PROJECTS OF THE IUA

The final aim of the project is to prepare a comprehensive academic dictionary of Middle Persian. In preparation for this goal, a series of text editions is planned to serve as materials for the dictionary, in which the lexical material will be analyzed and listed.

The project presented to the Israel Science Foundation is part of a larger endeavour, conducted partly in Europe under the general editorship of the Pricipal Investigator of the present project. The books to be tackled in this place of the project are the main zand books i.e., the two parts of the Denkard (VIII and IX) which contain sumaries of the Avesta, the Pahlavi Yasna, the Bundahisn, and the primarily ritual book Zand i Xwardag Abestag, and the copus of Middle Persian epigraphy. In addition, a systematic collection of data from the scholarly literature on Middle Persian lexicography will also be undertaken. There is at present no adequate, comprehensive and exhaustive dictionary of the language in existence. There is a concise dictionary - more like a word list - prepared by D.N. MacKenzie on the basis of a limited corpus of texts. It is sufficient for students and learners, not for scholars. A glossary of Pahlavi forms part of H.S. Nyberg's Manual of Pahlavi, but that work, besides being again limited in scope, is controversial in its approach to several aspects of the language, and it uses a system of transcription that has been abandoned by most scholars in the field.

The Middle Persian (Pahlavi) language and literature are important for those interested in Iranian languages, in the Zoroastrian religion, in the history of Iran, and other scholars in related fields. Without a proper dictionary the language and literature are inaccessible to most non-specialists. An edition of the major text such as being envisaged in the present project will be a major contribution to Iranian and Zoroastrian studies.

The project was adopted by the UAI in Category C in 2003 on the initiative of the Israël Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Directed by the Israël Academy of Sciences and Humanities with the patronage and cooperation of the Accademia dei Lincei of Roma and the patronage of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres of Paris. Director : Shaul Shaked