Old Persian

The Old Persian language is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan). Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets, and seals of the Achaemenid era (c. 600 BCE to 300 BCE). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now present-day Iran, Romania (Gherla),Armenia, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt, the most important attestation by far being the contents of the Behistun Inscription (dated to 525 BCE). Recent research into the vast Persepolis Fortification Archive at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago have unearthed Old Persian tablets (2007). This new text shows that the Old Persian language was a written language in use for practical recording and not only for royal display.

Origin and overview

As a written language, Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. It is an Iranian language and as such a member of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscriptions. Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages which is attested in original texts.

Old Persian cuneiform

Old Persian cuneiform is a semi-alphabetic cuneiform script that was the primary script for the Old Persian language. Texts written in this cuneiform have been found in Persepolis, Susa, Hamadan, Armenia, Romania (Gherla), and along the Suez Canal. They were mostly inscriptions from the time period of Darius the Great and his son Xerxes. Later kings down to Artaxerxes III used more recent forms of the language classified as “pre-Middle Persian”.

History

Old Persian cuneiform is loosely inspired by the Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform; however, only one glyph, l(a) (𐎾), derives from that script's la (𒆷). (l^a did not occur in native Old Persian words, but was found in Akkadian borrowings.)

Scholars today mostly agree that the Old Persian script was invented by about 525 BC to provide monument inscriptions for the Achaemenid king Darius I, to be used at Behistun. While a few Old Persian texts seem to be inscribed during the reigns of Cyrus the Great (CMa, CMb, and CMc, all found at Pasargadae), the first Achaemenid emperor, or Arsames and Ariaramnes (AsH and AmH, both found at Hamadan), grandfather and great-grandfather of Darius I, all five, specially the later two, are generally agreed to have been later inscriptions.

Old Persian (Unicode block)

Old Persian is a Unicode block containing cuneiform characters for writing the Old Persian language of the Achaemenid Empire.

References