This articlerelies largely or entirely on asingle source. Relevant discussion may be found on thetalk page. Please helpimprove this article byintroducing citations to additional sources. Find sources: "Manichaean script" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(June 2021)

Manichaean script
Manichaean cosmogonic text in the Sogdia language
Script type	Abjad
Period	3rd century – c. 10th century CE
Direction	Right-to-left script
Languages	Middle Iranian andTocharian languages
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic alphabet Phoenician alphabet Aramaic alphabet Syriac alphabet Sogdian alphabet Manichaean script
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Mani(139), ​Manichaean
Unicode
Unicode alias	Manichaean
Unicode range	U+10AC0–U+10AFF Final Accepted Script Proposal

TheManichaean script is anabjad-based writing system rooted in the Semitic family of alphabets and associated with the spread ofManichaeism from southwest to central Asia and beyond, beginning in the third century CE. It is a variant of theSyriac script.^[1] It bears a sibling relationship to early forms of thePahlavi scripts, both systems having developed from theImperial Aramaic alphabet, in which theAchaemenid court rendered its particular, official dialect ofAramaic. Unlike Pahlavi, the Manichaean script reveals influences from theSogdian alphabet, which in turn descends from the Syriac branch of Aramaic. The Manichaean script is so named because Manichaean texts attribute its design toMani himself.Middle Persian is written with this alphabet.

TheIranologist Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst notes that the Manichaean script was mainly used to write numerousMiddle Iranian languages (Manichaean Middle Persian,Parthian,Sogdian,Early New Persian,Bactrian) andOld Uyghur (a Turkic language).^[2] The Manichaean script is closely related to thePalmyrene alphabet ofPalmyrene Aramaic and theEstrangelo script ofSyriac.^[2]

The term "Manichean" was introduced as designation for the script by the German scholarFriedrich W. K. Müller, because of the use of the script in Manichean texts.^[2] Müller was the first scholar in modern times (in 1903/4) to read the script.^[2]

Older Manichaean texts appear in a script and language that is still identifiable as Syriac/Aramaic and these compositions are then classified as Syriac/Aramaic texts. Later texts using Manichaean script are attested in the literature of three Middle Iranian languageethnolects:

• Sogdian — the dialect ofSogdia in the east, which had a large Manichean population.
• Parthian — the dialect ofParthia in the northeast, which is indistinguishable from Medean of the northwest.
• Middle Persian — the dialect ofPars (Persis, or Persia proper) in southwestIran.

The Manichaean system does not have a high incidence ofSemitic languagelogograms andideograms inherited from chancelleryImperial Aramaic that are an essential characteristic of the Pahlavi system. Besides that, Manichaean spelling was less conservative or historical and corresponded closer to contemporary pronunciation: e.g. a word such asāzād "noble, free" was writtenʼčʼt in Pahlavi, butʼʼzʼd in Manichaean Middle Persian of the same period.

Manichaean script was not the only script used to render Manichaean manuscripts. When writing inSogdian, which was frequently the case, Manichaean scribes frequently used theSogdian alphabet ("Uighur script"). Likewise, outside Manichaeism, the dialect of Parsa (Persia proper) was also recorded in other systems, including Pahlavi scripts (in which case it is known as "Pahlevi" orZoroastrian Middle Persian) andAvestan alphabet (in which case it is known asPazend).

As Manichaeism was persecuted aroundMesopotamia and the regions of theSasanian Empire, its origins, it became well-established in Central Asia and along theSilk Road. It became an official state religion among the Uyghurs for five centuries (from the eighth through the twelfth century), and thus many surviving manuscripts are found in theTurpan region in the Iranian languages aforementioned,Old Uyghur, and theTocharian languages.

In the 19th century, German expeditions discovered a number of Manichaean manuscripts atBulayïq on the Silk Road near Turpan in what is nowXinjiang. Many of these manuscripts are today preserved in Berlin.

Like most abjads, Manichaean is written from right to left and lacks vowels. Particularly, it has certain consonants that join on both sides, some that join only on the right, and some that only join on the left, and some that do not join at all, unlike the most well-known abjad, Arabic, which has only consonants that join on both sides or on the right. Manichaean has a separate sign for the conjunction "ud" (and); two dots are placed above characters to indicate abbreviations, and there are several punctuation-marks to indicate headlines, page-divisions, sentence-divisions, and others.

There are obligatory conjuncts for certain combinations involving "n" and "y". The numbers are built from units of 1, 5, 10, 20 and 100 and can be visually identifiable. There are also some alternate forms of certain characters.

The Manichaean alphabet (U+10AC0–U+10AFF) was added to theUnicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0.

• Durkin-Meisterernst, Desmond (October 14, 2005)."Manichean script".Encyclopaedia Iranica.

• Kara, György (1996). "Aramaic Scripts for Altaic Languages". In Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William (eds.).The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press. pp. 536–558.ISBN 0195079930.
• Skjærvø, Prods Oktor (1996). "Aramaic Scripts for Iranian Languages". In Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William (eds.).The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press. pp. 515–535.ISBN 0195079930.
• "Digitales Turfan-Archiv: Mitteliranische Texte in manichäischer Schrift". [Photos of the original texts written in Manichaean script discovered at Turpan]
• "Initial Iranian conference proposing Unicode for Manichaean Script".

• Obsolete writing systems
• Abjad writing systems
• Manichaeism
• Persian scripts
• Right-to-left writing systems

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles needing additional references from June 2021
• All articles needing additional references
• Scripts with ISO 15924 four-letter codes