PAHLAVICA PROJECT

An Encyclopedia for Middle Persian from PIE to New Persian (Dialects)

“PAHLAVICA” Project is an online Zoroastrian Middle Persian Glossary which contains almost the entire corpus of the language.

It was February of 2017 when the project was started with a large amount of loan obtained. It took something about 3 years for the scientific and technical issues to be prepared.

This site serves all from students who are interested in historical linguistics and Zoroastrian Middle Persian to scholars who are inclined to have a holistic view of Zoroastrian Middle Persian from Proto-Indo-European to Middle and New Persian and even Iranian dialects.

This Website is self-funded for the time being and is going to look for financial support from those (Centers, universities, or people) who are fascinated by Iranian and Indo-European Comparative studies and Zoroastrian heritage.

Since our focus is on the language, its reconstruction, writing system, Arameograms, religion, and preparing teaching materials in almost all living languages, nothing about the Political history is going to be published on the site. Our main concern is to look at Pahlavi as a subdivision of Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family and at the same time a language with a lot of Arameograms having different reconstructions (which will be considered in a different phase).

Note: All the texts and Codices in Pahlavi will be uploaded in a searchable format.

Note: When a Pahlavi word is shown as the result, by clicking on it, its GIF will be activated to show how it is written.(will be added later).

Note: A thorough search is being done to find codices in Iran and all around the world.

All the books and papers regarding all aspects of the language and PIE, PII and PIr. reconstructions of Pahlavi words are being managed to be uploaded (with APA addresses) or those, not allowed to be uploaded, are prepared with APA addresses only.

This massive and ambitious project has been divided into different phases which are being completed day by day.

The Website is going to have different phases, pre-planned, but should be updated daily in order to get budget and develop the most comprehensive website of Pahlavi words /phrases from PIE to New Persian.

Note: The first phase of Website contains:

Pahlavi script (more than 7000 words) and new words are added on a regular basis. All the words are accompanied by Transliterations, Transcriptions, and meanings in English, Persian, German, and Dutch, along with PIE, PIIr. and PIr. reconstructions and the PIE meanings in English. The whole site is in Persian, English, German and Dutch.

When a word is searched there will be a “Note” part at the end of the page which any kind of analyses of the word may be mentioned and sometimes its equivalents in Sanskrit, Avestan, Old Persian, New Persian, and other Iranian dialects are offered as well.

Note: References

After searching a word its contextual references will be shown (see help).

Note: Since Pahlavica is being updated every day, one would see differences any time Pahlavica is refreshed.

Library (including all the existing Pahlavi texts, Codices and books on Pahlavi and related PIE reconstructions) will be uploaded almost every day.

Latest News (any news about Pahlavi Language, PIE to New Persian, Conferences and Archeological things and places including Pahlavi scripts) will be published online.

Videos (Teaching Pahlavi step by step, PIE/PIIr./PIr. Phonology) will be available for students.

I have to thank scientific supporters of the project:

Heartfelt thanks to Professor Alexander Lubotsky for providing me with PIE, PIIr. and PIr. reconstructions on Pahlavi words.

Sincere thanks to Professor William Malandra for providing me with a great Pahlavi Glossary (still working) and his two Pahlavi fonts (Bahram, Shapur).

Warm thanks to Professor Prods Oktor Skjaervo for letting me use his books and articles and providing me with his great “Introduction to Pahlavi” which is going to be published very soon in Persian.

Words in Pahlavi will also be shown using "Pahlavi" font sent to me by Professor P. O. Skjaervo.

Grateful thanks to my dear friend, Zeke Kassock, who provided me with his great books, the great Iranian Bundahišn, Ardā Wirāz-nāmag, Kār-nāmag ī Ardašīr ī Pābagān, Dādestān ī Mēnōy ī Xrad, ..

Note: it has to be mentioned that this is the first phase of the project (1.1) and most of the information is provisional. We do not claim to be the most comprehensive for the time being and we do not claim to be one hundred percent errorless or to be the first project on Iranian (Indo-European) languages, but we are going to prepare the most comprehensive and trustworthy encyclopedia of Middle Persian (from PIE to NP). Please let us know if there is any error on the site.

Amir Zamani (Project Manager and Editor)