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Frahang-i Pahlavig is a dictionary of (mostly) Aramaic language ideograms with middle Persian translations and transliterations in Pahlavi script. ^[1] The glossary is also known as the Farang-i mna-xvatay, a name derived from the first two (Aramaic) words of the first entry. The Frahang-i Pahlavig should not be confused with the Frahang-i Oim-evak, which is a glossary of Avestan language terms.

The glossary is believed to have been developed to assist Sassanid era (226-650 CE) court officials in their duties, which occasionally required an understanding of the terms used in the documents of the previous Achaemenid (648–330 BCE), and Arsacid (253 BCE-226 CE) dynasties. The Achaemenids had maintained their records in Imperial Aramaic, while the Arsacids used Parthian Pahlavi, that is, Parthian (which is related to Middle Persian) rendered with the inclusion of Aramaic ideograms.^[2]

The oldest surviving example of a Frahang-like text is a one-page fragment that is believed to date to the 9th or 10th century CE. Several complete manuscripts exist in Bombay, Oxford, Paris and Copenhagen, but the oldest of these dates to the 15th century.

In the earliest edition made available to European scholarship, the Frahang is arranged serially, that is, according to the shape of the Aramaic characters. That edition, obtained by Abraham Anquetil-Duperron in the mid-1700s, is today in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. In 1867, Hoshangji Jamaspji Asa and Martin Haug published a transcript of a manuscript that was arranged thematically by chapter.

The work consists of approximately five hundred Semitic language entries (huzvarishn, meaning 'obsoleteness, antiquity, or archaism' according to West^[3] ), with each entry immediately followed by middle Persian translations and semi-phonetic transliteration in "Book Pahlavi" script. Due to the ambiguity inherent to Book Pahlavi (see Pahlavi script), the transliterations are often untrustworthy.^[4]

In all editions the huzvarishn entries are immediately followed by their Pahlavi script transliterations, which were meant to be read as Persian words. In the manuscript examined by Asa and Haug, the huzvarishn and middle Persian entries are in black, and the transliterations are in red (the first chapter is an exception, and is entirely in black).

Those Frahang that are organized thematically have (approximately) the following structure:

Chapter names in italics are the titles as per the Farhang examined by MacKenzie. The other twelve chapters are not titled. The last chapter is a collection of variant spellings of Persian words, with more modern words explaining the older terms.

1. ^ Nyberg, Henryk Samuel (ed.) (1988). Frahang i Pahlavik. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, Otto. ISBN 3-447-02671-5.  published posthumously by Bo Utas and Christopher Toll
2. ^ Dhalla, Manekji (1922). Zoroastrian Civilization. New York: OUP, 268-269. 
3. ^ West, Edward William. Pahlavi literature.  as published in
   Geiger, Wilhelm & Kuhn, Ernst (eds.) (1904). Ein Grundriss der iranischen Philologie (Vol II). Strassburg: Elibron. 
4. ^ MacKenzie, David Niel. (2002). "Frahang è Pahlawèg". Encyclopedia Iranica.

 
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