Based on one’s cultural and linguistic backgrounds, dialect and accent, the spellings of Zoroastrian terms in English have varied greatly from region to region and from country to country. "One poignant example is Nowruz, which has over a dozen possible spellings!” stated Armaity Homavazir of Toronto, the lead behind the Zoroastrian Global Glossary (ZGG) project launched by the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America (FEZANA). The Glossary has now narrowed down the options to three: Nowruz/Norooz/Navroz.
This project was deemed necessary when in the process of compiling lesson plans for its members, FEZANA’s Religious Education Committee observed that volunteer teachers coming from Persian/Farsi/Dari/Gujarati speaking backgrounds with limited knowledge of Avestan and Pahlavi script had their own way of spelling terms that could lead to confusion for students. "To offer uniformity and regularity for future authors and publications,” ZGG was considered the way forward. "Of course, we must emphasize that language by nature is a dynamic entity and will undergo changes throughout its life cycle and transformations are inevitable,” noted Homavazir.
From the time of the initial idea and outreach in April 2021, the seven-member core team worked on it for the next eight months to post the web version with 365 entries on December 1. "This is not a comprehensive list of all things Zoroastrian! Geographical terms that have consistent spellings on search engines were not included.” As decided by the team, words ending with ee have been replaced by i, and instead of x, ksh has been uniformly used. While some terms have the language of origin specified in parenthesis, others do not. "For certain terms it seemed vital to understand which language they come from in order to understand their derivation and definition,” reasoned Homavazir. Knowing that "the Glossary is a work in progress” they expect to keep improving with the passage of time.
The starting point for ZGG were the two glossaries offered by Dr Jenny Rose from the Claremont Graduate University’s Religion Department and one by the FEZANA Journal. "My parameters were, most obviously, to include those terms used in my publications that would have been unfamiliar to the non-Zoroastrian reader,” clarified Rose. "For brevity’s sake, I chose not to give too many variations on a term, nor specify the originating language of every word/term,” she added.
"For uniformity in all texts produced by FEZANA, in 2004, a glossary had was developed by then FEZANA Journal editor Roshan Rivetna. In 2005 I just refined it a bit further,” explained current FEZANA Journal editor Dr Dolly Dastoor. She regretted, "Unfortunately, in spite of having a glossary, people still use spellings as they wish or as they are used to. Rarely does anyone refer to the glossary. The standard spellings of the more commonly used words need to be more widely publicized. There are too many words in the Glossary which are not in everyday parlance.”
Although the core team that worked on ZGG attempted to reach all decisions "through consensus,” there were times when opinions differed. "Since we all had our specific roles in the group it was clear as to who could provide the most well-informed definition on each term depending on our background,” Homavazir responded to queries from Parsiana. "Conceptual terms such as ‘Asha’ or ‘manthra’ required greater application of mind as did Avestan terms that are translated differently depending on the context where they occur in the scriptures. Terms in Pahlavi/Pazend, Gujarati and Farsi were much easier to define as they correlated more clearly to definite terms in English.”
Among the team members, those who had a background in linguistics were Toronto based Homavazir who is a special education teacher working with students with dyslexia and/or other language based challenges. In addition to studying the vagaries of the English language and spellings, she is also familiar with Gujarati, French and Italian. Ervad Zerkxis Bhandara from California has studied Sanskrit and is currently learning Avestan under the auspices of the North American Mobeds Council. Also from California, Dr Ali Makki who has translated Pazend prayers into English speaks Persian, German and several Indo-European languages like Zoroastrian Dari, Gilaki, Mazandarani, Luri and Kurdish. He specializes in orofacial pain and headache medicine and is an associate professor of neurology.
Greatly interested in pedagody is Artemis Javanshir who teaches Persian history, religion and the language at the California Zoroastrian Center and is co-chair of FEZANA’s Religious Education Committee. Believing in teaching Zoroastrianism the fun way, Tashan Mistree Byramji takes religion class at the Zoroastrian Association of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Bringing their editorial skills to this project are Vahishta Canteenwalla who proofreads and Yasmin Pavri who is one of the copy editors of FEZANA Journal.
"There have been overwhelmingly positive responses,” mentioned Homavazir whose team has started doing "Zoom presentations for associations and teacher groups to raise more awareness.” One of these presentations that Parsiana was invited to witness saw Homavazir and Mistree Byramji take the participants through the why, what and how of the Glossary project for nearly half an hour after which they answered queries for nearly an hour. To encourage youngsters to refer to the Glossary, available on
glossary@fezana.org, they have devised fun activities like four-line rhyming verses that give a clue as to where the six gahanbars may be found in the glossary or plan crosswords, using the words listed in the Glossary or games like Scavenger Hunt.
Homavazir advised participants to bookmark the Glossary so that it may serve as a ready reckoner. From the feedback generated it seemed prospective users wanted the written word to be accompanied by the spoken version; as also the inclusion of recurring words that are found in Zoroastrian prayers. To ensure that Parsiana understood the import of this project, Homavazir spent 15 minutes with us on a separate Zoom call. Included in the presentation was a visual of one misspelt "Angira Mainyu” (instead of Angra Mainyu) that has reportedly generated over a million views. She feared that "if we don’t take charge of our spellings, others will.”
In the Glossary, maximum entries feature under the alphabet ‘A’ where Ahura, Avesta, anjuman and agiary are some of the commonly used terms that are explained. The Glossary starts with "ab zohr: offering to the waters. The last part of the yasna ceremony, when the water and haoma juice are returned to the well.” It ends with "Zartosht-no-diso (PGuj=Parsi Gujarati): Zarathushtra’s death anniversary (Dae mah, Khorshed roz).” "The Glossary has been endorsed by several leading Zoroastrian scholars and thinkers,” wrote FEZANA’s chief communications officer Jim Engineer.