I live in Manchester in England. A Zoroastrian woman from Bombay in
India lives near me. She has two Zoroastrian religious objects with
text in the Arabic alphabet, without any Arabic vowel symbols. She
would be thankful if you could tell me what language the text is in
and what the text says. Hereinafter:-
# means the Arabic alif letter.
Letters in [square brackets] are doubtful.
(1) Rectangular metal plaque.
b-[r]-y-#-r-y
#-h-w-r-#-m-z-d-#
#-n-r-y-sh-[r]-n-y-k
k-f-t-#-r-n-y-k
k-r-d-#-r-n-y-k
and a small image of Ahura Mazda at the bottom.
(2) Circular metal plaque.
A big image of Ahura Mazda in the middle, and under it:-
k-r-d-#-r-n-y-k
k-f-t-#-r-n-y-k
p-n-d-#-r-n-y-k
She would also welcome the full pronunciation with vowels of these
words.
Line 2 of (1) is clearly the name Ahura Mazda, and there the engraver
seems to have represented Avestic short vowels by Arabic long vowels.
Somasushma (a member of
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivilization ) thinks that this
text is Avestic or Old Persian rather than Middle Persian.