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Inscriptional Parthian is a script used to write 
Parthian language
The Parthian language, also known as Arsacid Pahlavi and Pahlawānīg, is an extinct ancient Northwestern Iranian language once spoken in Parthia, a region situated in present-day northeastern Iran and Turkmenistan. Parthian was the language of s ...
on coins of Parthia
Parthia ( peo, 𐎱𐎼𐎰𐎺 ''Parθava''; xpr, 𐭐𐭓𐭕𐭅 ''Parθaw''; pal, 𐭯𐭫𐭮𐭥𐭡𐭥 ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Med ...
from the time of Arsaces I of Parthia Arsaces or Arsakes (, , Graecized form of Old Persian ) is the eponymous Greek form of the dynastic name of the Parthian Empire of Iran adopted by all epigraphically attested rulers of the Parthian_Empire, Arsacid dynasties. The indigenous Parthian ...
(250 BC). It was also used for inscriptions of Parthian (mostly on clay fragments) and later Sassanian
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...
periods (mostly on official inscriptions).
Inscriptional Parthian script is written from right to left and the letters are not joined.
Letters
Inscriptional Parthian uses 22 letters:Ligatures
Inscriptional Parthian uses seven standard ligatures: The letters sadhe (𐭑) and nun (𐭍) haveswash
Swash, or forewash in geography, is a turbulent layer of water that washes up on the beach after an incoming wave has broken. The swash action can move beach materials up and down the beach, which results in the cross-shore sediment exchange. T ...
tails which typically trail under the following letter. For example:
Numbers
Inscriptional Parthian had its ownnumerals
A numeral is a figure, symbol, or group of figures or symbols denoting a number. It may refer to:
* Numeral system used in mathematics
* Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English)
* Numerical d ...
:
Numbers are written right-to-left. Numbers without corresponding numerals are additive. For example, 158 is written as (100 + 20 + 20 + 10 + 4 + 4).
Unicode
Inscriptional Parthian script was added to theUnicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
Standard in October, 2009 with the release of version 5.2.
The Unicode block for Inscriptional Parthian is U+10B40–U+10B5F:
References
{{list of writing systems Abjad writing systems Iranian inscriptions Parthian language Obsolete writing systems Persian scripts