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Old Persian Cuneiform
Type:	Alphabet with Syllabic elements
Languages:	Old Persian
Time period:	525 BC – 330 BC
Parent writing systems:	Cuneiform script Old Persian Cuneiform
Unicode range:	U+103A0 – U+103D5
ISO 15924 code:	Xpeo
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Old Persian cuneiform is the primary script used in Old Persian writings. It is a semi-alphabetic syllabic cuneiform script.

Old Persian cuneiform is loosely inspired by the Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform, however only one glyph, L, derives from that script. (L didn't occur in native Old Persian words, but was found in Akkadian borrowings.) Scholars today mostly agree that the Old Persian script was invented by about 525 BC to provide monument inscriptions for the Achaemenid king Darius the Great.

Contents 1 Alphabetic properties 2 Signs 3 Unicode 4 External links

Although based on a logo-syllabic prototype, the system is essentially alphabetic in character. 13 out of 22 consonants are invariant, regardless of the following vowel (that is, they are alphabetic), while only 6 have a distinct form for each consonant-vowel combination (that is, they are syllabic), and among these, only d and m occur in three forms for all three vowels. (k, g, j, v only occur before two of the vowels, and so only have two forms.) In addition, 3 consonants, t, n, r, are partially syllabic, having the same form before a and i, and a distinct form only before u. For instance, 𐎴 could be na or ni, whereas 𐎵 is specifically nu. Ambiguous syllables must be followed by a vowel for clarification, but in practice even unambiguous syllables such as nu, or fully syllabic ma, mi, mu, are followed by explicit vowels.

The effect is not unlike the English [dʒ] sound, which is typically written g before i or e, but j before other vowels (gem, jam), or the Castillian Spanish [θ] sound, which is written c before i or e and z before other vowels (cinco, zapato): it is more accurate to say that some of the Old Persian consonants are written by different letters depending on the following vowel, rather than classifying the script as syllabic. This situation had its origin in the Assyrian cuneiform syllabary, where several syllabic distinctions had been lost and were often clarified with explicit vowels. However, in the case of Assyrian, the vowel was not always used, and was never used where not needed, so the system remained (logo-) syllabic.

For a while it was speculated that the alphabet could have had its origin in such a system, with a leveling of consonant signs a millennium earlier producing something like the Ugaritic alphabet, but today it is generally accepted that the Semitic alphabet arose from Egyptian hieroglyphs, where vowel notation was not important. (See Middle Bronze Age alphabets.)

The script encodes three vowels, a, i, u, and 22 consonants, k, x, g, c, ç, j, t, θ, d, p, f, b, n, m, y, v, r, l, s, z, š, h, compared to the Avestan alphabet notably lacking voiced fricatives, but including a voiceless palatal fricative ç (and a sign for non-native l).

k-

x-

g-

c-

ç-

j-

t-

θ-

d-

p-

f-

b-

n-

m-

y-

v-

r-

l-

s-

z-

š-

h-

-a

𐎠

𐎣

𐎧

𐎥

𐎨

𐏂

𐎩

𐎫

𐎰

𐎭

𐎱

𐎳

𐎲

𐎴

𐎶

𐎹

𐎺

𐎼

𐎾

𐎿

𐏀

𐏁

𐏃

-i

𐎡

𐎮

𐎷

𐎻

-u

𐎢

𐎤

𐎦

𐎪

𐎬

𐎯

𐎵

𐎸

𐎽

• logograms:
  • Auramazdā: 𐏈, 𐏉, 𐏊
  • xšāyaθiya- "king": 𐏋
  • dahyāu- "country": 𐏌, 𐏍
  • baga- "god": 𐏎
  • būmi- "earth": 𐏏
• word divider: 𐏐
• numerals:
  • 1 𐏑, 2 𐏒 , 3 𐏒𐏑, 4 𐏒𐏒, etc.
  • 10 𐏓 , 20 𐏔, 30 𐏔𐏓, 40 𐏔𐏔, etc.
  • 100 𐏕

The Old Persian script is encoded in Plane 1 (Supplementary Multilingual Plane) of Unicode 4.1, occupying code points 103A0–103DF.

Old Persian Unicode.org chart (PDF)
U+	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
123A0	𐎠	𐎡	𐎢	𐎣	𐎤	𐎥	𐎦	𐎧	𐎨	𐎩	𐎪	𐎫	𐎬	𐎭	𐎮	𐎯
123B0	𐎰	𐎱	𐎲	𐎳	𐎴	𐎵	𐎶	𐎷	𐎸	𐎹	𐎺	𐎻	𐎼	𐎽	𐎾	𐎿
123C0	𐏀	𐏁	𐏂	𐏃					𐏈	𐏉	𐏊	𐏋	𐏌	𐏍	𐏎	𐏏
123D0	𐏐	𐏑	𐏒	𐏓	𐏔	𐏕

• Omniglot article on Old Persian cuneiform
• Ancient scripts article on Old Persian cuneiform
• Old Persian cuneiform in contrast with Elamite and Late Babylonian cuneiform