Pazend

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The Pazend or Pazand is one of the writing systems used for the Middle Persian language.

Pazend's principal use was for writing the commentaries (Zend) on and/or translations of the Avesta, the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism. The word "Pazend" derives from the Avestan words paiti zainti, which can be translated as either "for commentary purposes" or "according to understanding", i.e. phonetically.

Pazend had the following characteristics, both of which are to be contrasted with Pahlavi, which is one of the other systems used to write Middle Persian:

• Pazend was written using the Avestan alphabet (Din dabireh). In contrast, Pahlavi script was only a consonantary.
• Pazend did not have ideograms. In contrast, ideograms were an identifying feature of the Pahlavi system, where these huzvarishn were words from Semitic languages such as Aramaic that continued to be written in Aramaic script (but pronounced in Persian).

A Pazend title (for a published Avesta) that reads pargart auual (as transliterated in the Hoffmann system), and demonstrates the use of the el grapheme (leftmost symbol here, resembling a latin 'p'). This letter was added to the alphabet specifically for use in Pazend script; it is not needed for writing the Avestan language.

In combination with its religious purpose, these features constituted a "sanctification" of written Middle Persian. The use of the Avestan alphabet to write Middle Persian required the addition of one symbol to the Avestan alphabet: This character - to support Middle Persian's el ([l]) phoneme - had not previously been needed.

Following the fall of the Sassanids, after which Zoroastrianism came to be gradually supplanted by Islam, Pazend lost its purpose and soon ceased to be used for original composition. The Zoroastrian liturgy contains some prayers in Middle Persian, usually as prefaces (dibacheh) to prayers in Avestan. These prefatory prayers are invariably written in Pazend, because of the need for accurate pronunciation. This practice has led to the misconception that "Pazend" is the name of a language.

Following Anquetil-Duperron's translation of some of the texts of the Avesta in the late 18th century, the term "Zend-Avesta" was mistakenly used to refer to the sacred texts themselves (as opposed to commentaries on them). This usage subsequently led to the equally mistaken use of "Pazend" for the Avestan script as such and of "Zend" for the Avestan language.

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