We should be encoding important stuff that will be a boost to endangered
cultures and languages - to preserve those cultures, languages, and
literatures; and to have a long-lasting importance.
Rick McGowan
How do you rescue a script that has a proposal but hasn't had any action in
5 years?
David Starner
Old Persian and Avestan are closely related ancient languages that usually
go side by side. If a linguist refers to an Old Persian example, he must
show its Avestan form or his work would be considered to be incomplete (see,
for instance, Rastorgueva V.S., Edelman J.I. Etymological Dictionary of the
Iranian Languages, vol. 1, ISBN 5-02-018124-2, Moscow, 2000, 1000 copies).
The Avesta as a holy book began it's formation approximately 3000 years ago,
when Prophet Zoroaster appeared to spread the wisdom of Ahura Mazda - God of
the good. Mazdaism was the main religion of Ancient Persian Empire (558-330
BC.). In 330 BC. Alexander the Great burned Persepolis - its capital.
Contemporary followers of Zoroaster (Parsis), who live in small communities
in Iran, India and Pakistan, believe that in that fire the main copy of the
Avesta was destroyed, which, according to the exaggerated accounts of
antiquity, was said to number 25,000 parchment pages.
Zoroastrianism was the main religion of the two following Persian Empires.
The Avesta was passed on from generation to generation in oral-singing form,
until in the 3rd century AD it was revived in written form. For that purpose
a special Aramaic-based alphabet was invented. You can see those letters in
Michael Everson's Proposal.
"The Avesta was then virtually destroyed in the 7th century AD by the
Muslims in their victorious invasion. Most of the Zoroastrians were then
compelled to accept the Qur'an (Koran), the sacred scriptures of Islam;
many, however, fled to India for refuge and took with them what was left of
their sacred writings. A few of the faithful remained behind in Persia and,
although persecuted, they continued to practice their religion. These two
groups, about 80,000 persons in India and 18,000 in Persia, were responsible
for the preservation of the Avesta in its present form". (Microsoft®
Encarta® Reference Library 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All
rights reserved).
What is the critical number of users to cause an encoding of a script? This
January we organized a workshop on Persian. We were surprised to know that
more than 100 students and teachers from all over Russia wanted to attend
the classes of Old Persian and Avestan. A group from Ukraine and Moldova
came to participate as well. We couldn't prepare a decent computer-written
handout for the audience. Xeroxed pages of one century old books were used.
Most of the time lecturers were working with a chalk at the blackboard.
The Parsis community in Iran nowadays is considered to be a religious
minority and therefore has its own representative in Parliament. They
publish various books dedicated to the Avesta like Bahrami E. "Dictionary of
the Avesta" in 4 volumes, Tehran, 1980, 3000 copies. English equivalents and
Persian explanations are represented in typographical form, but Avestan
words are hand-written in such books. Many ordinary members of the community
say that they can neither read nor write in Avestan. To learn prayers they
use
printed books with Persian transliteration, which to my mind is inadequate
for the purpose: only 3 of 14 Avestan vowels can be shown systematically in
such a way.
Does anyone happen to know, what technique is used in India and Pakistan in
Parsis communities to avoid the difficulties of hand-writing? How do they
learn their prayers? Is there any Avestan education there?
Thank you,
Vladimir Ivanov
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