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According to the CIA fact book, at least 24% of the Iran's population are Azeri Turkish speakers. Your map is misleading, since it gives the impression that people in north western Iran are native Persian speakers, while in fact they are Azeri people. For instance consider Tabriz city. Heja Helweda 12:24, 9 Nov 2005
The reason that Azari doesn't appear on that map is because its not a member of the Iranian language family, a genetic grouping, and so doesn't belong there. Now, if it were a map of the languages of Iran that would be a different matter. -- Maziart 06:27, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Hey all... I am a big fan of the Persian language, primarily since as an Indian I've come into a vast inheritance known as Urdu, which is essentially a mix of Sanskrit, Prakrit (proto-Indian language), Persian and Arabic, a sister language of Hindi. Urdu, as an Indian language, has a vast literature and some incredible fusions of Persian-Islamic and traditional Indian culture. Much of modern Indian language, especially Hindi/Urdu (which are essentially blended into a mix called Hindustani) has huge amounts of Persian influence. I was wondering if the Persian page might, if only in a small section, include a word on its massive influence on India through Mughal culture and, in particular, Urdu. The ties between high Urdu literature and Persian literature is also of great interest, with understandings of how Sufism altered in crossing to the Indian subcontinent, how the ghazal retained or changed form to adapt to Indian art. Heck, even some Hindu writers have takhallus! So, hope to hear more on this. -- LordSuryaofShropshire 01:38, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)
Oh, by the way, in India, we mostly refer to Persian as Farsi. I think it's mainly because Zoroastrian Persians, whom we refer to as Parsis, settled in India in the 8th century under the protection of a local Hindu king. Also, I seem to have read somewhere that the original area was called Farsi. Beats me. Peace -- LordSuryaofShropshire 01:40, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)
This needs wikification, fact checking, and removing irrelevant parts (possibly also checking for copyvios). Please add to the main article after that. Roozbeh 16:15, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I would think this is largely true, though a bit gushing. Refdoc 22:18, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I suggest if we want to keep the stuff below, then the solution would be to add a section on Influence of Persian language on other languages. What can be said about Urdu can probably said too (to maybe a lesser degree, but nevertheless) about Turkish. Also there is a fair number of English words coming either straight out of Farsi or via Urdu out of Farsi Refdoc 23:24, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Among many notable attributes of the Persian language was its great adaptability and influence in India. When the Mughal conquest of India had resulted in a vast Islamic empire, especially in the North and middle areas, a new hybrid language began to form around the 10th and 11th centuries CE, one that would eventually be known as Urdu ("tent" in Turkish in allusion to the army barracks of visiting troops). It grew from the interaction of Muslim soldiers and native Hindu peoples, merging with the local Prakrit and Sanskrit-based Khari boli (standing tongue), a proto-Hindi dialect of the north. Soon, the Persian script and nastaliq form of cursive was adopted, with additional figures added to accommodate the Indian phonic system, and a rich new language based on Indian grammar and a predominantly Persian (and indirectly Arabic) base of words came into being. Urdu soon gained distinction as the most prized of languages in the Persian courts of India and to this day retains a distinctive place in literary and cultural spheres. Many distinctly Persian forms of literature, such as ghazals, and culture, such as Sufism, came to both influence and be affected by Indian culture, producing a distinct melding of Middle and South Eastern heritages. Urdu is known as the "Kohinoor" ("Mountain of Light"), a famed and massive diamond, of Indian languages due to its richness of sound and piquant ability to emote. Persian language and literature has not infrequently been termed an adopted classical language of India beside Sanskrit due to its centrality to Urdu and Indian tradition.
I would like to propose that we remove the section on the Persian influence on Urdu. The section, as it is written, places too great an emphasis on this influence, which to my knowledge is confined almost entirely to lexical borrowings. In this, it is no more noteworthy than other cases of the same, e.g. French and English, French and Germanic. It certainly doesn't deserve a section in the *Persian language* article; it should be moved to the Urdu article. -- Maziart 09:49, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The old Persian is DARI that still use in Afghanistan ( the land of Persia) and because of environment it changes to FARSI now it Use in Iran. and Urdu that has lots of Persian words and use in India and Pakistan.
I just added a more detailed description of the vowel inventory, but the consonant inventory needs to be worked on. -- Maziart 09:39, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thanks to IceKarma for the pretty vowel chart. An alternative vowel chart for Persian can be found here. Discussion concerning the merits of both charts (specifically about the two low vowels) are still up in the air. I'm curious what others have to say about this. -- jonsafari 12:09, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Just wanted to add, skip the nationalism on "Persian pride" and only say relevant stuff. There is no hidden agenda. The Persian empire got conquered, and the conquerors influenced the Persian culture. It's pretty much a natural thing. People influence people. The language and culture changed and are changing, get over it. And btw, yes there is "Farsi music". - Arjan
Hello all I am new to this, so please forgive me if I post this incorrectly both place-wise and code-wise. In any case, in terms of "Persian", "Farsi", etc. as an Iranian and Persian I refer to myself in English as both Iranian and Persian interchangeably, much as a Greek in English would refer to himself as Greek, rather than "Hellenes". I do the same for the language. However, to assume that all Iranians use "Farsi" simply because that word exists is completely farcical. I am proud to use Parsi and include the /p/ phenome, because that is the true name of the language. The last I checked, there was no "Farsi" gulf, and no "Farsi" music, but I am well aware of the Persian/Parsi equivalents. Those who force "Farsi" down both Iranian and non-Iranian throats, in my opinion, have an agenda. - user:Javan-e-Irooni
The proper name and most common name is Farsi. Brittanica refers to "Farsi", not Persian. Lonely Planet and Collins Gem publish "Farsi" phrase books. Oxford publishes an English-"Farsi" dictionary. The International Bible Society publishes a "Farsi" bible. "FarsiNet" is a major Iranian website. Even the damn Scientologists have "farsi.dianetics.org". I think that's pretty conclusive. - MMGB
Just a side note: the ISO language code listing lists it under "Persian (Farsi)", but the code itself is "FA".
I think the best reason against calling the language "Persian" remains that Persia/Iran has lots of languages, like Aimaq and Hazaragi. So calling Farsi "Persian" is like calling Mandarin "Chinese" and calling Cantonese just Cantonese. Why should the specific, majority language get sole rights to the name Persian? If there is something else we could call it, that would be fine, but 'til then, Farsi (or Parsi) sounds most correct to me! It is totally obnoxious to act as though your language has gets to dominate. As a speaker of Aimaq, I am well aware of the discrimination from the majority.
Its use in the English language is very recent (since the 1970s).
QUOTE Farsi is an old language that has roots from over a thousand years ago. /QUOTE Non-information? Do you know any natural language that does not have roots from over a thousand years ago? -- user:Vassili Nikolaev
I don't know where that quote comes from but to me it seems you misunderstand the quote (perhaps because the quote is scanty). As a Persian speaker who also knows a few other languages, I can tell you that when it comes to etymology of Indo-European roots, in the Persian language you are definitely drinking from the fountainhead or very near to it, whereas in most other languages the meanings are blurry and fuzzy or just invisible. Example: did you ever notice how the spelling of 'daughter' in English is a little strange? Why? Because it comes from German 'Tochter'. So we go to German. But can we really 'see' the word Tochter in German? Not really. But the same word in Persian is Dokhtar, and even an uneducated Persian speaker can see "Dokht + ar" ... and in Persian you have both parts in numerous other constructs .... for instance: Shahdokht = shah + dokht = princess. This is just one small example. I think the quote meant that the roots in Persian even to this day are, for lack of a better word, "original" or preserved. -- Keyvan Partovi.
Many people say things like this about their own languages. I personally believe that "daughter" is a very bad example because the Indo-European root is nearly identical (it is *dhughəter), and it means "daughter-in-law". Also, very little English vocabulary comes from German; this is a common misconception. A great deal of English words have a common source with German, but not more than a few come from it. For example, "daughter" does NOT originate from German "Tochter" but rather from Middle English "doughter" which in turn comes from Old English "dohtor" from Proto-Germanic (NOT German) *dohtēr. *dohtēr almost immediately turns into an English form and a German form (at least after the split between East, West, and North Germanic). Also, given the wealth of mostly unnessecary vocabulary English has, there are many words (such as "equine") that preserve directly the Indo-European root where other words do not (or at least not nearly as apparently; ie "horse"). Examples: equine + hippopotamus both from *ekʷo, hound + cynic + kennel + corgi all from *kʷon (also believed by many to be the ultimate origin of *ekʷo), goose + smorgåsbord both from *ghans, etc. -- Node 00:58, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Likewise, one can offer numerous examples where "Persian" is used and not "Farsi". The fact is that the usage of term "Farsi" instead of "Persian" in the English language is fairly recent. The language itself however, is anything but recent. What is stated in the article is correct, the difference between "Persian" and "Farsi" in English language, is the same as "Spanish" and "Español". I just checked with three of my English dictionaries, and all three contain "Persian", referring to the Language among other things (such as the Persian culture).
So if we start calling the Persian language (in English) "Farsi", should we also do the same thing for the Persian culture? Calling it "Farsi culture"? Or should we only (for some strange reason) insist on calling the language "Farsi", but continue to call the culture "Persian"? What about "Persian literature"? The Persian language has been called "Persian" in English for centuries.
Also, why not do the same thing with other languages? How about "Magyar" for "Hungarian" or "Deutsch" for "German" for starters?
I think your "Iran/Persia" gives me a clue as to the root of this confusion. Let me try to clarify. I am an Iranian. Ethnically, I am a Persian (on both sides of my parents). When people in English ask me where I am from or what my nationality is, the answer is "Iranian" (and not Persian). When they ask me what my language is, the answe is "Persian" (not Farsi). Now, I have noticed that many Iranians and even non-Iranians of the region, refer to themselves as "Persian". There are a number of reasons, I suppose, for this, which I won't get into in this talk -- it would go beyond the scope of this discussion. But one thing I have noticed is that the majority of Persian people themselves, refer to themselves as Iranians and not Persian.
Iranian people themselves have always refered to Iran as "Iran" and not "Persia"; as evidenced by our long and rich literature and even pre-Islamic books. The name "Persia" is a Greek construct made up of "Pers + ia" ('ia' = suffix of location, as in Italia, Romania, etc) because the capital province of Iran during the old Persian Empire was the province of Pars (or Pers, as the Greeks must have pronounced it). The Pars province to this day is one of the provinces in Iran.
Just as the Greek language has 'ia' as suffix of location, Persian has 'an' as suffix of location, thus, so many (hundreds) of place names in Iran ending with 'an', such as Iran, Tehran, Isafhan, Gilan, Mazandaran, Khorasan, etc ... Persian has other suffixes of location as well, a famous one is 'istan' as in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, etc ... and that one comes from a Persian verb, but the 'an' suffix is special. The name "Iran" is made up of "Ir (ayr) + an" which literally and etymologically means "Land of the Aryans" (not to be confused with the Nazi notion of the word "Aryan").
In the 1930's, Iran officially asked the world to refer to Iran as "Iran" instead of "Persia" -- a good idea in my opinion.
However, this does not mean that now we should refuse to acknowledge that there is indeed a Persian culture, a Persian language, a Persian literature, Persian epics and other cultural elements that are "Persian". Afterall, there are few people on earth with as much legitimate claim to having a cultural identidy as the Persians. There is even a Persian calendar that is a solar calendar that is to this day, the main, and official calendar of Iran.
The Persian language, regardless of what it is called, is the language that has produced one of the most wonderful literatures of all of humanity. It has seen many regimes come and go, and likely, it will see many more.
I think you are mixing some different conepts, perhaps along with some errornous conclusions based on certain assumptions. The country is Iran, the main language of Iran is Persian (or Farsi, if you like), the largest ethnic group in Iran are the Persians, etc...
Finally, I should like to add, that even those Iranians who are indeed Persian and prefer to refer to themselves as Persians, they have every right to do so, just as an Armenian from Iran has the right to be proud of his or her specific cultural identity, or a Kurd or any other ethnic group. -- Keyvan Partovi.
I wanted to add something about the “Persian or Farsi” controversy, but first wanted to consult everyone on this. Let’s talk about both, the pros and the cons, and keep it impartial. There are valuable issues raised by renowned Persian scholars. I quote from an article on the same subject:
→ Identity Aspect: The word Persian in the mind of an English speaker, consciously or not, recalls many other historical and cultural legacies about Iran. Persian is closely associated with Persian poetry, Persian carpets/rugs, Persian cats, Persian poetry, Persian pistachios, and so on. When you refer to this language as Persian, the audience may associate it with one or more of these relevant ideas. On the contrary, the word Farsi not only voids these historical and cultural associations, but it also adds to the recent portrayal of Iran as a strange and distant society.
→ Calling Persian as Farsi, is as incorrect as calling the Persian Gulf as the Farsi Gulf. Moreover, the name Farsi is obscure and under the best conditions refers only to certain dialects such as the Persian of Iran as opposed to Tajiki, the Persian of Tajikistan or Dari, the Persian of Afghanistan, or even one may say Isfahani, the Persian of Isfahan.
→ The use of word Farsi in English strikes a discordant tone to the native speaker. Imagine someone speaking in English about their recent trip to Paris saying, "I went to Paris and there I spoke Francais." (Instead of saying French). To use the word Farsi has the same impact and may sound not only pretentious at times but also destructive of English syntax.
We should therefore avoid the use of the word Farsi instead of Persian because it not only violates historical fact but also some of the regularities of the language in which we speak. I believe that Persian is the true and proper name of this language in foreign tongues and international communities and changing it does not benefit the representation of Iranian culture.-- LogiPhi 03:44, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
For the person who made the comment "Dari-speakers must be laughing"
You only show your, pardon me for the accuracy of my word here, ignorance. There is no language called "Dari", Dari is just Persian with the old Khorasani accent (or Afghani accent of Persian today). The only reason you hear of a languae called 'Dari' today, is because Afghans do not like to call it Persian or Farsi. They even took the word Dari right out of Persian literature. I challenge you to find me one academic work older than 70 years, that makes a distinction between Persian and Dari. Or better yet, ask a so-called "Dari-speaker" to name a few of the great poets and writers of this "Dari" lanuges -- they will give you the names of Persian poets of the Khorasan terriroty, without even realizing that at that time there was not even a country called Afghanistan.
In fact, the funniest thing was when an Afghan 'scholar' was referring to Ferdowsi as the great "Dari" poet. In case you don't know, Ferdowsi is the greatest poet of Persian epics, comparable to Homer for the Classical Greek. But if you study the work of Ferdowsi, it is all about "Iran", and he does not even refer to the language as "Dari" once. You would be hard pressed to go through two or three pages of his 55,000+ epic, the Shahnameh, and not encounter the word "Iran" a few times.
The word "dari" comes from Persian "darbar" meaning "court" (dari means darbari, which means "pertaining to the court" or "belonging to the court"), and that refers to the court of the Sassanids who where the last Persian empire before they fell to the Arabs. Their court was just outside of Baghdad in Iraq today. The Persian language used for official communication (as opposed to the common or colloquial Persian language) was sometimes referred to as "Dari" or the "language of the Darbar (court)" ... and subsequently in some instances, some Persian poets (from all over the place and not just the Khorasan territory) have refered to the Persian language as "Dari" when appropriate. Examples include the great Persian poets Sa'di and Hafiz from Shiraz who have at times referred to Persian as Dari -- so does this mean that the language of Shiraz (capital of Pars province of Iran) is also Dari and not Persian?! :-)
Only recently, some (perhaps most) Afghans from the country Afghanistan have insisted on referring to their language as "Dari" just to avoid calling their language Persian or Farsi. But how old is the country Afghanistan?! This would be tantamount to Austria digging deep into old German literature and finding an obscure word which means "German" but it's not "Deutsch" and start calling their language that name just to avoid using "German" (Deutsch) as the name of their language.
But this "Dari language" is not even a dialect, it is just Persian with the Afghani accent (or I should say with the old Khorasani accent). Again, ask a so-called "Dari-speaking person" to name some of the great works and names of the "Dari language" literature for you and let me know who they are.
He's right! Dari is an accent. I would clearly understand what a Afghan is saying, if he were only to pronounce it properly. Secondly, there are many diverse Iranian ethnic groups: Balochis, Armenians, Azeris (Turkic), Turkmen, Gilakis etc... And only half of the countries population consists of Persians or Fars. Alireza Hashemi
Tajik is also an accent, I've listened to Tajik BBC and I understood everything which was said.
No Node, it is not very POV and "Veeeeeeeeeeery ethnocentric" as you say. Accents are not "wrong" of course, but when someone totally messes up a word in a manner that clearly shows that that person doesn't even understand how the word is constructed, that is where I draw the line between correct and incorrect -- and that is the difference between having an accent (which is perfectly OK) and mispronounication (which is not OK). --K1 15:55, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
THis debate above is indeed highly POV and probably simply so as the majority of the participanst are Iranians instead of other speakers of the Persian language group.
A few remarks
That is exactly my point - Dari speakers use the "proper" pronounciation on many occasions where the common use within Iran is flattened and "dialect". Refdoc 23:37, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
No it is not the only word - you are obviously right, but it is the most common used - in daily language. The point I try to make is that it is silly to see Iranian Persian as the "proper" language and the central bit of the wheel, while Tajik and Dari are "aberrations" - they are not, they are equally valid developments from a common root. Refdoc 23:37, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Amir, you are seriously misunderstanding a lot of what is said above. And the supposedly increased use of Arabic within Dari - I am perfectly unclear what you base this upon - Dari speakers will often use Arabic words where Iranians will not, but also vice versa. As an Iranian teh Arabic words within Dari will jarr in your ear, so you might get this impressiuon, but do find some evidence for it please. But again, I am not fightimng to make Dair and tajik separate languages, I try to shift the Iran centric approach this article has/had towards recognising that other forms are equivalent and not simply lower forms and "dialect" Refdoc 23:37, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
--This is such a common topic and I am sure everyone is arguing about it. Basically, it has had the sad fate of becoming very involved with political issues such as nationalism, geographical borders, and the whole inferiority problem of many people in the region. If I can just make some scietific input here. Okay, Persian, or more properly, New Persian, is a descendant of Middle Persian, itself a descendant of Old Persian. Old Persian was a south-western Iranian language, and from the Old Iranian stage of Iranian Language Family (ilf), along with Avestan, is the only one represented, mostly in the Achaemenid inscriptions. After the replacement of the Achaemenids with the Seleucids, and in turn the ascend of the Arsacids to the throne of Iran, Old Persian became an oral language and not much representation of it is available from ca. 300 BC to 220's AD. Parthian, a Northwestern Iranian language, was the dominant language of the Arsacid era (BC 238-224 AD).
In 224 AD, Ardashir, the king of the province of Persis/Persia, founded the Sasanian Empire, in the process, bringing back "Persian" (this time Middle Persian) to the political fore. The Middle Persian of the Sasanian inscriptions and texts was a descended of Old Persian, but of a different dialect than the Old Persian of the Achaemenid inscriptions. The Sasanian Middle Persian dialect (commonly known under the name Pahlavi) was the dominant written form of the language until the 9th century AD. However, after the fall of the Sasanian state to the Arabs in AD 650, there was a break in the production of Pahlavi texts.
In the late 9th century, the Samanid dynasty of Transoxiana (themselves originally Sogdian speakers) revived Persian, this time "Classical New Persian". This was a descendant of Middle Persian, but not a direct descendant of Pahlavi dialect and seems to have come from a parallel dialect. Classical New Persian became the dominant written form of Persian in all of the lands of the "Eastern Caliphate" (to paraphrase La Strange), continuing to today. But notice that this is the WRITTEN form. Other dialects of New Persian were spoken all around the country.
Today, a form of Classical New Persian, developed into what is conveniently called "Modern" New Persian, is still the dominant written form/dialect of the language. This form is understood by all of the speakers, even if written in various alphabets. So, Tajiks, Afghans, and Iranian Persian speakers all understand this written form (although in the case of the Tajiki it is written in Cyrilic).
However, all of those parallel dialects continued some way or another. Stating that standard Iranian spoken language (the Tehrani or Fathalishahi accent) is the "correct" one is obviously incorrect! All forms are correct! However, the existence of different dialects does not mean that there are different languages. Persian of Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Kerman, Khuzestan, Khorasan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan (as well as Samarqand and Bukhara of Uzbekistan) are all the same language. They have the same morphology, phonology, sentence structure, syntax, and more or less the same semantics (with obvious regional differences). This, however, again does not mean that all of the languages spoken in Iran or Afghanistan or Tajikistan are just "dialects" of Persian either! Afghanistan also has Pashto which is an Iranian language of its own, belonging to the Eastern Iranian group. The same is the case in Tajikistan with Taghnobi, a descendant of ancient Sogdian, again an Eastern Iranian language. In Iran, we have Kurdish (Northwestern), Gilaki (probably NW), Sangsari (NW), Baluchi (surprisingly, again NW), Luri (SW), and many other members of the ILF.
So, this whole thing serves the purpose of showing two things:
The language is one, called Persian (Farsi by the natives) It has three major dialects (Iranian Persian, Dari (Afghanistan) and Tajiki) It is just one member of the ILF.
It is also interesting that all speakers of all dialects refer to the language in their own language as Farsi! (Find an Afghan or Tajik or an Iranian, and all three will name the language as Farsi!). -- Khodadad 07:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
There is a bit of a revert toing and fro-ing going on between various users. I think it would be better if this could be discussed here. I would agree that Uzbekistan is worth mentioning as large parts are indeed Tajik speaking. But I would like to have some confirmation for the numbers 49 or 75 million is a bit of a difference and should be clarifiable. I guess though that the 75 million is based on the erroneous assumptions that all Iranians are Farsi speakers as first language.? Refdoc 22:48, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Well there are some panturkists that are wandering through internet and try to advertise for thier political ambitions and unfortunately they try to impose thier political ambition on Historical discussions and created many havocs in Historical articles in this encyclopedia.moreever they are always anonymos and never discuss their edits.I think if anonymos users don't have the right to edit articles ,this will help to reduce these attacks. Jamshid
Gilaki or Guilaki is a longuage sad to say going to be distinct as Caspian Tiger. Why?
I nominate this for crappiest language article. It has none of the zest and flair necessary to describe the history and/or signifigance of the language, nor does it have the technical content required to describe it linguistically. Half of the stuff seems made up. Someone fix it, as I don't know enough about Farsi to attempt to do it better. -IR
First off, when signing your name, you can type (not the quotations) " LordSuryaofShropshire 14:51, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)" and your name,date, time will appear after saving the edit. Anyway, thanks for the input. But unfortunately, while I agree I would prefer a slightly different style, bombasting with insults doesn't do the trick. Sometimes, when people who enjoy knowledge feel so strongly about, say, an article that doesn't meet their standards, they research it a bit and change the page accordingly. Maybe you can try something proactive instead of yelling insults at the people who are actually working on this from afar. Remember, most people here are, funnily enough, perenially doing research projects. They don't just know everything, even about subjects they love or are involved in. -- LordSuryaofShropshire 14:51, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)
Sorry for my rather blatant (and hastily written) remark. I have indeed been doing some research (not much, I must admit, as my resources are quite limited at the moment) but I think I have some good "pieces" to add (not much more than that, I'm afraid). What I intended to get across (and I obviously did not) is that to me, and I believe to many others, (at least parts of) this article are unaccepetable and embarassing, especially when compared to other, more comprehensive language articles. I don't mean to demean or trivialize other people's contributions, which I completely appreciate, but rather to suggest that this article has not come close to reaching its full potential. That said, I'd like to suggest a wholesale revision of the whole of the article so that it may be restructured. I will begin to insert different parts that I believe to be worthy, but again, as a whole, I am quite inexperienced, especially with an article of this scope and ambition. I hope this explains a bit more what I "should have said". See ya.
I deleted a paragraph on alleged dispute of the existence of Old Persian; to the extent that it made any sense at all, it appeared to rest on a confusion of Old Persian with the completely different language Elamite. Old Persian is well-attested, and was in fact the first cuneiform script to be deciphered. - Mustafaa 19:07, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Exact details:
If so, they're quite simply wrong: there is written evidence of both. See above. If such a claim is even to be mentioned here, it should be phrased as something like "Some people are ignorant of the copious written attestation of Old and Middle Persian."
Possibly true, but irrelevant to this article.
True, and completely irrelevant.
True, but irrelevant.
True, and even less relevant.
Truly bizarre. When you could link to the original inscriptions themselves, or read the original scholars, why on earth would you resort to arguing from, of all things, ISO? - Mustafaa 22:21, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
OK. I've added it to my watchlist, so you won't be alone in arguing against it. :) - Mustafaa 22:37, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Can we have some sourcing for the population figures? Adding up the Ethnologue figures [1] yields no more than 35 million or so, even if you include Tajik. Where are the other figures coming from? - Mustafaa 03:11, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Actually, to summarize the Ethnologue figures (which, incidentally, look distinctly fishy to me - they rate their own accuracy for Iran at "B, C"):
I'm not willing to take the calculations beyond that, even with a spreadsheet - the next level up includes languages like Baluchi and Kurmanji which most would not consider Persian, despite also including controversial cases like Gilaki. - Mustafaa 03:29, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Never forget what ethnologue is - it is meant primarily as a help to Bible translators to gauge the need for a translation of the Holy Bible. This need will define the methods used, rather than any other considerations. And the numbers often do not add up as there is often a double accounting of people who consider themselves in two spheres - a particularly common phenomen in Iran with its many ethnic minorities but its strong united national identity - resulting in increasing mixing of different backgrounds and subsequent "double accounting" Refdoc 23:42, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Majority of people in Bahrain has Iranian root and lots of them are Iranian and ofcourse it was Iranian island util they independence. Most of people in Bahrain speak Persian very well and those are more than Persian speaker in Uzbekistan. Shall we add Bahrain in the article?-- Sina 20:05, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Somebody added Iraq, Oman, Azarbaijan, UAE, and Armenia to the states that Persian is spoken [2], makes me wonder, do we need all those states there? Of course there are people in all these states that know and speak Persian, but then there are a lot in Germany, Sweden, Canada, and USA too. Iran, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan are the only ones that have Persian as the/a main language. Iraq for example, I believe doesn't believe in the least, same for Azerbaijan, and Russia. Donno, what do other experts think? Needless to say, just because you live in one of these country and you have 20 friends that speak Persian is not enough.— behdad ( talk) 20:59, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
I simply mean "(فارسی / پارسی)". There is no explanation around what this slash means and what this pair consists of. Could someone please write more explicitly what is meant?-- Imz 18:03, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
(فارسی or
پارسی). But if I don’t include a hard return, the "or" gets moved to a position that is confusing for anyone who doesn’t know how to read Arabic script. —
Stephen
08:08, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Are there any serious proposals to replace the Perso-Arabic script with a Latin one? It seems to work well for Tajik, which uses Cyrillic, that is much more similar to Latin than to Arabic (by "work well" i mean nearly 100% literacy compared to 80% in Iran, and only 36% in Afghanistan according to CIA World Factbook). I know that there's a project called UniPers, but is there any chance of officially adopting it anywhere? Iran has a very conservative Islamic government which, i suppose, has no intention of changing the Arabic script (correct me if i'm wrong). But Afghanistan may be ripe for such a change. It may also serve secular Pan-Iranists well - introducing one standartized written language will bring the nations closer together.
So, can anyone comment on that?-- Amir E. Aharoni 13:40, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
Can someone create a table of the 32 letters of the Persian alphabet -- with the different shapes for letters that look different in the beginning, middle, or end of a word, name of each letter, and the sound of each letter? This is a major deficiency of this article. [Remember that Farsi has the 28 letters of Arabic plus 4 more letters.]
-- 66.81.21.224 09:24, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
under [3], it is stated that: In recent years the Latin alphabet has been used by some for technological or internationalization reasons. I guess this is nonsense. No serious persian document for whatever reason has been written in Latin alphabet. I propose to delete this sentence. Shahram Biglari 00:17, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I could not keep myself comfortable while this sentence was still there. So, I deleted. Shahram Biglari 18:37, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Ethnologue reports only 24 million native speakers of Farsi. (plus perhaps 1 million Bakhtiaris, who speak a dialect of Persian). Heja Helweda 22:19, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Total speakers of Persian (native + non-native) should contain 68 million from Iran (which has only one official language), and 7 million from Tajikistan. However, one can not include the whole population of Afghanistan, since it has two official languages: Persian and Pashtu. According to the CIA Factbook, 50% of Afghanistan population are Farsi speakers, so that would be around 15 million. Hence 68 + 7 + 15 = 90 million would be the number of total speakers. Heja Helweda 02:07, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
If this article is about the current official language of Iran, I strongly suggest to move and rename the name of this article to Farsi language.
Persian language was an ancient and extint language which does not exist anymore.
Although some uninformed people use wrongly both name for Farsi but Farsi is a modern language which is heavily affected (if not based on) Arabic and Turkish languages.
Are Latin and Italian languages the same? or many other languages like that? The Persian and Farsi language also are not the same even much more different. Off course it should be soon corrected specially in the Farsi language and Persian language articles. Mesopotamia 23:40, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
I exactly meant Latin and Italian languages. One is descended from another one. Farsi is a modern language. It is quite different from Persian. Persian was an ancient Iranian language which used by ancient Persians. After Arab/Arabic invasion everything changed. even the official language of Iran became Arabic and a new language, heavily affected by Arabic, born. It is called Farsi. Gramatically and vocabulary is quite different from that ancient Persian language.
Even in Farsi languge there is a different between Farsi and Persian. If you f.ex. in Tehran or Isfahan ask people which language they speak they reply Farsi. And if ask them about Persian (Parsi) they explain for you that it refers to an old language. In Other words and more simply:
If you say: Ou ra peyda kardam and ask them which language is this, they reply that: it is Farsi.
If you say: Vey ra biaftam people say this is Persian (Parsi).
So as you see Farsi is a modern language while Persian is an old one. If there is some small dialect in some countries which call themselves Parsi (Persian) it does not change the mater; we can explain it in a section in the artilce. But the modern language spoken in modern Iran is Farsi. Mesopotamia 00:08, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I had alrady seen that page. It does not mean that Farsi is the same as Persian. as I explained for you above, they are quite different from eachother. Mesopotamia 00:20, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
The article persian language is smartly merging Farsi with Persian language! which is a desire by some Persian nationalists. while others do not. You asked me why you get this info. Because it is so. Even in Iran there is a different between Farsi and Persian in every issue. Farsi refers to post-Islamic era while Persian for pre-islamic one. Mesopotamia 00:28, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
By "It is so" I meant "it is truth". Off course this is me who should ask you why you have merged these articles. If I started the article about Farsi and Persian languages, certainly had put different materials. Mesopotamia 00:41, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
And still is not late. Persian and farsi related articles need many wikification. Mesopotamia 00:43, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
YOU ALL CONFUSE YOURSELVES! Please do not do this. Farsi is the term that the Persian (and sometimes, Afghani) speakers of the Persian languages call it. Persian langauge = Farsi. The Old Persian langage is dead. Later on, the new version of the language was born, Parsi (which is still the term for Persian in Persian). After the Arab influence, the Persian language had thousands and thousands of Arabic loan words. In addition, the term "Farsi" is the Arabicized form of Parsi, because the invading Arabs couldn't say "P", so they replaced it with "F". The term native Persian speakers use to identify there language isn't even originally Persian. On technical standards, "Farsi" is the Arabic term for the Persian language, while "Parsi" is the original Persian term, which is now rarely used.
I dont know what all this fuss is about. The announcement of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature is the final verdict and authority in this matter: "Persian" is the proper name for the language.-- Zereshk 22:30, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I am sorry, I don't mean to sound rude, but this was funny!: "If you say: Ou ra peyda kardam and ask them which language is this, they reply that: it is Farsi.
If you say: Vey ra biaftam people say this is Persian (Parsi)."
My dear, you are arguing about Classical New Persian and Modern New Persian. "Ou ra Peyda Kardam" and "vey ra biyaaftam" are both in the same language. What you refer to as the language of older Iranians, before Islam, is either Old Persian (ca. 600-200 BCE) and Middle Persian (attested from 225-ca. 900 AD). Both of those you would not understand much, but they are both ancestors of New Persian.
New Persian itself has two stages, Classical New Persian (the written language since ca. 900 AD and the language of most of the Persian literature) and Modern New Persian (from ca. 1850), the standard form of the written (but not always the spoken) language today. This language, in both Classical and Modern stages, is refered to by the natives as Farsi, a pronunciation of the word Parsi. Grammatically, morphologically, and syntactically, both Classical and Modern are the same language. No one would say that the language of Shakespeare and that of Stephen King is not the same. Shakespeare was Classical New English, Stephen King is Modern New (American) English. Different dialects, but still the same language.
I suggest you all read a bit. Look at Compandium Linguarum Iranicarum, edited by R. Schmitt, as the best and most comprehensive available source. It is even translated into Persian (Raahnamaaye Zabaanhaaye Irani). -- Khodadad 07:53, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I would not agree that The announcement of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature is the final verdict and authority on the matter. Depending on how prescriptivist you are, the APLL may have some authority to dictate the Persian/Farsi name for Persian/Farsi, but they don't really have any authority to dictate the English name. And since there is no central "Academy of English Lang and Lit," there is no real authority that could ever be considered to be able to dictate the English name. And if you're a descriptivist, the APLL doesn't even have the authority to dictate the Persian/Farsi term. By either standard, "Farsi" is the name I hear used most often in English, and thus the "correct" English word. I suppose if you really want to be prescriptivist, you could take the Oxford English Dictionary or something as your central authority on the English Language and use whatever they use. I myself would prefer a term like "Iranian," which would mark it very well as the national language of Iran, but as I said, the term I have heard most often is "Farsi." Linguofreak 03:27, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Then again, if I'm going to use a truly descriptivist arguement, all I can do is describe how you speak. Use what you want, there's really no point in arguement. Linguofreak 03:34, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Where's the source for the new language area map? If there's no source, it's original research and not allowed. - Taxman Talk 22:03, 15 February 2006 (UTC) so if you say : ou ra peyda kardam, it's farsi but if you say: vey ra biaftam, it's Parsi (persian) i got a question, what is it gonna be if i say: ouy ra yaftam? i mean ouy, vey and ou are all the same, and they mean the same, and being known by the people as the same words, so if you think about it, you'll understand, these three won't change the language to farsi or parsi, and if you want more infos about it, i'll tell you that every single language is being changed, by the time goes on, for instance in English language, 100 years ago you would say: thou shan't steal now you say you shall not steal, right? and the words like thy, thine are all changed, and now if people different things instead, you could not say this language is not English any more because of these things, no Bro, Persian is equal to Farsi (Parsi) and recently the persian linguists are going to change F to P, because after Arabs attacks, the Persian countries went under their controll, they couldn't pronounce P, so they'd say F, instead! and now, we call it Farsi, because in the past Arbas couldn't pronounce its right form, which is Parsi, and lately the persian linguists are changing the words to have P rather than F.
According to ethnologue there are 39 million native speakers of persian [4]. The dialects and native population figures are given below: (population figures include speakers worldwide)
Eastern Farsi 7.6 m. [5]
Western Farsi 24.3 m. [6]
Tajiki 4.38 m. [7]
Aimaq 650,000 [8]
Bukharic 110,000 [9]
Dehwari 13,000 [10]
Darwazi 10,000 [11]
Hazaragi 2.2 m. [12]
Dzhidi 60,000 [13]
Pahlavani 2,100 [14]
Based on this number, the ranking is 24th not 19th. Heja Helweda 02:49, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
We have to count by country and add them up. And we have to use more than one source, because:
Hence the estimate (according to the combined sources of Ethnologue, CIA, and
[15] ) is:
hence 19 is correct, in fact it is an underestimate because Ethnologue does mention Oman and Qatar as harboring Persian speakers, which I havent counted above.-- Zereshk 08:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Since there is no official census on the number of native speakers of various languages in Iran, any figure would be at best an estimate. it is better to include all existing estimates, like CIA estiamte and Ethnologue's estimate. Heja Helweda 18:58, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Number of native speakers of Persian according to a more recent source (with higher numbers than Ethnologue), with breakdown of different dialects:
Heja Helweda 22:37, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
I would be wary of attaching the label academic to either source. Both are world almanacs, and, as such, are better at the broad brush approach. As Ethnologue is specifically a register of the world's languages, whereas CIA is more political, I would generally consider its linguistic information of a higher quality. However, neither are specific enough to be taken as an academic answer to the questions we're asking of them. -- Gareth Hughes 12:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I am finding out that the "History" section is very inaccurate and sort of unneccessary. Let me start with the former:
"Old Persian, the main language of the Achaemenid inscriptions, should not be confused with the non-Indo-European Elamite language (see Behistun inscription). Over this period, the morphology of the language was simplified from the complex conjugation and declension system of Old Persian to the almost completely regularized morphology and rigid syntax of Modern Persian, in a manner often described as paralleling the development of English. " (emphesis is mine)
Over which "period"? The previous sentence is refering to the Achaemenid times. As far as the evidence of the language goes, the Achaemenid Old Persian was still a very inflected language, with three grammatical genders, eight noun cases, five verb classes, and three conjugations. See R. Kent's "Old Persian: Grammar, Texts, Lexicon" for this.
The loss of the gender system and the simplification of the noun declensions to two cases belongs to the next period of the language. Basically, after the fall of the Achaemenids, (Old) Persian in a sense "went underground" and did not re-surface until the Sasanian times (224-650 AD). By the time the first texts in (Middle) Persian appear again (Inscription of Shahpur I in Ka'abe Zartosht, Res Gestae Divi Saporis), the language had morphed into the Middle Persian form, written in its "Pahlavi" (south-western) dialect. The final loss of the inflection system does not occure until Classical New Persian (ca. 900 on) is commited into writing.
Now, for the usefulness of this "History" section. Why do we even need it? A simple mention that New Persian is a descendent of Middle Persian is enough. Anyone interested in the older stages should look at the related articles. Here, we need to discuss the development of New Persian, from its first appearance in the late 9th century to the present, with mentions of literary and linguistic changes. -- Khodadad 08:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
What convention is employed in the semantic diagram under Grammar? A link to an article explaining that convention would be excellent. Otherwise, the notation should be "unpacked".
Collingsworth 07:01, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Someone knowledgeable in the Persian language should take a look at Kos (Persian). -- F a ng Aili 說嗎? 20:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
The data about the historical development of Modern Persian and Arabic influence was based on the following article Iranian languages from Encyclopaedia Britannica. It is 18 pages and you can find the links for all pages here: