . Original Aramaic h , on
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#17328527677501272-542: A thousand of these in the Book Pahlavi variety. In addition, their spelling remained very conservative, expressing the pronunciation of the Arsacid period. The two most important subvarieties are: Other known Pahlavi varieties are the early Pahlavi found in inscriptions on coins issued in the province of Pars from the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century CE; the relatively conservative Psalter Pahlavi (6th–8th centuries CE), used in
1378-562: Is 1952063. The Julian Day Number of Nowruz, the first day, of Year Y of the Yazdegirdi Era is therefore 1952063 + ( Y − 1) × 365. 22 July AD 2000 was Nowruz and the first day of 1370 Y.Z. (or 3738 ZRE) according to the Qadimi reckoning. In the Julian year 1300 CE, 669 Y.Z. began on 1 January, and 670 Y.Z. on 31 December of
1484-406: Is a major difficulty for scholars. It has also been pointed out that the Pahlavi spelling does not express the 3rd century lenitions, so the letters p , t , k and c express /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ and /z/ after vowels, e.g. šp' for šab 'night' and hc for az 'from'. The rare phoneme /ɣ/ was also expressed by the same letter shape as k (however, this sound value is usually expressed in
1590-481: Is dedicated "to the earth and the sacred waters ", apas /Apas is not only necessary for nourishment, but is considered the source of life ("you that bear forth", "mothers of our life"). In Yasna 2.5 and 6.11, apas /Apas is "Mazda-made and holy". In the Aban Yasht ( Yasht 5), which is nominally dedicated to the waters, veneration is directed specifically at Aredvi Sura Anahita , another divinity identified with
1696-432: Is expressed in a synchronic alternation: at least at some stage in late Middle Persian (later than the 3rd century), the consonants /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ appear to have had, after vowels, the fricative allophones [ β ] , [ ð ] , [ɣ] . This is slightly more controversial for /ɡ/ , since there appears to have been a separate phoneme /ɣ/ as well. A parallel development seems to have affected /d͡ʒ/ in
1802-413: Is far more common for the letter l to have that function, as in the example plhw' for farrox . In the relatively rare cases where l does express /l/ , it can be marked as ɫ . Zoroastrian calendar Adherents of Zoroastrianism use three distinct versions of traditional calendars for liturgical purposes . Those all derive from medieval Iranian calendars and ultimately are based on
1908-569: Is in this particular late form of exclusively written Zoroastrian Middle Persian, in popular imagination the term 'Pahlavi' became synonymous with Middle Persian itself. The ISO 639 language code for Middle Persian is pal , which reflects the post-Sasanian era use of the term Pahlavi to refer to the language and not only the script. In the classification of the Iranian languages, the Middle Period includes those languages which were common in Iran from
2014-399: Is nevertheless often the old pronunciation or a transitional one that is reflected in the Pahlavi spelling. 2. Voiceless stops and affricates, when occurring after vowels as well as other voiced sounds, became voiced: This process is thought not to have been taken place before Sassanid Pahlavi, and it generally is not reflected in Pahlavi spelling. A further stage in this lenition process
2120-719: Is spelt mtr' . In contrast, the Manichaean spellings are gʾh , ngʾh , šhr , myhr . Some other words with earlier /θ/ are spelt phonetically in Pahlavi, too: e.g. gēhān , spelt gyhʾn 'material world', and čihr , spelt cyhl 'face'. There are also some other cases where /h/ is spelt /t/ after p : ptkʾl for pahikār 'strife', and /t/ may also stand for /j/ in that position: ptwnd for paywand 'connection'. There are some other phoneme pairs besides /j/ and /d͡ʒ/ that are not distinguished: h (the original Aramaic ḥ ) may stand either for /h/ or for /x/ ( hm for ham 'also' as well as hl for xar 'donkey'), whereas
2226-427: Is that Arsacid word-initial /j/ produced Sassanid /d͡ʒ/ (another change that is not reflected in the Pahlavi spelling). The sound probably passed through the phase /ʒ/ , which may have continued until very late Middle Persian, since Manichaean texts did not identify Indic /d͡ʒ/ with it and introduced a separate sign for the former instead of using the letter for their native sound. Nonetheless, word-initial /j/
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#17328527677502332-408: Is the traditional calendar in use since 1006 CE. In 1006 CE, the month Frawardin had returned to the correct position so that 1 Frawardin coincided with the northern vernal equinox. The religious festivals were therefore returned to their traditional months, with Nawruz once again being celebrated on 1 Frawardin. The Julian Day Number corresponding to 16 June 632 CE
2438-533: The Bundahishn , ('Original Creation', an 11th- or 12th-century text), aban was the second of the seven creations of the material universe, the lower half of everything. In a development of a cosmogonical view already alluded to in the Vendidad (21.15), aban is the essence of a "great gathering place of the waters" (Avestan: Vourukasha , middle Persian: Varkash ) upon which the world ultimately rested. The great sea
2544-545: The Babylonian calendar as used in the Achaemenid empire . Qadimi ("ancient") is a traditional reckoning introduced in 1006. Shahanshahi ("imperial") is a calendar reconstructed from the 10th century text Denkard . Fasli is a term for a 1906 adaptation of the 11th century Jalali calendar following a proposal by Kharshedji Rustomji Cama made in the 1860s. A number of Calendar eras are in use: The Babylonian calendar
2650-521: The Hijri calendar . sha'aban meaning The Zoroastrian name-day feast of Abanagan , also known as the Aban Ardvisur Jashan by Indian Zoroastrians (see: Parsis ), is celebrated on the day that the day-of-month and month-of-year dedications intersect, that is, on the tenth day of the eighth month. The celebration is accompanied by a practice of offering sweets and flowers to a river or the sea. From among
2756-647: The Pahlavi Psalter (7th century); these were used until the beginning of the second millennium in many places in Central Asia , including Turpan and even localities in South India . All three differ minimally from one another and indeed the less ambiguous and archaizing scripts of the latter two have helped to elucidate some aspects of the Sasanian-era pronunciation of the former. The vowels of Middle Persian were
2862-568: The Sasanian Empire . For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle Persian continued to function as a prestige language . It descended from Old Persian , the language of the Achaemenid Empire and is the linguistic ancestor of Modern Persian , the official language of Iran (also known as Persia) , Afghanistan ( Dari ) and Tajikistan ( Tajik ). "Middle Iranian" is the name given to
2968-517: The Solar Hejri calendar. This is strictly tied to the actual northward equinox, rather than a mathematical approximation to it. An Iranian day is reckoned to begin at midnight. Iranian time is 3.5 hours ahead of GMT . New Year's Day is defined to be the day, as reckoned by Iranian time, when the northward equinox (the precise moment in time when northern and southern hemispheres of the Earth pass through
3074-579: The imperial variety of the Aramaic alphabet used in the chancelleries of the Achaemenid Empire . As is typical of abjads, they express primarily the consonants in a word form. What sets them apart from other abjads, however, is the use of Heterograms , and more specifically Aramaeograms , i.e. words written in Aramaic (sometimes, in later periods, with distortions) but pronounced in Middle Persian: e.g. LY (Aramaic 'to me') for man 'me, I'. There were about
3180-481: The w and n have the same graphic appearance. Furthermore, letters used as part of Aramaic heterograms and not intended to be interpreted phonetically are written in capitals: thus the heterogram for the word ān is rendered ZK , whereas its phonetic spelling is transliterated as ʾn' (the final vertical line reflects the so-called 'otiose' stroke, see below ). Finally, there is a convention of representing 'distorted/corrupt' letters, which 'should' have appeared in
3286-442: The "old" language (i.e. Middle Persian) and Aramaic-derived writing system. In time, the name of the writing system, pahlavi "Parthian", began to be applied to the "old" Middle Persian language as well, thus distinguishing it from the "new" language, farsi . Consequently, 'pahlavi' came to denote the particularly Zoroastrian, exclusively written, late form of Middle Persian. Since almost all surviving Middle Persian literature
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3392-412: The 10th–11th centuries, Middle Persian texts were still intelligible to speakers of Early New Persian. However, there are definite differences that had taken place already by the 10th century: Texts in Middle Persian are found in remnants of Sasanian inscriptions and Egyptian papyri , coins and seals, fragments of Manichaean writings , and Zoroastrian literature , most of which was written down after
3498-640: The 5th century BCE Aredvi was conflated with a Semitic divinity with similar attributes, from whom she then inherited additional properties. In other Avesta texts, the waters are implicitly associated with [Spenta] Armaiti (middle Persian Spendarmad ), the Amesha Spenta of the earth (this association is properly developed in Bundahishn 3.17). In Yasna 3.1, the eminence of Aban is reinforced by additionally assigning guardianship to another Amesha Spenta Haurvatat (middle Persian: (K)hordad ). According to
3604-774: The 7th-century, the Sassanids were overthrown by the Arabs. Under Arab influence, Iranian languages began to be written in Arabic script (adapted to Iranian phonology ), while Middle Persian began to rapidly evolve into New Persian and the name parsik became Arabicized farsi . Not all Iranians were comfortable with these Arabic-influenced developments, in particular, members of the literate elite, which in Sassanid times consisted primarily of Zoroastrian priests. Those former elites vigorously rejected what they perceived as ' Un-Iranian ', and continued to use
3710-420: The Aramaic distinctions between ḥ and h and between k and q were not always maintained, with the first often replacing the second, and the one between t and ṭ was lost in all but Inscriptional Pahlavi: thus YKTLWN (pronounced о̄zadan ) for Aramaic yqṭlwn 'kill', and YHWWN (pronounced būdan ) for Aramaic yhwwn 'be', even though Aramaic h is elsewhere rendered E . In the rest of this article,
3816-477: The Aramaic script of Palmyrene origin. Mani used this script to write the known book Šābuhrāgān and it continued to be used by Manichaeans until the 9th century to write in Middle Persian, and in various other Iranian languages for even longer. Specifically the Middle Persian Manichaean texts are numerous and thought to reflect mostly the period from the 3rd to the 7th centuries CE. In contrast to
3922-447: The Arsacid sound values, but is known from the more phonetic Manichaean spelling of texts from Sassanid times. As a result of these changes, the voiceless stops and affricates /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , /t͡ʃ/ rarely occurred after vowels – mostly when geminated, which has protected them from the lenition (e.g. waččag , sp. wck' 'child'), and due to some other sound changes. Another difference between Arsacid and Sassanid-era pronunciation
4028-494: The Avesta also retain some old features, most other Zoroastrian Book Pahlavi texts (which form the overwhelming majority of the Middle Persian corpus as a whole) are linguistically more innovative. In view of the many ambiguities of the Pahlavi script, even its transliteration does not usually limit itself to rendering merely the letters as written; rather, letters are usually transliterated in accordance with their origin regardless of
4134-634: The British river Avon . In both Avestan and Vedic Sanskrit texts, the waters—whether as waves or drops, or collectively as streams, pools, rivers or wells—are represented by the Apas, the group of divinities of the waters. The identification of divinity with element is complete in both cultures : in the Rig Veda the divinities are wholesome to drink, in the Avesta the divinities are good to bathe in. As also in
4240-647: The Fasili Society, and since the Iranian national calendar had also retained the Zoroastrian names of the months, it was not a big step to integrate the two. The Bastani calendar was duly accepted by many of the Zoroastrians. Many orthodox Iranian Zoroastrians, especially the Sharifabadis of Yazd , continued to use the Qadimi, however. In 1906 CE, Nawruz of 1276 Y.Z. fell on 15 August for followers of
4346-605: The Fasli calendar as Webster's online dictionary and various unreferenced sources state that the Fasli calendar follows the Gregorian, and it is shown strictly following the Gregorian calendar in the period AD 2009–2031 in the tables published by R. E. Kadva. The Gregorian calendar itself, however, will not keep 21 March as the date of the northern vernal equinox forever – it has a deviation of one day every 5025 years. The civil calendar in Iran since 31 March 1925 CE has been
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4452-450: The Gatha days 15–19 March. Mareshpand Jashan is on 13 March. The leap day, 20 March, called Avardad-sal-Gah , is considered a duplication of Wahishtoisht , the fifth Gatha day, but is not reckoned as Mukhtad or Hamaspathmaidyem. 21 March 2000 CE was Nowruz and the first day of 1370 Y.Z. (or 3738 ZRE) according to the Fasli reckoning. Ali Jafarey describes
4558-490: The Indian religious texts, the waters are considered a primordial element. In Zoroastrian cosmogony, the waters are the second creation, after that of the sky. Aside from Apas herself/themselves, no less than seven Zoroastrian divinities are identified with the waters: All three Ahuras ( Mazda , Mithra , Apam Napat ), two Amesha Spentas ( Haurvatat , Armaiti ) and two lesser Yazatas ( Aredvi Sura Anahita and Ahurani ). Abans,
4664-477: The Manichaean script and a maximally disambiguated transliterated form of Pahlavi do not provide exhaustive information about the phonemic structure of Middle Persian words, a system of transcription is also necessary. There are two traditions of transcription of Pahlavi Middle Persian texts: one closer to the spelling and reflecting the Arsacid-era pronunciation, as used by Ch. Bartholomae and H. S. Nyberg (1964) and
4770-560: The Pahlavi scripts, it is a regular and unambiguous phonetic script that expresses clearly the pronunciation of 3rd century Middle Persian and distinguishes clearly between different letters and sounds, so it provides valuable evidence to modern linguists. Not only did it not display any of the Pahlavi coalescences mentioned above, it also had special letters that enabled it to distinguish [p] and [f] (although it didn't always do so), as well as [j] and [d͡ʒ] , unique designations for [β] , [ð] , and [ɣ] , and consistent distinctions between
4876-523: The Pahlavi spellings will be indicated due to their unpredictability, and the Aramaeograms will be given priority over the 'phonetic' alternatives for the same reason. If a word expressed by an Arameogram has a grammatical ending or, in many cases, a word-formation suffix, these are generally expressed by phonetic elements: LYLYA ʾn for šab ʾn 'nights'. However, verbs in Inscriptional Pahlavi are sometimes written as 'bare ideograms', whose interpretation
4982-502: The Qadimi calendar, and 14 September for those observing Shahanshahi. There was therefore a six-month gap between the Fasli and Qadimi New Year observances, and a seven-month gap to the Shahanshahi. Since there is exactly one Fasli year for every Gregorian year, then day one of the proleptic Fasli calendar would be 21 March (Gregorian) 631 CE, with Year 2 beginning on 21 March 632 CE. But Yazdegird III did not ascend
5088-503: The Qadimi reckoning. Other Parsis continued to use the reckoning which had become traditional in India, and call their calendar Shahanshahi . Arzan Lali the author of Zoroastrian Calendar Services (ZCS) website (zcserv.com) comments that "... adherents of other variants of the Zoroastrian calendar denigrate the Shenshai or Shahenshahi as 'royalist'." 21 August 2000 CE was Nawruz, and
5194-478: The Sasanian era. The language of Zoroastrian literature (and of the Sasanian inscriptions) is sometimes referred to as Pahlavi – a name that originally referred to the Pahlavi scripts , which were also the preferred writing system for several other Middle Iranian languages. Pahlavi Middle Persian is the language of quite a large body of literature which details the traditions and prescriptions of Zoroastrianism , which
5300-667: The Seleucids, continued the Seleucid/Hellenic tradition. In 224 CE, when the Babylonian calendar was replaced by the Zoroastrian, 1 Frawardin and the New Year celebration of Nawruz had drifted to 1 October. The older custom of counting regnal years from the monarch's coronation was reinstated. At this point the calendar was realigned with the seasons by delaying the epagemonai by eight months (so that they now preceded
5406-408: The Yazdegirdi Era is therefore 1952093 + ( Y − 1) × 365. At the start of the 20th century, Khurshedji Cama , a Bombay Parsi , founded the "Zarthosti Fasili Sal Mandal", or Zoroastrian Seasonal-Year Society. In 1906, the society published its proposal for a Zoroastrian calendar which was synchronised with the seasons. This Fasli calendar, as it became known,
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#17328527677505512-453: The attention of the priests of Surat , but no consensus as to which calendar was correct was reached. Around 1740 CE, some influential priests argued that since their visitor had been from the ancient 'homeland', his version of the calendar must be correct, and their own must be wrong. On 6 June 1745 CE (Julian), a number of Parsis in and around Surat adopted the calendar which had continued in use in Iran, now to be identified as
5618-429: The cluster *θr in particular), but it had been replaced by /h/ by the Sassanid period: The phoneme /ɣ/ (as opposed to the late allophone of /ɡ/ ) is rare and occurs almost only in learned borrowings from Avestan and Parthian , e.g. moγ (Pahlavi mgw or mwg 'Magian'), maγ (Pahlavi mγ ) 'hole, pit'. The sound /ʒ/ may also have functioned as a marginal phoneme in borrowings as well. The phoneme /l/
5724-411: The coinciding forms: thus, even though Book Pahlavi has the same letter shapes for original n , w and r , for original ʾ and ḥ and for original d , g and y , besides having some ligatures that coincide in shape with certain individual letters, these are all transliterated differently. For instance, the spelling of gōspand 'domestic animal' is transliterated gwspnd in spite of the fact that
5830-521: The early Middle Persian of the Arsacid period (until the 3rd century CE) and the Middle Persian of the Sassanid period (3rd – 7th century CE) is due to a process of consonant lenition after voiced sounds that took place during the transition between the two. Its effects were as follows: 1. Voiced stops, when occurring after vowels, became semivowels : This process may have taken place very early, but it
5936-487: The end of the year. New Year's Day would be kept on the northward vernal equinox , and if the leap-day was applied correctly, would not drift away from the spring. The Fasli society also claimed that their calendar was an accurate religious calendar, as opposed to the other two calendars, which they asserted were only political. The new calendar received little support from the Indian Zoroastrian community, since it
6042-610: The fall of the Achaemenid Empire in the fourth century BCE up to the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the seventh century CE. The most important and distinct development in the structure of Iranian languages of this period is the transformation from the synthetic form of the Old Period ( Old Persian and Avestan ) to an analytic form: The modern-day descendants of Middle Persian are New Persian and Luri . The changes between late Middle and Early New Persian were very gradual, and in
6148-505: The first day of 1370 Y.Z. (or 3738 ZRE) according to the Shahanshahi reckoning. Because the one-off intercalation of 30 days happened sometime before the Nawruz of 1129 CE, we can be confident that in that Julian year, 498 YZ began on 12 February by the Qadimi reckoning, but 14 March by the recently introduced Shahanshahi. The Julian Day Number of Nawruz, the first day, of all subsequent Shahanshahi years Y of
6254-462: The first years after implementation of the new Gatha days, the population had not universally adopted the new dates for religious festivals, resulting in "official" celebrations takings place five days earlier than popular celebrations. In later years the population had observed the Gatha days, but the original five day discrepancy persisted. Hormazd's reform was to link the popular and official observance dates to form continual six-day feasts. Nawruz
6360-438: The five-day festival of Hamaspathmaidyem , on the five Gatha days. The penultimate day of the twelfth month is Mareshpand Jashan . In a common year (non-leap year) of the Fasli observance, Mukhtad is observed 11–20 March, with Hamaspathmaidyem and the Gatha days 16–20 March. Mareshpand Jashan is on 14 March. In a leap year of the Fasli observance, Mukhtad is observed 10–19 March, with Hamaspathmaidyem and
6466-418: The flowers associated with the yazatas , aban 's is the water-lily ( Bundahishn 27.24). Middle Persian Middle Persian , also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script : 𐭯𐭠𐭫𐭮𐭩𐭪 , Manichaean script : 𐫛𐫀𐫡𐫘𐫏𐫐 , Avestan script : 𐬞𐬀𐬭𐬯𐬍𐬐 ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of
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#17328527677506572-479: The following: It has been doubted whether the Middle Persian short mid vowels /e/ and /o/ were phonemic , since they do not appear to have a unique continuation in later forms of Persian and no minimal pairs have been found. The evidence for them is variation between spelling with and without the matres lectionis y and w , as well as etymological considerations. They are thought to have arisen from earlier /a/ in certain conditions, including, for /e/ ,
6678-467: The later forms are an (Manichaean ՚n ), and meh (Pahlavi ms and Manichaean myh ); indeed, some scholars have reconstructed them as monosyllabic any , mahy even for Middle Persian. Middle Persian has been written in a number of different scripts. The corpora in different scripts also exhibit other linguistic differences that are partly due to their different ages, dialects and scribal traditions. The Pahlavi scripts are abjads derived from
6784-496: The letter p to express /f/ , and ṣ to express z after a vowel. The widespread use of Aramaeograms in Pahlavi, often existing in parallel with 'phonetic' spellings, has already been mentioned: thus, the same word hašt 'eight' can be spelt hšt or TWMNYA . A curious feature of the system is that simple word stems sometimes have spellings derived from Aramaic inflected forms: the spellings of verb stems include Aramaic inflectional affixes such as -WN , -TWN or -N and Y- ;
6890-544: The middle stage of development of the numerous Iranian languages and dialects . The middle stage of the Iranian languages begins around 450 BCE and ends around 650 CE. One of those Middle Iranian languages is Middle Persian, i.e. the middle stage of the language of the Persians, an Iranian people of Persia proper , which lies in the south-western highlands on the border with Babylonia . The Persians called their language Parsig , meaning "Persian". Another Middle Iranian language
6996-553: The northward equinox always fell at such a time that New Year's Day in Iran occurred on the day called 21 March in the Western calendar. But this equivalence was not always true before March 1960, and the exact correspondence broke down again in 1996. In 1959, and at four-year intervals back to 1927, Iranian New Year's Day fell on 22 March in the Gregorian calendar. In 1996, and subsequent Gregorian leap years, Iranian New Year's Day falls on 20 March. The pattern will shift back to
7102-437: The other hand, is sometimes rendered as ẖ . For original ṭ , the sign ṯ is used. The special Manichaean letters for /x/ , /f/ , [β] , /ɣ/ and [ð] are transcribed in accordance with their pronunciation as x , f , β , γ and δ . Unlike Pahlavi, the Manichaean script uses the letter Ayin also in Iranian words (see below) and it is transliterated in the usual Semitological way as ՙ . Since, like most abjads, even
7208-527: The pairs [x] – [h] and [r] – [l] . Since knowledge of Pahlavi decreased after the Muslim conquest of Iran , the Zoroastrians occasionally transcribed their religious texts into other, more accessible or unambiguous scripts. One approach was to use the Avestan alphabet , a practice known as Pazand ; another was to resort to the same Perso-Arabic script that was already being used for New Persian , and that
7314-504: The point of the Earth's orbit when they are equally illuminated by the Sun) occurs on or before noon of that day , or during the 12 hours following the noon of the preceding day . This means that the pattern of leap years in the Iranian calendar is complex – usually following a 33-year cycle where the leap day is inserted every fourth year, but in year 33 instead of year 32, but with occasional 29 year cycles. From 1960 to 1995,
7420-473: The presence of a following /n/ , sibilant or front vowel in the next syllable, and for /o/ , the presence of a following labial consonant or the vowel /u/ in the next syllable. Long /eː/ and /oː/ had appeared first in Middle Persian, since they had developed from the Old Persian diphthongs /ai/ and /aw/ . The consonant phonemes were the following: A major distinction between the pronunciation of
7526-405: The reign of Yazdegird III (632–651 CE), the religious celebrations were again somewhat adrift with respect to their proper seasons. The calendar had continued to slip against the Julian calendar since the previous reform at the rate of one day every four years. Therefore, in 632, the new year was celebrated on 16 June. By the 9th century, the Zoroastrian theologian Zadspram had noted that
7632-442: The same position, possibly earlier; not only was it weakened to a fricative [ʒ] , but it was also depalatalised to [z] . In fact, old Persian [d͡ʒ] and [ʒ] in any position also produced [z] . Unlike the case with the spirantisation of stops, this change is uncontroversially recognised for Sassanid times. The lenition of voiceless stops and affricates remained largely unexpressed in Pahlavi spelling, which continues to reflect
7738-468: The same year. The Shahanshahi calendar (also Shahenshahi, Shahenshai ) or "imperial" calendar is the system described in Denkard , a 9th-century Zoroastrian text. It explicitly acknowledged several methods of intercalation: 1,461 Zoroastrian years equal 1,460 Julian years. The Denkard then states: The Denkard – which was not Zoroastrian scripture but a religious manual – therefore favoured
7844-441: The six-day festivals were compressed to five days. The major feasts, or gahambars , of contemporary Zoroastrian practice, are still kept as five-day observances today. The Bundahishn , a pseudo-Avestan treatise written in the early Islamic period (8th or 9th century) replaces the "Age of Alexander" with an "Ageo of Zoroaster", placed "258 years before Alexander" (consistent with the date given by Ammianus Marcellinus ). By
7950-582: The solution of a leap-month once every 120 years, with a fall-back of adding 5 months after 600 years if this were missed. This practice was not, however, adopted by Zoroastrians living in Islamic Persia. The Parsis had knowledge of The Denkard's proposal: at some point between 1125 and 1129, the Parsi-Zoroastrians of the Indian subcontinent inserted such an embolismic month , named Aspandarmad vahizak (the month of Aspandarmad but with
8056-411: The spellings of pronouns are often derived from Aramaic prepositional phrases ( tо̄ 'you' is LK , originally Aramaic lk 'to you', о̄y 'he' is OLE , originally Aramaic ʿlh 'onto him'); and inalienable nouns are often noun phrases with pronominal modifiers ( pidar 'father' is ABYtl , originally Aramaic ʾby 'my father', pāy 'foot' is LGLE , originally Aramaic rglh 'his foot'). Furthermore,
8162-429: The start of the ninth month) and adjusting the dates of the gahanbar (farming festivals) accordingly. This caused confusion, since the new year now fell five days earlier than before, and some people continued to observe the old date. After 46 years (226–272 CE), with 1 Frawardin now on 19 September, another calendar reform was implemented by Ardashir's grandson Hormazd I (272–273 CE). During
8268-514: The state of affairs in living Middle Persian only indirectly. The surviving manuscripts are usually 14th-century copies. Other, less abundantly attested varieties are Manichaean Middle Persian , used for a sizable amount of Manichaean religious writings, including many theological texts, homilies and hymns (3rd–9th, possibly 13th century), and the Middle Persian of the Church of the East , evidenced in
8374-454: The state of affairs was less than optimal, and estimated that at the time of Final Judgement the two systems would be out of sync by four years. The current mainstream Zoroastrian reckoning of years' start date is on 16 June 632 CE. Yazdegird III was the last monarch of the Sasanian dynasty , and since the custom at that time was to count regnal years since the monarch ascended
8480-464: The suffix vahizak ). That month would also be the last month intercalated: subsequent generations of Parsis neglected to insert a thirteenth month. Around 1720 CE, an Iranian Zoroastrian priest named Jamasp Peshotan Velati travelled from Iran to India. Upon his arrival, he discovered that there was a difference of a month between the Parsi calendar and his own calendar. Velati brought this discrepancy to
8586-465: The tenth day of the month is dedicated to the (divinity of) waters ( Siroza 1.10), under whose protection that day then lies. Additionally, Aban is also the name of the eighth month of the year of the Zoroastrian calendar ( Bundahishn 1a.23-24), as well as that of the Iranian calendar of 1925, which follows Zoroastrian month-naming conventions. It might be the precursor of the holy month of Sha'aban in
8692-454: The throne until 19 June 632 CE (Gregorian), leading to the curious quirk that the base date for the reckoning of years ends up in Year ;2 of the Fasli calendar. The Zoroastrian year, in Qadimi and Shahanshahi observance, concludes with ten days in memory of departed souls: five Mukhtad days on the last 5 days of the 12th month, and five more Mukhtad days, which are also
8798-455: The throne, the reckoning of years was continued, in the absence of a Zoroastrian monarch, under Islamic rule. Zoroastrian dates are distinguished by the suffix Y.Z. for "Yazdegirdi Era". The usage "AY" is also found. Isolated pockets of Asia Minor use an alternative reckoning of years which predates the Yazdegirdi Era, being based on a supposed date of the birth of Zoroaster on 3 March 389 BC. On this calendar, 22 July 2000 CE
8904-451: The transition of /θ/ to /h/ in some words (in front of /r/ this reflex is due to Parthian influence, since the Middle Persian reflex should have been /s/ ). In such words, the spelling may have s or, in front of r – t . For example, gāh 'place, time' is spelt gʾs (cf. Old Persian gāθu ) and nigāh '(a) look' is spelt nkʾs ; šahr 'country, town' is spelt štr' (cf. Avestan xsaθra ) and mihr 'Mithra, contract, friendship'
9010-628: The transliteration). Similarly, the letter d may stand for /j/ after a vowel, e.g. pʾd for pāy 'foot' – this is no longer apparent in Book Pahlavi due to the coincidence of the shapes of the original letters y , d and g , but is already clearly seen in Inscriptional and Psalter Pahlavi. Indeed, it even appears to have been the general rule word-finally, regardless of the word's origins, although modern transliterations of words like xwadāy ( xwtʾd ) and mēnōy ( mynwd ) do not always reflect this analogical / pseudo-historical spelling. Final īy
9116-475: The use of original Aramaic h is restricted to heterograms (transliterated E in MacKenzie's system, e.g. LGLE for pāy 'foot'). Not only /p/ , but also the frequent sound /f/ is expressed by the letter p , e.g. plhw' for farrox 'fortunate'. While the original letter r is retained in some words as an expression of the sound /r/ , especially in older frequent words and Aramaeograms (e.g. štr' for šahr 'country, town', BRTE for duxt 'daughter'), it
9222-414: The waters, but originally representing the "world river" that encircled the earth (see In tradition , below). The merger of the two concepts "probably" came about due to prominence given to Aredvi Sura during the reign of Artaxerxes II ( r. 404-358 BCE) and subsequent Achaemenid emperors. Although (according to Lommel and Boyce) Aredvi is of Indo-Iranian origin and cognate with Vedic Saraswati , during
9328-423: The waters." Avestan apas (from singular āpō ) is grammatically feminine, and the Apas are female. The Middle Persian equivalents are ābān /Ābān (alt: āvān /Āvān), from which Parsi Gujarati āvā /Āvā (in religious usage only) derive. The Avestan common noun āpas corresponds exactly to Vedic Sanskrit āpas , and both derive from the same proto-Indo-Iranian word, stem *ap- "water", cognate with
9434-572: The year 3738 ZRE began in 2000 CE. The Zoroastrian community, both in Iran and in diaspora, have also been said to have accepted it, the former doing so in 1993 CE. A briefing paper from the Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe indicates that they recognise this usage to have been pragmatically adopted by Zoroastrians in Iran, while the diaspora continues to use the YZ system. The Qadimi (also Qadmi, Kadimi, Kudmi ) or "ancient" calendar
9540-504: Was Parthian , i.e. the language of the northwestern Iranian peoples of Parthia proper , which lies along the southern/south-eastern edge of the Caspian sea and is adjacent to the boundary between western and eastern Iranian languages. The Parthians called their language Parthawig , meaning "Parthian". Via regular sound changes Parthawig became Pahlawig , from which the word 'Pahlavi' eventually evolved. The -ig in parsig and parthawig
9646-732: Was a regular Middle Iranian appurtenant suffix for "pertaining to". The New Persian equivalent of -ig is -i . When the Arsacids (who were Parthians) came to power in the 3rd-century BCE, they inherited the use of written Greek (from the successors of Alexander the Great ) as the language of government. Under the cultural influence of the Greeks ( Hellenization ), some Middle Iranian languages, such as Bactrian , also had begun to be written in Greek script . But yet other Middle Iranian languages began to be written in
9752-516: Was adopted for at least four other Middle Iranian languages, one of which was Middle Persian. In the 3rd-century CE, the Parthian Arsacids were overthrown by the Sassanids , who were natives of the south-west and thus spoke Middle Persian as their native language. Under Sassanid hegemony, the Middle Persian language became a prestige dialect and thus also came to be used by non-Persian Iranians. In
9858-576: Was an exception: the first and the sixth days of the month were celebrated as different occasions. Lesser Nawruz was observed on 1 Frawardin. 6 Frawardin became Greater Nawruz , a day of special festivity. Around the 10th century CE, the Greater Nawruz was associated with the return of the legendary king, Jamsed; in contemporary practice it is kept as the symbolic observance of Zoroaster's birthday, or Khordad Sal . Mary Boyce has argued that sometime between 399 CE and 518 CE
9964-589: Was based on the Jalali calendar introduced in 1079 during the reign of the Seljuk Malik Shah and which had been well received in agrarian communities. The Fasli proposal had two useful features: a leap-day once every four years, and harmony with the tropical year. The leap-day, called Avardad-sal-Gah (or in Pahlavi: Ruzevahizak ), would be inserted, when required, after the five existing Gatha days at
10070-688: Was considered to contradict the injunctions expressed in the Denkard. In Iran, however, the Fasli calendar gained momentum following a campaign in 1930 to persuade the Iranian Zoroastrians to adopt it, under the title of the Bastani (traditional) calendar. In AD 1925, the Iranian Parliament had introduced a new Iranian calendar , which (independent of the Fasli movement) incorporated both points proposed by
10176-509: Was fed by a mighty river (proto-Indo-Iranian: *harahvati , Avestan: Aredvi Sura , middle Persian: Ardvisur ). Two rivers, one to the east and one to the west, flowed out of it and encircled the earth ( Bundahishn 11.100.2, 28.8) where they were then cleansed by Puitika (Avestan, middle Persian: Putik ), the tidal sea, before flowing back into the Vourukasha . In the Zoroastrian calendar ,
10282-556: Was in fact preceded by a 360-day calendar of Zoroastrian observances. Following Alexander's invasion of Persia in 330 BCE, the Seleucid (312–248 BCE) instituted the Hellenic practice of counting years from the start of a fixed era , as opposed using regnal years . The regnal era of Alexander is now referred to as the Seleucid era . The Parthians (150–224 CE), who succeeded
10388-419: Was on the last syllable. That was due to the fact that any Old Persian post-stress syllables had been apocopated : It has been suggested that words such as anīy 'other' (Pahlavi spelling AHRN , AHRNy d , Manichaean ՚ny ) and mahīy 'bigger' (Manichaean mhy ) may have been exceptionally stressed on the first syllable, since the last one was apocopated already in the course of the Middle Persian period:
10494-452: Was referred to as Pārsī. Since these methods were used at a relatively late linguistic stage, these transcriptions often reflect a very late pronunciation close to New Persian. In general, Inscriptional Pahlavi texts have the most archaic linguistic features, Manichaean texts and the Psalter exhibit slightly later, but still relatively early language stages, and while the Pahlavi translations of
10600-425: Was regularly written y d . In the same way, (w)b may also correspond to a w in the pronunciation after a vowel. The fortition of initial /j/ to /d͡ʒ/ (or /ʒ/ ) is not reflected either, so y can express initial /d͡ʒ/ , e.g. yʾm for ǰām 'glass' (while it still expresses /j/ in the learned word y z dt' for yazd 'god'). Some even earlier sound changes are not consistently reflected either, such as
10706-555: Was retained/reintroduced in learned borrowings from Avestan . Furthermore, some forms of Middle Persian appear to have preserved ǰ (from Proto-Iranian /d͡ʒ/ or /t͡ʃ/ ) after n due to Parthian influence, instead of the usual weakening to z . This pronunciation is reflected in Book Pahlavi, but not in Manichaean texts: Judging from the spelling, the consonant /θ/ may have been pronounced before /r/ in certain borrowings from Parthian in Arsacid times (unlike native words, which had /h/ for earlier *θ in general and /s/ for
10812-446: Was still relatively rare as well, especially so in Manichaean texts, mostly resulting from Proto-Iranian *rd, *rz and, more rarely, *r. It also occurred in the combination /hl/ , which was a reflex of Old Persian /rθ/ and /rs/ (cf. the words 'Pahlavi' and 'Parthian'). The sound /xw/ may be viewed as a phoneme or merely as a combination of /x/ and /w/ . Usually /x/ , /xw/ and /ɣ/ are considered to have been velar ;
10918-518: Was the 'New Year's Day' or Nawruz , from which all other religious observances were reckoned – this day being, in theory, the day of the northern vernal equinox . A 365-day calendar, with months largely identical to the Egyptian calendar , was introduced shortly after the conquest of Egypt by the Achaemenid ruler Cambyses ( c. 525 BCE). Scholars are divided on whether this 365 day calendar
11024-553: Was the first day of Zoroastrian year 2390. Yet another form of reckoning is the Zarathushtrian (Zoroastrian) Religious Era (Z.E.R./ZRE), adopted in 1990 CE by the Zarathushtrian Assembly of California. This is based on the putative association of the mission of Zoroaster with the dawn of the astrological Age of Aries , calculated for this purpose to have been the northern vernal equinox of 1738 BCE. Hence
11130-491: Was the state religion of Sasanian Iran (224 to c. 650) before the Muslim conquest of Persia . The earliest texts in Zoroastrian Middle Persian were probably written down in late Sasanian times (6th–7th centuries), although they represent the codification of earlier oral tradition. However, most texts date from the ninth to the 11th century, when Middle Persian had long ceased to be a spoken language, so they reflect
11236-455: Was used in the Achaemenid Empire by the 4th century BCE for civil purposes. The earliest Zoroastrian calendar (also misleadingly called " Avestan calendar" ) follows the Babylonian in relating the seventh and other days of the month to Ahura Mazda . Like all ancient calendars, the Babylonian calendar was lunisolar . It used an intercalary month roughly once every six years. In the civil calendar, intercalations did not always follow
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