Parthian Is Not Turkish
Greetings Professor Diker,
It has been brought to my attention that you describe Parthian as a Turkish language in your website (or a related website):
www.compmore.net/~tntr/crescent_starb.html
This is linguistically incorrect. Parthian is not a Turkic language. It is an old western Iranian language that is also called “Parthian Pahlavi”. It is a very close relative of “Middle Persian” or “Sassanian Pahlavi”. The syntax and vocabulary of Parthian are recorded (e.g. Dinkard) and are of Iranian stock. The language of “Parthian” is actually called “Pahlavi” – deriving from “Partha” into “Pahla”. It is evident that the individual who hosts this website does not speak Pahlavi.
Allow me to demonstrate this language and its Iranian character by way of example:
“haft celan istaft polawad im pad dast grift”
which means
“the seven daggers of hard steel that I have grasped with my hand”.
Many of the words are common in modern Persian (e.g dast – hand; Polawad (poolad in Persian) – steel; – grift (gerefet in Persian) – grasped). “Haft” is the number seven; clearly Indo-European – the Turkish counting system is entirely different. For an introduction to Pahlavi, you may wish to refer to the following works by Professor Mackenzie:
MacKenzie, D.N. (1967). Notes on the transcription of Pahlavi BSOAS, 30, 17-29
MacKenzie, D.N. (1971). A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary. London: Routledge.
