|
The Old Persian language is an ancient tongue used in Persia by the Achaemenid kings and scribes. Old Persian alongside the Avesta is the oldest attested form of Iranian language. It is classified in the group of Western Iranian languages, subgroup of Indo-Iranian languages (and thus the Indo-European languages). The language was used in the inscriptions of the Achaemenid Emperors. Old Persian texts (including inscriptions, tablets and seals) have been found in Iran, Turkey and Egypt. It evolved into the Middle Persian language (Pahlavi) of Sassanid Iran, and eventually into the modern Persian language.
Script Old Persian was written from left to right in Old Persian cuneiform script, a semi-alphabetic syllabic Cuneiform script. Old Persian cuneiform contains 36 signs which represent consonants, vowels, or sequences of single consonants plus vowels, a set of three numbers (1, 10, 100), one word divider, and eight ideograms. The alphabet is phonetic in nature. Lexicon See also | ||||||||
|
| |||||||||
 |
|
| |