Talk:Pazend

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Questions[edit]

Thanks for your latest edit. Just two questions:

1. Are there manuscripts in which words like shah and sag are actually written out in full Avesta script (as an alternative to huzvarishn), while the rest is in normal Pahlavi script?

2. Am I quite wrong in thinking that the word pazand can also be used for Persian words written in normal Pahlavi script which are not huzvarishn (so that every word in Pahlavi is either huzvarishn or pazand)? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 14:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I had not heard of that before you wrote it, but took it at face value. There was a movement under the Sassanids to get rid of the huzvarishn, and such a thing may have been a sort of middle way between Pahlavi and Pazend. But why bother to only insert certain words in Pazend, and not write the whole text that way?

I wonder which genre such a text would belong to. It wouldn't be a Pahlavi text, but it wouldn't be a Pazend text either.

-- Fullstop 14:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That was exactly what bothered me: I had never heard of such hybrid Pahlavi/Pazend texts either, and I would strongly doubt whether any such manuscripts exist. However, this possibility was plainly suggested by your most recent edit, which read:

Pazend "words" also appear in some manuscripts otherwise "normally" rendered with Pahlavi script. In these texts, the Pazend words replace those that in other texts are typically Aramaic ideograms

(which may in turn be a misunderstanding of my previous edit, which mentioned words written "phonetically", by which I only meant in accordance with the sound values of Pahlavi, not in Avestic script)

So my question to you is: in that passage, what do you mean by Pazend? Only Persian words written in Avestic script, or also Persian words written phonetically (instead of an expected huzvarishn) in Pahlavi script?

If the latter, can it also cover the nuts-and-bolts words that are written phonetically in all Pahlavi manuscripts, i.e. the "normal" MSS as well as the purist anti-huzvarishn MSS?

I don't know the answer to any of these questions, I am just asking you for information. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 15:46, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

apparently I misunderstood your

[Pazend may refer to:] * in Middle Persian texts written in normal Pahlavi script, the parts written phonetically rather than in huzvarishn (borrowed Aramaic words used as ideograms).

to phrase it as I understood it: "Pazend may [also] refer to" some of the Middle Persian texts written in Pahlavi script but phonetically writing those words that other MSS used ideograms for.

to me, this second bulleted point seemed rather pointless otherwise. :)

--

To answer the question: Pazend has no ideograms because it was "sanctified", and Pazend was fully phonetic because the Avestan alphabet is a full alphabet (Dindabireh is completely phonetic, with a full range of vowels and no consonant ambiguity at all).

No, "Pazend" cannot "cover the nuts-and-bolts words that are written phonetically in all Pahlavi manuscripts," because Pahlavi script is a defining characteristic of 'Pahlavi' MSS, and Pahlavi script (even iff it were phonetic) is distinct from the Avestan alphabet.

Likewise, I doubt that an MS without huzvarishn would qualify as a Pahlavi text. The ideograms are the defining characteristic of the Pahlavi genre, which is why the so-called Pahlavi Psalter counts as Pahlavi even though the script is unique (as compared to all the other texts of the genre).

-- Fullstop 18:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

---

is it better now? (or at least doesn't impose any anachronisms or require any prerequisite knowledge?) -- Fullstop 22:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I agree that the article is better now, as it covers only Pazand in its core and uncontroversial sense, i.e. Middle Persian written entirely in Din Dabireh.

It's just that I seem to remember from somewhere that the word "pazand" was occasionally used in a quite different sense, to cover Pahlavi words other than huzvarishn, so that "Pahlavi" was made up of "huzvarishn" and "pazand" (sense 2) just as Japanese is made up of "kanji" and "kana". But until I find definite authority for this, I shall leave the article as it is. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 09:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Today?[edit]

presently the article says: "Today, prayers in Middle Persian (usually prefatory to prayers in Avestan) are invariably written in Pazend, because of the need for accurate pronunciation."

Am I reading this right? Prayers are being written (composed?) today? And in Middle Persian?

Conservative as the priesthood is, I can well imagine that they are, but are you sure?

-- Fullstop 15:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, another misunderstanding. By written, I didn't mean "composed", but "set out" or "printed". On the www.avesta.org site, if you look at any of the prayer texts (e.g. the afrinagan), there is a preface (dibacheh) described as "Pazend" followed by a prayer in Avestic. Obviously these texts are all ancient. I'll revise to make this clearer. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 10:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now done. Is it clearer now? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 10:35, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

yes, much. Thanks. -- Fullstop 20:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]