Darius I (550-486 BC) claims credit for the invention of Old Persian Cuneiform in an inscription on a cliff at Behistun in south-west Iran. The inscription dates from 520 BC and is in three languages - Elamite, Babylonian and Old Persian. Some scholars are sceptical about Darius' claims, others take them seriously, although they think that Darius probably commissioned his scribes to create the alphabet, rather than inventing it himself.
Old Persian, the language used in the cuneiform inscriptions of Achaemenian dynasty and the vernacular of the Achaemenian elite. Old Persian was spoken in southwestern Persia, an area known as Persis, and belongs to the Iranian branch or the Indo-Aryan family of languages.
Download alphabet charts for Persian (Excel)
Photo by Simon Ager, taken in the British Museum.
Sample text provided by Fereydoun Rostam
Details of the Old Persian script and language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Persian_cuneiform
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Persian_language
http://sites.la.utexas.edu/persian_online_resources/history-of-the-language/old-persian-script/
Old Persian cuneiform fonts
https://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_OldPersianC.html
https://www.fontspace.com/category/old%20persian
Esnaashari & Sarhadi's Old Persian Unicode Font (Zip)
Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies (SOAS), University of London: http://www.cais-soas.com/
ALPHABETUM - a Unicode font
for ancient scripts, including Classical & Medieval Latin, Ancient Greek, Etruscan, Oscan, Umbrian, Faliscan, Messapic, Picene, Iberian, Celtiberian, Gothic, Runic, Old & Middle English, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Old Nordic, Ogham, Kharosthi, Glagolitic, Anatolian scripts, Phoenician, Brahmi, Imperial Aramaic, Old Turkic, Old Permic, Ugaritic, Linear B, Phaistos Disc, Meroitic, Coptic, Cypriot and Avestan.
https://www.typofonts.com/alphabetum.html
Akkadian, Elamite, Hittite, Old Persian Cuneiform, Sumerian, Ugaritic
Page last modified: 01.06.21
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