Psalter Pahlavi
Psalter Pahlavi is a cursive abjad that was used for writing Middle Persian on paper; it is thus described as one of the Pahlavi scripts.
It was written right to left, usually with spaces between words.
| Psalter Pahlavi | |
|---|---|
 Sample of text taken from the Cross of Herat | |
| Script type | |
Time period | Mid-6th to 7th century CE |
| Direction | Right-to-left script  |
| Languages | Middle Persian |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Aramaic alphabet
|
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Phlp (132), Psalter Pahlavi |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Psalter Pahlavi |
| U+10B80–U+10BAF | |
It takes its name from the Pahlavi Psalter, part of the Psalms translated from Syriac to Middle Persian and found in what is now western China.
Letters
| Name | Image | Text | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aleph |  | 𐮀 | /a/, /aː/ |
| Beth |  | 𐮁 | /b/, /w/ |
| Gimel |  | 𐮂 | /g/, /j/ |
| Daleth |  | 𐮃 | /d/, /j/ |
| He |  | 𐮄 | /h/ |
| Waw-Ayin-Resh |  | 𐮅 | /w/, /r/ |
| Zayin |  | 𐮆 | /z/ |
| Heth |  | 𐮇 | /h/, /x/ |
| Yodh |  | 𐮈 | /j/, /ē̆/, /ī̆/, /d͡ʒ/ |
| Kaph |  | 𐮉 | /k/, /g/ |
| Lamedh |  | 𐮊 | /l/, /r/ |
| Mem-Qoph |  | 𐮋 | /m/, /q/ |
| Nun |  | 𐮌 | /n/ |
| Samekh |  | 𐮍 | /s/, /h/ |
| Pe |  | 𐮎 | /p/, /b/, /f/ |
| Sadhe |  | 𐮏 | /t͡ʃ/, /d͡ʒ/, /z/ |
| Shin |  | 𐮐 | /ʃ/ |
| Taw |  | 𐮑 | /t/, /d/ |
Punctuation
Four different large section-ending punctuation marks were used:
| Mark | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Image | Text | |
 | 𐮙 | Section mark |
 | 𐮚 | Turned section mark |
 | 𐮛 | Four dots with cross |
 | 𐮜 | Four dots with dot |
Numbers
Psalter Pahlavi had its own numerals:
| Value | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 20 | 100 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sign | Image |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Text | 𐮩 | 𐮪 | 𐮫 | 𐮬 | 𐮭 | 𐮮 | 𐮯 | |
Some numerals have joining behavior (with both numerals and letters). Numbers are written right-to-left. Numbers without corresponding numerals are additive. For example, 96 is written as 𐮮𐮮𐮮𐮮𐮭𐮫𐮫 (20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 10 + 3 + 3).
Unicode block
Psalter Pahlavi script was added to the Unicode Standard in June, 2014 with the release of version 7.0.
The Unicode block is U+10B80–U+10BAF:
| Psalter Pahlavi[1][2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF) | ||||||||||||||||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| U+10B8x | 𐮀 | 𐮁 | 𐮂 | 𐮃 | 𐮄 | 𐮅 | 𐮆 | 𐮇 | 𐮈 | 𐮉 | 𐮊 | 𐮋 | 𐮌 | 𐮍 | 𐮎 | 𐮏 |
| U+10B9x | 𐮐 | 𐮑 | 𐮙 | 𐮚 | 𐮛 | 𐮜 | ||||||||||
| U+10BAx | 𐮩 | 𐮪 | 𐮫 | 𐮬 | 𐮭 | 𐮮 | 𐮯 | |||||||||
| Notes | ||||||||||||||||