The glossary was previously known to Indian Zoroastrians, called the Parsis, as the mna-xvatay (traditionally pronounced mona khoda), a name derived from the first two words (the lemma) of the first entry.
In the earliest edition made available to European scholarship, the Frahang is arranged serially; that is, according to the shape of the Aramaic characters.
In 1867, Hoshangji Jamaspji Asa and Martin Haug published a transcript of a manuscript that was arranged thematically by chapter.
The glossary encompasses approximately five hundred (not counting variations) Semitic language heterograms (huzvarishn, "probably mean[ing] 'obsoleteness, antiquity, or archaism'"[4]), "in the form used by Zoroastrians in writing Middle Persian (Book Pahlavi), each explained by a "phonetic" writing of the corresponding Persian word.
The primary elements (logogram(s) and translation) "are then transcribed interlinearly, and more or less corruptly, into Avestan letters, i.e., into Pāzand, whereby the heterograms appear in their traditional mnemonic pronunciation.