The Faint Nasal in a Yasna Opening
A student preparing for the SSC Avesta practical is transcribing the opening of a Yasht from three facsimiles. The line reads ahurəm mazdąm yazamaidē, 'we worship Ahura Mazda.' In facsimile A (a clear older hand) the word mazdąm carries a distinct nasal sign over the final vowel. Facsimile B, copied later, shows the same nasal sign but faintly. Facsimile C omits the nasal sign entirely and writes mazdām with a long ā. The student's worksheet asks for a single normalized transliteration and a one-line grammatical note. The teacher warns that the exam will penalize both silent omission and over-correction. The student knows that yazamaidē is 1st person plural middle of yaz- 'worship' and that ahurəm is accusative singular. She has 10 minutes to decide which facsimile to follow and how to justify the choice in the answer booklet.
1. Which facsimile reading should the student adopt for the object of yazamaidē, and why? Show the case reasoning.
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Adopt mazdąm, with the nasal sign. yazamaidē is 1pl middle of yaz- 'worship' and here takes an accusative object. ahurəm is already accusative singular, so the second member of the pair must also be accusative singular. For the mazdā- stem the accusative singular is mazdąm, written with the nasalized vowel. Facsimile C's mazdām lacks that ending and cannot be defended as the direct object on grammatical grounds. The choice is not decided by majority alone: A and B agree, and their reading is the one that satisfies the syntax. C is best explained as scribal omission of a diacritic-like sign. In the answer booklet, the student should print ahurəm mazdąm yazamaidē and add 'acc. sg. object of yazamaidē'.
2. Explain the difference between a and ą in the Avestan script and in transliteration.
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The Avestan script has separate letters for a and for the nasalized vowel transliterated ą. The nasal is not a decorative mark added to a; it is a letter-level distinction that belongs to the phonology and to the grammatical ending. In transliteration, a is plain a, while ą carries an ogonek. A reader who treats the nasal as optional will misread not only the sound but also the case. The student should say that the script was designed to record recitation accurately, so vowel quantity and nasality are part of the text, not editorial ornament. In the exam, write the sign consistently and do not substitute ā for ą.
3. If the nasal were omitted, what would be the danger in translation?
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The immediate danger is that the translator loses the accusative singular and may try to read mazdā as a nominative or another case. Then the sentence no longer has a clear direct object for yazamaidē, and the translation 'we worship Ahura Mazda' becomes unsupported. A careless translator might supply an object from memory or turn the phrase into 'Ahura Mazda worships', which reverses the roles. The omission also creates a false sense that Avestan vowel signs are optional. The safe procedure is to check the verb's case requirement first, then the noun ending, then the witnesses. If the nasal is physically damaged, the grammar still points to mazdąm.