In the path of the alphabet / an historical account of the ancient beginnings and evolution of the modern alphabet

by Frances Delavan Page Jermain

CHAPTER XI.

FOR monumental purposes, the Persian cuneiform remained the official script of the empire conjointly with the Semitic Scythian cuneiform until the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, about 334 B. C., with which the period of the Achæmenids closed.

Immediately following this, the use of the Greek alphabet appears on coins and inscriptions, and this continued during the Greek domination in Persia under the successors of Alexander.

The early Arsacids, the Parthian kings who brought an end to the rule of the Greeks in Persia, used also for a time the Greek alphabet for monumental records and numismatic legends.

This, however, only lasted for a brief period, for a little later on we find that the Greek letters have given way to a variety of the Aramean alphabet, which evidently had been in general use for a long period as a cursive script.

This special variety of the Aramean belongs to a group of alphabets known as Pehlevi, and is the oldest of the group. The name Pehlevi is derived from the word Parthivi, signifying Parthian. It continued, however, to be applied not only to the alphabet which first appears in the early period of Parthian domination in Persia, but also to the later forms that developed under the Sassanian kings who succeeded the Arsacids, or Parthian kings.

The so called Zend alphabet was the latest of the Pehlevi, and appears during the later years of the Sassanian empire. Although the latest development of the Persian scripts, the Zend alphabet represents the most ancient form of Persian speech.

It was in these characters that some time during the Sassanian dynasty the Zend-Avesta, or sacred books of the Persians, were transcribed in the ancient speech of their origin, which have thus been preserved to the present day by the surviving representatives of this ancient faith.

The language expressed in the Gathas, or hymns, the most archaic portions of the Avesta, is in the ancient vernacular of eastern Persia; sometimes called “Old Bactrian,” and is the most archaic of Iranian dialects.