Inscriptional_Parthian

Inscriptional Parthian

Inscriptional Parthian

Parthian language coin script from 250 BC

Inscriptional Parthian is a script used to write the Parthian language on coins of Parthia from the time of Arsaces I (250 BC). It was also used for inscriptions of Parthian (mostly on clay fragments) and later Sasanian periods (mostly on official inscriptions).

Quick Facts Inscriptional Parthian, Script type ...
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Inscriptional Parthian is written right to left and the letters are not joined.

Parthian (above), along with Greek (below) and Middle Persian was being used in inscriptions of early Sasanian emperors. Shapur I's inscription at the Naqsh-e Rajab

Letters

Inscriptional Parthian uses 22 letters:[1]

More information Name[A], Image ...
  1. ^
    Letter names are based on the corresponding Imperial Aramaic characters[1]

Ligatures

Inscriptional Parthian uses seven standard ligatures:[1]

More information Ligature, Sequence ...

The letters sadhe (𐭑) and nun (𐭍) have swash tails which typically trail under the following letter.[1] For example:

More information Ligature, Sequence ...

Numbers

Inscriptional Parthian had its own numerals:

More information Value, Sign ...

Numbers are written right-to-left. Numbers without corresponding numerals are additive. For example, 158 is written as 𐭞𐭝𐭝𐭜𐭛𐭛‎ (100 + 20 + 20 + 10 + 4 + 4).[1]

Unicode

Main article: Inscriptional Parthian (Unicode block)

Inscriptional Parthian script was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 2009 with the release of version 5.2.

The Unicode block for Inscriptional Parthian is U+10B40–U+10B5F:

Inscriptional Parthian[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+10B4x 𐭀 𐭁 𐭂 𐭃 𐭄 𐭅 𐭆 𐭇 𐭈 𐭉 𐭊 𐭋 𐭌 𐭍 𐭎 𐭏
U+10B5x 𐭐 𐭑 𐭒 𐭓 𐭔 𐭕 𐭘 𐭙 𐭚 𐭛 𐭜 𐭝 𐭞 𐭟
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 15.1
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

References

  1. [1]
    Everson, Michael; Pournader, Roozbeh (2007-08-24). "L2/07-207R: Proposal for encoding the Inscriptional Parthian, Inscriptional Pahlavi, and Psalter Pahlavi scripts in the SMP of the UCS" (PDF).
  2. [2]
    Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, Inc. pp. 518. ISBN 978-0195079937.
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This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Inscriptional_Parthian, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.