THE AVESTAN ALPHABET
The Avestan alphabet was invented in ab. 500 C.E. as a phonetic, rather than a phonemic, alphabet, in which every sound was to be represented by one letter. Two things must be kept in mind:
l . The sounds this alphabet was intended to record were those of the oral recitation as performed at the time of the invention, not the original pronunciation of Old and Young Avestan, and we do not know to what extent the pronunciation had changed in the ritual recitation;
2. The Avestan and (Book) Pahlavi alphabets are known only from the 13th century onward, and we do not know what their exact forms were at the time of the invention of the Avestan alphabet. The Pahlavi script, for instance, may have been more differentiated than it is in the standard form of the manuscripts.
The
alphabet was based upon the Pahlavi (Middle Persian) alphabet in use at the
time, which was descended from Aramaic. The Avestan script is therefore also
read from right to left.
For ( *Q), (52, g, and one usually writes Q, ð, g, and t.
Note that y Y v are only written in initial position, except in very late manuscripts, while in non-initial position <ii> and <uu> are used to express Eng. w and y. Before vowels ii and uu are written to express [i, ii] and [u, uu], e.g.:
yäna- "boon," xšaiia! /xšaiat/ "he ruled," ma5iiõ /ma\iiö/ "(mortal) man" (Skt. martiyo); vohu "good," yauua! /iauaV "as long as" (Skt. yävat), druuõ /druuö/ "sound, healthy" (Skt. dhruvo). Note that ii and uu are also found in inital position, although rarely: iieiian, subj. of the perf. stem *iiäii- < N/i (= Skt. iyäy-), uua [uua] < *upa "both."
Until recently ii and uu in all these functions were usually transliterated as y and v, so that no distinction was made between them and initial y/ Y and v (e.g., Bartholomae, Air. Wb.). When uu and ii appeared in initial position va- and were written (thus Bartholomae, Air. Wb., cols. 147, 399).
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Note that Bartholomae used w to transliterate I
t
is written for t in final position and before stops (1k, tb), e.g., äa!
"then," tkaëša- "guidance," tbaêšah"evil,
hostility."
LIGATURES
In many manuscripts certain letters are frequently combined. Some common combinations, or "ligatures," are the following:
STRESS
We know nothing certain about stress in Avestan. For practical purposes a stress rule like that of Latin or Classical Sanskrit may be used, i.e., l) stress the second-last syllable (the "penultimate") if it is "heavy," i.e., has a long vowel (or diphthong) or a short vowel followed by two or more consonants, or if the word has only two syllables, e.g., äpõ, ápõ, mazíštõ; 2) stress the third-last syllable (ante-penultimate) if the penultimate is "light," i.e., has a short vowel followed by one consonant only, e.g., váênahi, barämahi; 3) stress the fourth-last syllable if the antepenultimate and penultimate are both light, but put a secondary stress on the penultimate, e.g., áhuràhe, yázamàide.
It is also possible that some words still had the accent on the final syllable, as in Old Indic, e.g., äpõ but apó.
Note that a final -a does not count as a syllable. The vowel sequences ai, ei, au, ou count as short vowels (a i , e i , a u , o ld ). Double ii and uu either count as single consonants and u or as vowel + consonant i!' and uu.
PUNCTUATION
In the Avestan manuscripts every word—and sometimes parts of words—are separated by a period. Sentences are usually marked by a triangular group of three dots ( ) or other decorative marks.
PRONUNCIATION
Following are some guidelines to the pronunciation of Avestan.
1. vowels.
Note that the vowels should be pronounced "cleanly," as in Italian or Spanish, rather than as in English.
letter example approximate pronunciation
a apõ Span. gato; Eng. cart or cut; Germ. Katze. ä äpõ Eng. car or bath (not Amer. Eng.); Germ. Lade. aë baëuuara Span. baile; Eng. bite; Germ. kein. ao gaoš Span. causa; Eng. cow; Germ. Haus. i Span. hijo; Eng. feet; Germ. bitte.
ii maiia Span. (not Amer.) mayo, Amer. Span. pollo;
Eng. layout. 
vïspe Eng. feed; Germ. lies.
u up-a Span. gusto; Eng. foot; Germ. Lust.
I In the Bavarian pronunciation of Bartholomae German w was a bilabial similar to [P], so it could not be used for the labiodental v.
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uu tuua after consonant Eng. two went; after vowel Eng. power. ü sura Eng. move; Germ. Busen.
ziieni Span. beso; Eng. bed; Germ. Bett. 
(only
in aë and monosyllables) Gen•n. See.
O vohu Span. rojo; Eng. approximately source. 
apõ Eng. approximately bores, so.
karata Eng.
hurt; Germ. könnt; peut-être.
spãništa Eng.
heard; Germ. schön; French émeute or peur.
ma5iigsca French chance. 
*barasnae French
un or lundi. 
må9hõ Eng.
hawk or bawdy.
2. Consonants.
p, b, f, m, t, d, n, k, g (W, j, y (Y), v, s, z, h are pronounced as in English.
Span. recibir.
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anäi |
preaspirated m (compare Eng. interjection hum). Span. lado; Eng. father. |
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paea |
Span. (not Amer.) hacer; Eng. bath. |
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mat |
approximately Amer. Eng. better. |
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n |
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= n before t, d; = before k, g; = m before p, b. |
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aya |
Span. haga. |
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x |
ha.xa |
Span. (not Amer.) hijo; Germ. Loch. |
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dafiiunqm xYatõ |
Germ. ich; Chin. xi; Jap. hi. |
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raoha |
Eng. sing. in — 0 + h + y, cf. Eng. wrong hue. in IJVh + h + w, cf. Eng. long while). |
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cit |
Span. Chico; Eng. chit. |
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ahõ |
Span. año. |
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raiia |
Ital. Roma. |
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spiš, a5a |
Eng. wish, cash. |
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ašiiõ |
Eng. wash your face. Eng. leasure; rouge. |
EXERCISES 1
1. Transcribe and practice pronouncing the following Avestan words:
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2. Practice pronouncing the following words and sentences and wñe them in Avestan script:
ama5å spawa "Life-giving Immortals" upa,taca! Araduuï Sura Anähita "Araduuï Sura Anähita came running" eraëtaonõ surõ yõ jana! Ažim Dahäkam "Sraëtaona, rich in life-giving strength, who killed the Giant Dragon"
Yimõ xšaëtõ huueea; yõ xšaiiata darapm zruuänam "radiant Yima with good herds, who ruled for a long time" vispe yazatåohõ ama$aca spawaca haeti "all beings worthy of sacrifice (= deities) aœ both immortal and life-giving."
3. "Guess" how to say: "I carry, I eat, he eats, he requests, we carry, we request."
VOCABULARY 1
The grammatical forms of the words
in these œading exercises will be explained in the following lessons. Here only
the meanings given. For the sake of future reference, however, all the standard
grammatical information is given here. Thus, after each word the so-called
"stem"—followed by a hyphen—is given, which indicates that the word
changes according to its grammatical fon•n. No hyphen that the word does not
change. The stems and their meanings should be learned by heart. The
abbreviations m. = 
f. = feminine, n. = neuter refer to the gender
of the nouns and should be noted; nom. = nominative, acc. = accusative, voc. =
vocative, gen. = genitive, sing. = singular, plur. = plural; the symbol refers
to the "root" of a verb; < = comes from. A " / " is used
to indicate different stems. All these terms will be explained later.
The examples in the pronunciation column are not included in the vocabulary.
The alphabetical order adopted here is as in English, with modified letters following the simple ones:
i
ï 
c k h r
aya, nom. plur. of aya-: bad, evil airiianam, gen. plur. f. of airiia-: Aryan, Iranian amauuaqtam, acc. sing. of amauuant-: forceful, strong amo\å, nom. plur. of ama$a-: immortals
Ame\å Spanta: Life-giving Immortals; name of six divine beings that play an important role in Mazdaism (see Lesson 2)
Araduuï Sura Anähita, nom. sing. of Areduuï- Surä- Anähitä-: Aroduuï Sura Anahita (see Lesson 2) •m, nom. sing. of a\a- n. : (cosmic and ritual) Order (see Lesson 2) a\i- f. : reward; A\i, goddess of the rewards
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