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85-552: Boran (also spelled Buran , Middle Persian : [REDACTED] ) was Sasanian queen ( banbishn ) of Iran from 630 to 632, with an interruption of some months. She was the daughter of king (or shah ) Khosrow II ( r.  590–628 ) and the Byzantine princess Maria . She is the second of only three women to rule in Iranian history , the others being Musa of Parthia , and Boran's sister Azarmidokht . In 628, her father

170-650: A hypocoristic from *baurāspa ('having many horses'). The medieval Persian poet Ferdowsi refers to her as Pūrāndokht in his epic poem, the Shahnameh ('The Book of Kings'). The suffix of dokht ( -dukht in Middle Persian ), meaning 'daughter', was a new development made in Middle Iranian languages to more easily differentiate a female's name from that of a male. The suffix should not be taken too literally. Her name appears as Boran (and similar) in

255-492: A Christian Psalter fragment, which still retains all the letter distinctions that Inscriptional Pahlavi had except the one between t and ṭ ; and the Pahlavi found in papyri from the early 7th century CE, which displays even more letter coincidences than Book Pahlavi. The Manichaean script was an abjad introduced for the writing of Middle Persian by the prophet Mani (216–274 CE), who based it on his native variety of

340-489: A crescent and a star are placed on the outer margin. Boran is depicted wearing a round cap with three jewels or rosettes and a diadem ; her bejewelled braids of hair fall from beneath the cap. The diadem consists of two rows of pellets, presumably pearls, tied around Boran's forehead with segments visible. The top her crown terminates in a pair of feathered wings, meant to represent the Zoroastrian divinity Verethragna ,

425-547: A currently more popular one reflecting the Sassanid-era pronunciation, as used by C. Saleman, W. B. Henning and, in a somewhat revised form, by D. N. MacKenzie (1986). The less obvious features of the usual transcription are: A common feature of Pahlavi as well as Manichaean spelling was that the Aramaic letters ṣ and ḥ were adapted to express the sounds /t͡ʃ/ and /h/ , respectively. In addition, both could use

510-474: A different shape from a historical point of view, by under- or overlining them: e.g. the heterogram for andar 'in' is transliterated B YN , since it corresponds to Aramaic byn , but the sign that 'should' have been b actually looks like a g . Within Arameograms, scholars have traditionally used the standard Semitological designations of the Aramaic (and generally Semitic) letters, and these include

595-942: A large number of diacritics and special signs expressing the different Semitic phonemes, which were not distinguished in Middle Persian. In order to reduce the need for these, a different system was introduced by D. N. MacKenzie , which dispenses with diacritics as much as possible, often replacing them with vowel letters: A for ʾ , O for ʿ , E for H , H for Ḥ , C for Ṣ , for example ORHYA for ʿRḤYʾ ( bay 'god, majesty, lord'). For ''ṭ'', which still occurs in heterograms in Inscriptional Pahlavi, Θ may be used. Within Iranian words, however, both systems use c for original Aramaic ṣ and h for original Aramaic ḥ , in accordance with their Iranian pronunciation (see below). The letter l , when modified with

680-569: A less common view is that /x/ and /ɣ/ were uvular instead. Finally, it may be pointed out that most scholars consider the phoneme /w/ as being still a labial approximant, but a few regard it as a voiced labial fricative /v/ . The initial clusters of /s/ and a stop ( /sp-/ , /st-/ , /sk-/ ) had acquired a prosthetic vowel /i/ by the time of the Manichaean Middle Persian texts: istāyišn ( ՙst՚yšn ) 'praise' vs Pahlavi stāyišn ( ՙst՚dšn' ) 'praise'. Stress

765-461: A script derived from Aramaic . This occurred primarily because written Aramaic had previously been the written language of government of the former Achaemenids , and the government scribes had carried that practice all over the empire. This practice had led to others adopting Imperial Aramaic as the language of communications, both between Iranians and non-Iranians. The transition from Imperial Aramaic to Middle Iranian took place very slowly, with

850-537: A second time. During her second reign, power was mostly in the hands of Rostam, which caused dissatisfaction among the Parsig and led to a revolt, during which Boran was killed by strangulation. She was succeeded by her nephew Yazdegerd III , the last Sasanian ruler, making her the penultimate ruler of the Sasanian Empire. Albeit her two tenures of rule were shortlived, she did try to bring stability to Iran by

935-571: A slow increase of more and more Iranian words so that Aramaic with Iranian elements gradually changed into Iranian with Aramaic elements. Under Arsacid hegemony , this Aramaic-derived writing system for Iranian languages came to be associated with the Parthians in particular (it may have originated in the Parthian chancellories ), and thus the writing system came to be called pahlavi "Parthian" too. Aside from Parthian, Aramaic-derived writing

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1020-472: A special horizontal stroke that shows that the pronunciation is /l/ and not /r/, is rendered in the MacKenzie system as ɫ . The traditional system continues to be used by many, especially European scholars. The MacKenzie system is the one used in this article. As for Pahlavi, c is used for the transliteration of original Aramaic ṣ and h for the transliteration of original ḥ . Original Aramaic h , on

1105-553: A thousand of these in the Book Pahlavi variety. In addition, their spelling remained very conservative, expressing the pronunciation of the Arsacid period. The two most important subvarieties are: Other known Pahlavi varieties are the early Pahlavi found in inscriptions on coins issued in the province of Pars from the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century CE; the relatively conservative Psalter Pahlavi (6th–8th centuries CE), used in

1190-642: Is -i . When the Arsacids (who were Parthians) came to power in the 3rd-century BCE, they inherited the use of written Greek (from the successors of Alexander the Great ) as the language of government. Under the cultural influence of the Greeks ( Hellenization ), some Middle Iranian languages, such as Bactrian , also had begun to be written in Greek script . But yet other Middle Iranian languages began to be written in

1275-484: Is Middle Persian, i.e. the middle stage of the language of the Persians, an Iranian people of Persia proper , which lies in the south-western highlands on the border with Babylonia . The Persians called their language Parsig , meaning "Persian". Another Middle Iranian language was Parthian , i.e. the language of the northwestern Iranian peoples of Parthia proper , which lies along the southern/south-eastern edge of

1360-406: Is a major difficulty for scholars. It has also been pointed out that the Pahlavi spelling does not express the 3rd century lenitions, so the letters p , t , k and c express /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ and /z/ after vowels, e.g. šp' for šab 'night' and hc for az 'from'. The rare phoneme /ɣ/ was also expressed by the same letter shape as k (however, this sound value is usually expressed in

1445-487: Is declared that Boran was the restorer of her heritage, i.e., the race of gods. The translated inscription on her coins reads: "Boran, restorer of the race of Gods" (Middle Persian: Bōrān ī yazdān tōhm winārdār ). Her claim of being descended from the gods had not been used since the 4th-century, when it was used by the Sasanian shah Shapur II ( r.  309–379 ). As with all Sasanian rulers, Boran's main denomination

1530-432: Is expressed in a synchronic alternation: at least at some stage in late Middle Persian (later than the 3rd century), the consonants /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ appear to have had, after vowels, the fricative allophones [ β ] , [ ð ] , [ɣ] . This is slightly more controversial for /ɡ/ , since there appears to have been a separate phoneme /ɣ/ as well. A parallel development seems to have affected /d͡ʒ/ in

1615-580: Is in this particular late form of exclusively written Zoroastrian Middle Persian, in popular imagination the term 'Pahlavi' became synonymous with Middle Persian itself. The ISO 639 language code for Middle Persian is pal , which reflects the post-Sasanian era use of the term Pahlavi to refer to the language and not only the script. In the classification of the Iranian languages, the Middle Period includes those languages which were common in Iran from

1700-399: Is nevertheless often the old pronunciation or a transitional one that is reflected in the Pahlavi spelling. 2. Voiceless stops and affricates, when occurring after vowels as well as other voiced sounds, became voiced: This process is thought not to have been taken place before Sassanid Pahlavi, and it generally is not reflected in Pahlavi spelling. A further stage in this lenition process

1785-725: Is spelt mtr' . In contrast, the Manichaean spellings are gʾh , ngʾh , šhr , myhr . Some other words with earlier /θ/ are spelt phonetically in Pahlavi, too: e.g. gēhān , spelt gyhʾn 'material world', and čihr , spelt cyhl 'face'. There are also some other cases where /h/ is spelt /t/ after p : ptkʾl for pahikār 'strife', and /t/ may also stand for /j/ in that position: ptwnd for paywand 'connection'. There are some other phoneme pairs besides /j/ and /d͡ʒ/ that are not distinguished: h (the original Aramaic ḥ ) may stand either for /h/ or for /x/ ( hm for ham 'also' as well as hl for xar 'donkey'), whereas

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1870-427: Is that Arsacid word-initial /j/ produced Sassanid /d͡ʒ/ (another change that is not reflected in the Pahlavi spelling). The sound probably passed through the phase /ʒ/ , which may have continued until very late Middle Persian, since Manichaean texts did not identify Indic /d͡ʒ/ with it and introduced a separate sign for the former instead of using the letter for their native sound. Nonetheless, word-initial /j/

1955-793: The Chronicle of Khuzestan (7th-Century), Jacob of Edessa 's Chronicle (8th-Century), in the Chronicle of Seert (9th-Century ?), in Agapius of Hierapolis 's Kitab al-'Unwan (10th-Century) and in Michael the Syrian 's Chronicle (12th-Century), as Βοράνη(ς) ( Boránes ) in Theophanes the Confessor 's Chronicle (9th-Century), as Բորն ( Born ) in Tovma Artsruni 's History of

2040-545: The Byzantine Empire , therefore she dispatched an embassy to its emperor Heraclius ( r.   610–641), led by the catholicos Ishoyahb II and other dignitaries of the Iranian church. Her embassy was amicably received by Heraclius. In the following year a revolt broke out in Ctesiphon. While the imperial army was occupied with other matters, the Parsig , dissatisfied with the regency of Rostam, called for

2125-471: The Caspian sea and is adjacent to the boundary between western and eastern Iranian languages. The Parthians called their language Parthawig , meaning "Parthian". Via regular sound changes Parthawig became Pahlawig , from which the word 'Pahlavi' eventually evolved. The -ig in parsig and parthawig was a regular Middle Iranian appurtenant suffix for "pertaining to". The New Persian equivalent of -ig

2210-572: The Pahlav and Parsig families, asked Azarmidokht (who was a Parsig nominee) to marry him. Not daring to refuse, she had him killed with the aid of the Mihranid aristocrat Siyavakhsh , who was the grandson of Bahram Chobin , the famous military commander ( spahbed ) and briefly shah of Iran. Farrukh Hormizd's son Rostam Farrokhzad , who was at that time stationed in Khorasan , succeeded him as

2295-423: The Pahlav because of the fragility and decline of Iran, and also because their Mihranid collaborators had been temporarily defeated by Rostam. However, the cooperation between the Parsig and Pahlav would prove short-lived, due to the unequal conditions between the two factions, with Rostam's faction having a much more significant portion of power under the approval of Boran. Boran desired a good relationship with

2380-672: The Pahlavi Psalter (7th century); these were used until the beginning of the second millennium in many places in Central Asia , including Turpan and even localities in South India . All three differ minimally from one another and indeed the less ambiguous and archaizing scripts of the latter two have helped to elucidate some aspects of the Sasanian-era pronunciation of the former. The vowels of Middle Persian were

2465-476: The hypostasis of 'victory'. A crescent and globe is depicted between the feathered wings. More astral signs are depicted at the top right (a star and crescent) and left of the crown (a single star). Middle Persian "Middle Iranian" is the name given to the middle stage of development of the numerous Iranian languages and dialects . The middle stage of the Iranian languages begins around 450 BCE and ends around 650 CE. One of those Middle Iranian languages

2550-658: The imperial variety of the Aramaic alphabet used in the chancelleries of the Achaemenid Empire . As is typical of abjads, they express primarily the consonants in a word form. What sets them apart from other abjads, however, is the use of Heterograms , and more specifically Aramaeograms , i.e. words written in Aramaic (sometimes, in later periods, with distortions) but pronounced in Middle Persian: e.g. LY (Aramaic 'to me') for man 'me, I'. There were about

2635-481: The w and n have the same graphic appearance. Furthermore, letters used as part of Aramaic heterograms and not intended to be interpreted phonetically are written in capitals: thus the heterogram for the word ān is rendered ZK , whereas its phonetic spelling is transliterated as ʾn' (the final vertical line reflects the so-called 'otiose' stroke, see below ). Finally, there is a convention of representing 'distorted/corrupt' letters, which 'should' have appeared in

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2720-442: The "old" language (i.e. Middle Persian) and Aramaic-derived writing system. In time, the name of the writing system, pahlavi "Parthian", began to be applied to the "old" Middle Persian language as well, thus distinguishing it from the "new" language, farsi . Consequently, 'pahlavi' came to denote the particularly Zoroastrian, exclusively written, late form of Middle Persian. Since almost all surviving Middle Persian literature

2805-412: The 10th–11th centuries, Middle Persian texts were still intelligible to speakers of Early New Persian. However, there are definite differences that had taken place already by the 10th century: Texts in Middle Persian are found in remnants of Sasanian inscriptions and Egyptian papyri , coins and seals, fragments of Manichaean writings , and Zoroastrian literature , most of which was written down after

2890-792: The 7th-century, the Sassanids were overthrown by the Arabs. Under Arab influence, Iranian languages began to be written in Arabic script (adapted to Iranian phonology ), while Middle Persian began to rapidly evolve into New Persian and the name parsik became Arabicized farsi . Not all Iranians were comfortable with these Arabic-influenced developments, in particular, members of the literate elite, which in Sassanid times consisted primarily of Zoroastrian priests. Those former elites vigorously rejected what they perceived as ' Un-Iranian ', and continued to use

2975-420: The Aramaic distinctions between ḥ and h and between k and q were not always maintained, with the first often replacing the second, and the one between t and ṭ was lost in all but Inscriptional Pahlavi: thus YKTLWN (pronounced о̄zadan ) for Aramaic yqṭlwn 'kill', and YHWWN (pronounced būdan ) for Aramaic yhwwn 'be', even though Aramaic h is elsewhere rendered E . In the rest of this article,

3060-488: The Aramaic script of Palmyrene origin. Mani used this script to write the known book Šābuhrāgān and it continued to be used by Manichaeans until the 9th century to write in Middle Persian, and in various other Iranian languages for even longer. Specifically the Middle Persian Manichaean texts are numerous and thought to reflect mostly the period from the 3rd to the 7th centuries CE. In contrast to

3145-447: The Arsacid sound values, but is known from the more phonetic Manichaean spelling of texts from Sassanid times. As a result of these changes, the voiceless stops and affricates /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , /t͡ʃ/ rarely occurred after vowels – mostly when geminated, which has protected them from the lenition (e.g. waččag , sp. wck' 'child'), and due to some other sound changes. Another difference between Arsacid and Sassanid-era pronunciation

3230-498: The Avesta also retain some old features, most other Zoroastrian Book Pahlavi texts (which form the overwhelming majority of the Middle Persian corpus as a whole) are linguistically more innovative. In view of the many ambiguities of the Pahlavi script, even its transliteration does not usually limit itself to rendering merely the letters as written; rather, letters are usually transliterated in accordance with their origin regardless of

3315-461: The House of Artsrunik (9th-Century), Baram in the Chronicle of 1234 , George Kedrenos 's Synopsis historion (11th-Century) and Bar Hebraeus 's Chronicle (13th-Century), Tūrān Dukht in the works of the 10th-century Persian historian Muhammad Bal'ami , Queen Bor by the 7th-century Armenian historian Sebeos , and Dukht-i Zabān by the 8th-century Arab historian Sayf ibn Umar . Boran

3400-483: The Manichaean script and a maximally disambiguated transliterated form of Pahlavi do not provide exhaustive information about the phonemic structure of Middle Persian words, a system of transcription is also necessary. There are two traditions of transcription of Pahlavi Middle Persian texts: one closer to the spelling and reflecting the Arsacid-era pronunciation, as used by Ch. Bartholomae and H. S. Nyberg (1964) and

3485-560: The Pahlavi scripts, it is a regular and unambiguous phonetic script that expresses clearly the pronunciation of 3rd century Middle Persian and distinguishes clearly between different letters and sounds, so it provides valuable evidence to modern linguists. Not only did it not display any of the Pahlavi coalescences mentioned above, it also had special letters that enabled it to distinguish [p] and [f] (although it didn't always do so), as well as [j] and [d͡ʒ] , unique designations for [β] , [ð] , and [ɣ] , and consistent distinctions between

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3570-529: The Pahlavi spellings will be indicated due to their unpredictability, and the Aramaeograms will be given priority over the 'phonetic' alternatives for the same reason. If a word expressed by an Arameogram has a grammatical ending or, in many cases, a word-formation suffix, these are generally expressed by phonetic elements: LYLYA ʾn for šab ʾn 'nights'. However, verbs in Inscriptional Pahlavi are sometimes written as 'bare ideograms', whose interpretation

3655-432: The Sasanian Empire had grown to its largest territorial extent. She was however not long afterwards replaced by Khosrow II's nephew Shapur-i Shahrvaraz , whose reign was even briefer than hers, being replaced by Azarmidokht, who was a Parsig nominee. She was in turn deposed soon afterwards and killed by the Pahlav under Farrukh Hormizd's son Rostam Farrokhzad , who restored Boran to the throne, thus making her queen for

3740-483: The Sasanian era. The language of Zoroastrian literature (and of the Sasanian inscriptions) is sometimes referred to as Pahlavi – a name that originally referred to the Pahlavi scripts , which were also the preferred writing system for several other Middle Iranian languages. Pahlavi Middle Persian is the language of quite a large body of literature which details the traditions and prescriptions of Zoroastrianism , which

3825-429: The cluster *θr in particular), but it had been replaced by /h/ by the Sassanid period: The phoneme /ɣ/ (as opposed to the late allophone of /ɡ/ ) is rare and occurs almost only in learned borrowings from Avestan and Parthian , e.g. moγ (Pahlavi mgw or mwg 'Magian'), maγ (Pahlavi mγ ) 'hole, pit'. The sound /ʒ/ may also have functioned as a marginal phoneme in borrowings as well. The phoneme /l/

3910-411: The coinciding forms: thus, even though Book Pahlavi has the same letter shapes for original n , w and r , for original ʾ and ḥ and for original d , g and y , besides having some ligatures that coincide in shape with certain individual letters, these are all transliterated differently. For instance, the spelling of gōspand 'domestic animal' is transliterated gwspnd in spite of the fact that

3995-531: The early Middle Persian of the Arsacid period (until the 3rd century CE) and the Middle Persian of the Sassanid period (3rd – 7th century CE) is due to a process of consonant lenition after voiced sounds that took place during the transition between the two. Its effects were as follows: 1. Voiced stops, when occurring after vowels, became semivowels : This process may have taken place very early, but it

4080-558: The fall of the Achaemenid Empire in the fourth century BCE up to the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the seventh century CE. The most important and distinct development in the structure of Iranian languages of this period is the transformation from the synthetic form of the Old Period ( Old Persian and Avestan ) to an analytic form: The modern-day descendants of Middle Persian are New Persian and Luri . The changes between late Middle and Early New Persian were very gradual, and in

4165-440: The family of Sasan if they found any of their male offspring, and if not, then to their women". Boran deemed the agreement appropriate, and had the factions of the country summoned (including the Parsig ), where she declared Rostam as both the leader of the country and its military commander. The Parsig faction agreed, with Piruz Khosrow being entrusted to administer the country alongside Rostam. The Parsig agreed to work with

4250-479: The following: It has been doubted whether the Middle Persian short mid vowels /e/ and /o/ were phonemic , since they do not appear to have a unique continuation in later forms of Persian and no minimal pairs have been found. The evidence for them is variation between spelling with and without the matres lectionis y and w , as well as etymological considerations. They are thought to have arisen from earlier /a/ in certain conditions, including, for /e/ ,

4335-529: The implementation of just laws, reconstruction of the infrastructure, and by lowering taxes and minting coins. Diplomatically, she desired good relations with her western neighbours the Byzantines , sending them an embassy which was well received by emperor Heraclius ( r.   610–641). Boran's name appears as Bōrān (or Burān ) on her coinage, which is considered by the French historian Gignoux to be

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4420-463: The king, and started to conspire with the distinguished Iranian general Shahrbaraz to overthrow him. The Pahlav , under their leader Farrukh Hormizd of the Ispahbudhan clan, began supporting Boran as the new ruler of Iran, who subsequently started minting coins in the Pahlav areas of Amol , Nishapur , Gurgan and Ray . On 27 April 630, Ardashir III was killed by Shahrbaraz, who in turn

4505-467: The later forms are an (Manichaean ՚n ), and meh (Pahlavi ms and Manichaean myh ); indeed, some scholars have reconstructed them as monosyllabic any , mahy even for Middle Persian. Middle Persian has been written in a number of different scripts. The corpora in different scripts also exhibit other linguistic differences that are partly due to their different ages, dialects and scribal traditions. The Pahlavi scripts are abjads derived from

4590-456: The leader of the Pahlav . In order to avenge his father, he left for Ctesiphon, in the words of the 9th century historian Sayf ibn Umar , "defeating every army of Azarmidokht that he met". He then defeated Siyavakhsh's forces at Ctesiphon and captured the city. Azarmidokht was shortly afterwards blinded and killed by Rostam, who restored Boran to the throne in June 631. Boran complained to him about

4675-496: The letter p to express /f/ , and ṣ to express z after a vowel. The widespread use of Aramaeograms in Pahlavi, often existing in parallel with 'phonetic' spellings, has already been mentioned: thus, the same word hašt 'eight' can be spelt hšt or TWMNYA . A curious feature of the system is that simple word stems sometimes have spellings derived from Aramaic inflected forms: the spellings of verb stems include Aramaic inflectional affixes such as -WN , -TWN or -N and Y- ;

4760-417: The management of the country, and many such women before Boran had risen to prominence. A 5th-century Sasanian queen, Denag , had temporarily ruled as regent of the empire from its capital, Ctesiphon , during the dynastic struggle for the throne between her sons Hormizd III ( r.  457–459 ) and Peroz I ( r.  459–484 ) in 457–459. The German classical scholar Josef Wiesehöfer also highlights

4845-437: The other hand, is sometimes rendered as ẖ . For original ṭ , the sign ṯ is used. The special Manichaean letters for /x/ , /f/ , [β] , /ɣ/ and [ð] are transcribed in accordance with their pronunciation as x , f , β , γ and δ . Unlike Pahlavi, the Manichaean script uses the letter Ayin also in Iranian words (see below) and it is transliterated in the usual Semitological way as ՙ . Since, like most abjads, even

4930-534: The overthrow of Boran and the return of the prominent Parsig figure Bahman Jaduya , who had been dismissed by her. Boran was killed shortly after; she was presumably strangled by Piruz Khosrow. Hostilities were thus resumed between the two factions. Not long afterwards, both Rostam and Piruz Khosrow were threatened by their own men, who had become alarmed by the declining state of the country. Rostam and Piruz Khosrow thus agreed to work together once more, installing Boran's nephew Yazdegerd III ( r.   632–651) on

5015-597: The pairs [x] – [h] and [r] – [l] . Since knowledge of Pahlavi decreased after the Muslim conquest of Iran , the Zoroastrians occasionally transcribed their religious texts into other, more accessible or unambiguous scripts. One approach was to use the Avestan alphabet , a practice known as Pazand ; another was to resort to the same Perso-Arabic script that was already being used for New Persian , and that

5100-479: The presence of a following /n/ , sibilant or front vowel in the next syllable, and for /o/ , the presence of a following labial consonant or the vowel /u/ in the next syllable. Long /eː/ and /oː/ had appeared first in Middle Persian, since they had developed from the Old Persian diphthongs /ai/ and /aw/ . The consonant phonemes were the following: A major distinction between the pronunciation of

5185-480: The role of noblewomen in Sasanian Iran, stating that "Iranian records of the third century (inscriptions, reliefs, coins) show that the female members of the royal family received an unusual amount of attention and respect". The story of the legendary Kayanian queen Humay Chehrzad and veneration towards the Iranian goddess Anahita probably also helped with the approval of Boran's rule. When Boran ascended

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5270-442: The same position, possibly earlier; not only was it weakened to a fricative [ʒ] , but it was also depalatalised to [z] . In fact, old Persian [d͡ʒ] and [ʒ] in any position also produced [z] . Unlike the case with the spirantisation of stops, this change is uncontroversially recognised for Sassanid times. The lenition of voiceless stops and affricates remained largely unexpressed in Pahlavi spelling, which continues to reflect

5355-411: The spellings of pronouns are often derived from Aramaic prepositional phrases ( tо̄ 'you' is LK , originally Aramaic lk 'to you', о̄y 'he' is OLE , originally Aramaic ʿlh 'onto him'); and inalienable nouns are often noun phrases with pronominal modifiers ( pidar 'father' is ABYtl , originally Aramaic ʾby 'my father', pāy 'foot' is LGLE , originally Aramaic rglh 'his foot'). Furthermore,

5440-522: The state of affairs in living Middle Persian only indirectly. The surviving manuscripts are usually 14th-century copies. Other, less abundantly attested varieties are Manichaean Middle Persian , used for a sizable amount of Manichaean religious writings, including many theological texts, homilies and hymns (3rd–9th, possibly 13th century), and the Middle Persian of the Church of the East , evidenced in

5525-408: The state of the empire, which was at that time in a state of frailty and decline. She reportedly invited him to administer its affairs, and so allowed him to assume overall power. A settlement was reportedly made between the family of Boran and Rostam: according to Sayf, it stated that the queen should "entrust him [i.e., Rostam] with the rule for ten years,” at which point sovereignty would return "to

5610-493: The throne with the aid of the military commander Farrukh Hormizd , who helped her to overthrow Shahrbaraz. She and her sister were the only legitimate heirs who could rule at the time. Boran inherited a declining empire that was engulfed in a civil war between two major factions, the Persian ( Parsig ) and Parthian ( Pahlav ) noble-families. She was committed to reviving the memory and prestige of her father, during whose reign

5695-549: The throne, and so putting an end to the civil war. According to the Muslim historian al-Tabari (died 923 AD), Boran reigned for a total of sixteen months. The name of the Iranian appetizer Borani may be derived from Boran. During her reign, Boran's coinage was reverted to the design used by her father, due to her notions of the past and her personal respect for him. Her minted coins included some that were more formal in design and were not intended for general use. On her coins, it

5780-434: The throne, she appointed Farrukh Hormizd as the chief minister (or wuzurg framadār ) of the empire. She then attempted to bring stability to Iran by the implementation of justice laws, reconstruction of the infrastructure, and by lowering taxes and minting coins. Her rule was accepted by the nobility and clergy, which is apparent by her coin mints in the provinces of Pars , Khuzestan , Media , and Abarshahr . No opposition

5865-451: The transition of /θ/ to /h/ in some words (in front of /r/ this reflex is due to Parthian influence, since the Middle Persian reflex should have been /s/ ). In such words, the spelling may have s or, in front of r – t . For example, gāh 'place, time' is spelt gʾs (cf. Old Persian gāθu ) and nigāh '(a) look' is spelt nkʾs ; šahr 'country, town' is spelt štr' (cf. Avestan xsaθra ) and mihr 'Mithra, contract, friendship'

5950-635: The transliteration). Similarly, the letter d may stand for /j/ after a vowel, e.g. pʾd for pāy 'foot' – this is no longer apparent in Book Pahlavi due to the coincidence of the shapes of the original letters y , d and g , but is already clearly seen in Inscriptional and Psalter Pahlavi. Indeed, it even appears to have been the general rule word-finally, regardless of the word's origins, although modern transliterations of words like xwadāy ( xwtʾd ) and mēnōy ( mynwd ) do not always reflect this analogical / pseudo-historical spelling. Final īy

6035-475: The use of original Aramaic h is restricted to heterograms (transliterated E in MacKenzie's system, e.g. LGLE for pāy 'foot'). Not only /p/ , but also the frequent sound /f/ is expressed by the letter p , e.g. plhw' for farrox 'fortunate'. While the original letter r is retained in some words as an expression of the sound /r/ , especially in older frequent words and Aramaeograms (e.g. štr' for šahr 'country, town', BRTE for duxt 'daughter'), it

6120-491: The wealth of the nation. A few months later, the devastating Plague of Sheroe swept through the western Sasanian provinces. Half the population, including Kavad II himself, perished. He was succeeded by his eight-year-old son, who became Ardashir III . Ardashir's ascension was supported by both the Pahlav , Parsig , and a third major faction named the Nimruzi . However, sometime in 629, the Nimruzi withdrew their support for

6205-529: Was adopted for at least four other Middle Iranian languages, one of which was Middle Persian. In the 3rd-century CE, the Parthian Arsacids were overthrown by the Sassanids , who were natives of the south-west and thus spoke Middle Persian as their native language. Under Sassanid hegemony, the Middle Persian language became a prestige dialect and thus also came to be used by non-Persian Iranians. In

6290-598: Was also Kavad II's wife, demonstrating the practice in Zoroastrianism of Khwedodah , or close-kin marriage. The fall of Khosrow II culminated in the Sasanian civil war of 628–632 , with the most powerful members of the nobility gaining full autonomy and starting to create their own government. The hostilities between the Persian ( Parsig ) and Parthian ( Pahlav ) noble-families were also resumed, which broke up

6375-418: Was murdered, after a reign of forty days, in a coup by Farrukh Hormizd. Farrukh Hormizd then helped Boran ascend the throne, sometime in late June 630. Her accession was most likely due to her being the only remaining legitimate heir of the empire able to rule, along with Azarmidokht. Boran was the first queen to rule the Sasanian Empire. However, it was not unusual for royal women to occupy political offices in

6460-419: Was on the last syllable. That was due to the fact that any Old Persian post-stress syllables had been apocopated : It has been suggested that words such as anīy 'other' (Pahlavi spelling AHRN , AHRNy d , Manichaean ՚ny ) and mahīy 'bigger' (Manichaean mhy ) may have been exceptionally stressed on the first syllable, since the last one was apocopated already in the course of the Middle Persian period:

6545-401: Was overthrown and executed by her brother-husband Kavad II , who also had all Boran's brothers and half-brothers executed, initiating a period of fractionalism within the empire. Kavad II died some months later, and was succeeded by his eight-year-old son Ardashir III , who after a rule of nigh two years, was killed and usurped by the Iranian military officer Shahrbaraz . Boran shortly ascended

6630-457: Was referred to as Pārsī. Since these methods were used at a relatively late linguistic stage, these transcriptions often reflect a very late pronunciation close to New Persian. In general, Inscriptional Pahlavi texts have the most archaic linguistic features, Manichaean texts and the Psalter exhibit slightly later, but still relatively early language stages, and while the Pahlavi translations of

6715-425: Was regularly written y d . In the same way, (w)b may also correspond to a w in the pronunciation after a vowel. The fortition of initial /j/ to /d͡ʒ/ (or /ʒ/ ) is not reflected either, so y can express initial /d͡ʒ/ , e.g. yʾm for ǰām 'glass' (while it still expresses /j/ in the learned word y z dt' for yazd 'god'). Some even earlier sound changes are not consistently reflected either, such as

6800-555: Was retained/reintroduced in learned borrowings from Avestan . Furthermore, some forms of Middle Persian appear to have preserved ǰ (from Proto-Iranian /d͡ʒ/ or /t͡ʃ/ ) after n due to Parthian influence, instead of the usual weakening to z . This pronunciation is reflected in Book Pahlavi, but not in Manichaean texts: Judging from the spelling, the consonant /θ/ may have been pronounced before /r/ in certain borrowings from Parthian in Arsacid times (unlike native words, which had /h/ for earlier *θ in general and /s/ for

6885-446: Was still relatively rare as well, especially so in Manichaean texts, mostly resulting from Proto-Iranian *rd, *rz and, more rarely, *r. It also occurred in the combination /hl/ , which was a reflex of Old Persian /rθ/ and /rs/ (cf. the words 'Pahlavi' and 'Parthian'). The sound /xw/ may be viewed as a phoneme or merely as a combination of /x/ and /w/ . Usually /x/ , /xw/ and /ɣ/ are considered to have been velar ;

6970-608: Was the daughter of the last prominent shah of Iran, Khosrow II ( r.  590–628 ) and the Byzantine princess Maria . Khosrow II was overthrown and executed in 628 by his own son Sheroe , better known by his dynastic name of Kavad II, who proceeded to have all Boran's brothers and half-brothers executed, including the heir Mardanshah . This dealt a heavy blow to the empire, from which it would never recover. Boran and her sister Azarmidokht reportedly criticized and scolded Kavad II for his barbaric actions, which caused him to become remorseful. According to Guidi's Chronicle , Boran

7055-781: Was the silver drachm (Middle Persian: drahm ). Between the reigns of Khosrow II and Yazdegerd III, Boran appears to have been the only ruler who minted bronze coins. Only one gold issue of Boran is known, stored at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston . The obverse of Boran's drachms and bronze issues depict her turned to the right, while on the reverse the Zoroastrian fire altar is depicted together with two attendants. Boran's gold issue depicts her facing out instead of being in profile. On Boran's silver and bronze coins, double or triple row of pellets surround her portrait and astral signs of

7140-502: Was the state religion of Sasanian Iran (224 to c. 650) before the Muslim conquest of Persia . The earliest texts in Zoroastrian Middle Persian were probably written down in late Sasanian times (6th–7th centuries), although they represent the codification of earlier oral tradition. However, most texts date from the ninth to the 11th century, when Middle Persian had long ceased to be a spoken language, so they reflect

7225-422: Was voiced towards her gender. However, she was deposed in 630, and Shapur-i Shahrvaraz , the son of Shahrbaraz and a sister of Khosrow II, was made shah of Iran. When he was not recognized by the Parsig faction of the powerful general Piruz Khosrow , he was deposed in favor of Azarmidokht, the sister of Boran. Farrukh Hormizd, in order to strengthen his authority and create a harmonious modus vivendi between

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