PAHLAVI (pli'la-v0 LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE ( from Pers. Pahlav, hero, name of a district about Ispahan, from ()Pers. ParOava, Parthia: cf. Skt. Pah(ara, Persian). The lan guage and literature of the middle Persian period, extending from the third to the ninth or tenth century A.D. The language is closely akin to Old Persian (q.v.) and Modern Persian (see PERSIAN LANGUAGE ) , although it stands far nearer to tho latter than to the former. In its phonology Pahlavi in the main agrees with modern Persian. The principal divergencies are as follows: Origi nal initial a. lost in Persian, is still found in Pahlavi, as Pahlavi °natal& Persian twin 'hopeless,' Pahlavi (mak, Persian niik, 'evil:' the diphthongs e and 6 ( Indo- I ran bi n /pi, au, Sanskrit 6, 6. Avesta am', Go) are retained unchanged in Pahlavi. except that in the later period before in and a they become 1, 0, while in Persian they are changed to i and a throughout, as Avesta daCra, Pahlavi dev (ef. the Armenian loan-word dcr), Avesta raoen/i, Pahlavi roz (cf. the Armenian loan-word roeik, 'daily bread'), Persian ruz, 'day:' hut Avesta (Mena, Pahlavi den, (ef. the Armenian loan-word den), din, Persian din, 'creed:' Avesta /tannin, Pahlavi, Persian Minn, 'sacred plant :' original intervocalie k and p are retained in Pahlavi, but become y, d, and b or r in Persian, as Old Persian badaka, 'slave,' Pahlavi bandak0n, Persian baodayan, 'slaves:' old Persian api. Pahlavi Op. Persian ab, 'water:' Old Persian niyapi..'nwr.•1 wrote.' Pahlavi nipi;dan, Persian niriidan. 'to write': initial v remains unchanged in Pahlavi. hut in Persian becomes b or q, as Oil Persian ragiy, Pahlavi ras, Persian has. :• Avesta vazra, Pahlavi vas, Persian has, 'much Irani:111 S is retained in Pahlavi, hut becomes h hi Persian, as Avc.ta, kasu, Pahlavi 1,-as. Persian kah, 'small.' Like modern Persian! Pahlavi has lost all the nominal inflections excepting the plural ending. as rfiban, 'soul,' plural rfibanan, and the i or izufa/ which serves to express the genitival and adjectival relations, as at-anal-4 atak. 'heat of the zun•i paganr, 'nobly horn wife.' The other ease relations are expressed by prepositions, as o rim/ gfift. 'lie said to him;' mahist pa `greatest in body frat0m men In anaan, 'first of men.' Plural adjectives in Pahlavi receive no termination unless they are employed as stantives. and them as a only if there Is no accompanying word to the plural. as davrandan, 'wicked (men),' but hamak an i buland kof, 'all the high mountains,' while the attributive adjective is invariable, as ittiik Ld(land, 'they arc good.' The comparative and superlative degrees arc formed by -tar, and -him or -hit respectively, as kup, `good,' hiiplar, 'bet ter toy, 'brave,' Jogai/in+, 'bravest ;' )cam, 'few,' • least."f The pronouns and numerals do not differ essentially from those found in modern Persian. The conjugation is very simple. The active voiee.alone remains, the passive being peri phrastic in its formation. The moods are indic ative, imperative, subjunctive (corresponding to the modern Persian prceative), and potential (corresponding to the Old Iranian optative), be sides a present, a past, and a future participle, and an active infinitive. The old tenses are the present and preterite; the other tenses, perfect, pluperfect, future perfect, present and perfect conditional, and perfect subjunctive, arc peri phrastic. The inflection of the verb is almost the same both in Pahlavi and in modern Persian, as may be seen from the following comparative table of the present Pahlavi daridano, and Per sian daridan, 'to tear:' From the grammatical sketch just given one might reasonably infer that Pahlavi was one of the easiest of languages. On the contrary, it
presents two problems of great difficulty. These are the alphabet and the Semitic forms which abound in the literature, which, though simple if the script were adequate, are often rendered extremely doubtful on account of the meagre alphabetical system. The Pahlavi alphabet, which is read from right to left, is based on an Aramaic script, and is closely related to that of the Avesta (q.v.). There are two varieties. the Chaldiran Pahlavi, used only in two of the oldest inscriptions iu the language. and the Sassanian Pahlavi, which became with some modifications the literary script, the so-called Book-Pahlavi. This latter alphabet is as follows: -The ambiguity of these single characters is complicated by the ligatures, as ,#), am, dm, h777•, T777, madonzam, , axfi, (tan, ail. atm, (tali, 11(1 r, Tan. ^tin, e§ra, 1.4n, dahion, iyar, ikon or igtin, ete.,of which therearea littlemore than a hundred, many of which admit of several different read ings. The fact must be emphasized, however, that the ambiguity is not so great as it seems at first sight. Since the alphabet is Semitic, the vowels are not written, for initial a is a con sonant in Semitic grammar, although i and Cs may be denoted, as in the Aramaic alphabet, by y and r. The Semitic words give a pe. euliar aspect to Pahlavi. They are not loan words, as is the case with the Arabic element in Persian, but seem to have been logograms, i.e. Semitic words were written, but Iranian words were pronounced. This may not only be inferred from the statement of Ammianus Marcellinus that Shapur 11. (e.30-c.379) was called Saansaan (i.e. Shilitin-Shah. Old Persian aiiiyaeiya egityaBiyanam, 'king of kings'), al though his coins bear the Aramaic equivalent, /nolkcia malkd, but it is stated positively by Ibn Mukatfa, who flourished about the middle of the tenth century. Be says that in their spelling, called Zardrign. one wrote for 'meat' the Ara maic bisrd, but read for this logogram the Ira nian equivalent gat, and in like manner for `bread,' one wrote the Aramaic fahnia, but read for it the Iranian nun. The Pahlavi which con tains both Iranian words and Aramaic logo grams is called Huzvaresch (Pahlavi A fizrarign. Persian Zrari§, Uzrari.§, L'zeurign ). The meaning of this term is uncertain, but of the many explana tions which have been advanced, that which con nects the word with the Avesta zbar, 'to be distort ed,' from which the Arabic verb zarram 'to con ceal, distort, falsify. deceive, trick, mislead,' has been borrowed, seems quite probable. If this etymology is correct, the term seems to have been employed on account of the disguise of the Iranian words by the Aramaic logograms. Another plausible etymology connects the name with the obsolete Persian zuvaridan, 'to be old or worn out,' in allusion to the archaic Per sian found in Pahlavi as compared with the modern language. There is a native lexicon, known as the Sassanian Frahang or Fraktnig-i l'rnhlsvly, which gives a list of about 1300 Semitic logograms with their Iranian equiva lents. The difficulties of Huzvaresch led at a later period to a transcription from the Pahlavi characters. The Semitic logograms were then omitted, and in their stead their Iranian equiva lents were written. The term applied to this Iranizcd Pahlavi is Pazend or Parsi, although usage differs somewhat, as some authorities call the texts Pazend and the language Parsi, while the more common and better distinction defines the transcription in Avesta letters as Pazend, while that in Persian and Gujarati script is called Parsi.