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Persian (), also known by its endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a
Western Iranian language The Western Iranic languages are a branch of the Iranic languages, attested from the time of Old Persian (6th century BC) and Median. Languages The traditional Northwestern branch is a convention for non-Southwestern languages, rather than a ...
belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
,
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
, and
Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
in three mutually intelligible standard varieties, namely
Iranian Persian Iranian Persian, Western Persian or Western Farsi, natively simply known as Persian (, ), refers to the varieties of the modern Persian language spoken in Iran and by minorities in neighboring countries, as well as by Iranian communities throu ...
(officially known as ''Persian''),
Dari Persian Dari (, , ), also known as Dari Persian (, ), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,Lazard, G.Darī  ...
(officially known as ''Dari'' since 1964) and
Tajiki Persian Tajik (Tajik: , , ), also called Tajiki Persian (Tajik: , , ) or Tajiki, is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by Tajiks. It is closely related to neighbouring Dari with which it forms a continuum of mutually intelligibl ...
(officially known as ''Tajik'' since 1999).Siddikzoda, S. "Tajik Language: Farsi or not Farsi?" in ''Media Insight Central Asia #27'', August 2002. It is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within
Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked cou ...
, as well as within other regions with a
Persianate A Persianate society is a society that is based on or strongly influenced by the Persian language, culture, literature, art and/or identity. The term "Persianate" is a neologism credited to Marshall Hodgson. In his 1974 book, ''The Venture of I ...
history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran. It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet, a derivation of the Arabic script, and within Tajikistan in the
Tajik alphabet The Tajik language has been written in three alphabets over the course of its history: an adaptation of the Perso-Arabic script, an adaptation of the Latin script and an adaptation of the Cyrillic script. Any script used specifically for Tajik ...
, a derivation of the
Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
. Modern Persian is a continuation of
Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle ...
, an official language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of Old Persian, which was used in the
Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
(550–330 BCE). It originated in the region of Pars (
Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
) in southwestern Iran. Its grammar is similar to that of many European languages. Throughout history, Persian was considered prestigious by various empires centered in
Western Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...
,
Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
, and
South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...
. Old Persian is attested in Old Persian cuneiform on inscriptions from between the 6th and 4th century BC. Middle Persian is attested in
Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
-derived scripts ( Pahlavi and Manichaean) on inscriptions and in
Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic ...
and Manichaean scriptures from between the third to the tenth centuries (see
Middle Persian literature Middle Persian literature is the corpus of written works composed in Middle Persian, that is, the Middle Iranian dialect of Persia proper, the region in the south-western corner of the Iranian plateau. Middle Persian was the prestige dialect dur ...
). New Persian literature was first recorded in the ninth century, after the
Muslim conquest of Persia The Muslim conquest of Persia, also known as the Arab conquest of Iran, was carried out by the Rashidun Caliphate from 633 to 654 AD and led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire as well as the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion. Th ...
, since then adopting the Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
on writing in the
Muslim world The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
, with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. As British scholar David G. Hogarth stated, "Never has captor more swiftly and subtly been captured by his captive than Arabic by Persia". It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in
Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...
, the
Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
in South Asia, and the
Pashtuns Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically r ...
in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages, the Turkic,
Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
,
Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
, and
Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...
. It also exerted some influence on Arabic, while borrowing a lot of vocabulary from it in the Middle Ages.: "The language known as New Persian, which usually is called at this period (early Islamic times) by the name of Dari or Farsi-Dari, can be classified linguistically as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanian Iran, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenids. Unlike the other languages and dialects, ancient and modern, of the Iranian group such as Avestan, Parthian, Soghdian, Kurdish, Balochi, Pashto, etc., Old Persian, Middle Persian, and New Persian represent one and the same language at three states of its history. It had its origin in Fars (the true Persian country from the historical point of view) and is differentiated by dialectical features, still easily recognizable from the dialect prevailing in north-western and eastern Iran." Some of the world's most famous pieces of literature from the Middle Ages, such as the ''
Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' or ''Shahnama'' ( fa, شاهنامه, Šāhnāme, lit=The Book of Kings, ) is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50 ...
'' by Ferdowsi, the works of Rumi, the '' Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám'', the ' of
Nizami Ganjavi Nizami Ganjavi ( fa, نظامی گنجوی, lit=Niẓāmī of Ganja, translit=Niẓāmī Ganjavī; c. 1141–1209), Nizami Ganje'i, Nizami, or Nezāmi, whose formal name was ''Jamal ad-Dīn Abū Muḥammad Ilyās ibn-Yūsuf ibn-Zakkī'',Mo'in ...
, ''The'' ''Divān ''of Hafez, ''
The Conference of the Birds ''The Conference of the Birds'' or ''Speech of the Birds'' ( fa, منطق الطیر, ''Manṭiq-uṭ-Ṭayr'', also known as ''Maqāmāt-uṭ-Ṭuyūr''; 1177) is a Persian poem by Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar, commonly known as Attar of Ni ...
'' by
Attar of Nishapur Abū Ḥamīd bin Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm (c. 1145 – c. 1221; fa, ابو حامد بن ابوبکر ابراهیم), better known by his pen-names Farīd ud-Dīn () and ʿAṭṭār of Nishapur (, Attar means apothecary), was a PersianRitter, H. ...
, and the miscellanea of ''
Gulistan Gulistan, Golestan or Golastan ( fa, گلستان) means "flower land" in Persian language (''gol'' meaning "flower", and ''-stan'' or meaning "land"). It may refer to: Places Iran "Golestan" most often refers to: * Golestan province in nor ...
'' and '' Bustan'' by
Saadi Shirazi Saadi Shīrāzī ( fa, ابومحمّد مصلح‌الدین بن عبدالله شیرازی), better known by his pen name Saadi (; fa, سعدی, , ), also known as Sadi of Shiraz (, ''Saʿdī Shīrāzī''; born 1210; died 1291 or 1292), was ...
, are written in Persian. Some of the prominent modern Persian poets were
Nima Yooshij Nimā Yushij ( fa, نیما یوشیج) (11 November 1895 – 4 January 1960), also called Nimā (), born Ali Esfandiāri (), was an Iranian poet. He is famous for his style of poetry which he popularized, called ''she'r-e now'' (, lit. "new p ...
,
Ahmad Shamlou Ahmad Shamlou ( fa, احمد شاملو, ''Ahmad Šāmlū'' , also known under his pen name A. Bamdad ( fa, ا. بامداد)) (December 12, 1925 – July 23, 2000) was an Iranian poet, writer, and journalist. Shamlou was arguably the most infl ...
,
Simin Behbahani Simin Behbahani, her surname also appears as Bihbahani (née Siminbar Khalili; fa, سیمین بهبهانی; 20 July 1927 – 19 August 2014) was a prominent Iranian contemporary poet, lyricist and activist. She is known for her poems in a ghaz ...
,
Sohrab Sepehri Sohrab Sepehri ( fa, سهراب سپهری; October 7, 1928 – April 21, 1980) was a notable Iranian poet and painter. He is considered to be one of the five most famous Iranian poets who have practiced modern poetry alongside Nima Youshij, A ...
,
Rahi Mo'ayyeri Rahi Mo'ayeri ( رهی معیری in Persian) (April 30, 1909 – November 15, 1968) né: Mohammad Hasan Mo'ayyeri (محمد حسن معیری in Persian), was an Iranian poet and musician. He was born into an artistic and musical family ...
,
Mehdi Akhavan-Sales Mehdi Akhavān-Sāles, or Akhavān-Sāless ( fa, مهدی اخوان ثالث) (March 1, 1929 in Mashhad, Iran – August 26, 1990 in Tehran, Iran), pen name Mim. Omid ( fa, م. امید, meaning ''M. Hope'') was a prominent Iranian poet. He is ...
, and
Forugh Farrokhzad Forugh Farrokhzad ( fa, فروغ فرخزاد; 28 December 1934 – 14 February 1967) was an influential Iranian poet and film director. She was a controversial modernist poet and an iconoclast,* feminist author.Forugh Farrokhzad died at the age ...
. There are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, including
Persians The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian. ...
, Lurs,
Tajiks Tajiks ( fa, تاجيک، تاجک, ''Tājīk, Tājek''; tg, Тоҷик) are a Persian-speaking Iranian ethnic group native to Central Asia, living primarily in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Tajiks are the largest ethnicity in Taj ...
,
Hazaras The Hazaras ( fa, , Həzārə; haz, , Āzərə) are an ethnic group and the principal component of the population of Afghanistan, native to, and primarily residing in the Hazaristan (Hazarajat) region in central Afghanistan and generally scatt ...
,
Iranian Azeris Iranian Azerbaijanis (; az, ایران آذربایجانلیلاری, italics=no ), also known as Iranian Azeris, Iranian Turks, Persian Turks or Persian Azerbaijanis, are Iranians of Azerbaijani ethnicity who may speak the Azerbaijani langu ...
,
Iranian Kurds Kurds in Iran ( ku, کورد لە ئێران, translit=Kurdên Îranê, fa, کردها در ایران) constitute a large minority in the country with a population of around 9 and 10 million people. Geography Iranian Kurdistan or Eastern Ku ...
,
Balochs The Baloch or Baluch ( bal, بلۏچ, Balòc) are an Iranian people who live mainly in the Balochistan region, located at the southeasternmost edge of the Iranian plateau, encompassing the countries of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. There ar ...
, Tats, and
Aimaqs The Aimaq ( fa, ایماق, Aimāq) or Chahar Aimaq (), also transliterated as Aimagh, Aimak and Aymaq, are a collection of Sunni and mostly Persian-speaking nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes. They live mostly in the central and western highlands ...
. The term ''Persophone'' might also be used to refer to a speaker of Persian.


Classification

Persian is a member of the Western Iranian group of the
Iranian languages The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian languages are groupe ...
, which make up a branch of the
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
in their Indo-Iranian subdivision. The Western Iranian languages themselves are divided into two subgroups: Southwestern Iranian languages, of which Persian is the most widely spoken, and Northwestern Iranian languages, of which
Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...
and Balochi are the most widely spoken.


Name

The term ''Persian'' is an English derivation of
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, the adjectival form of , itself deriving from
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
(), a Hellenized form of Old Persian (), which means "
Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
" (a region in southwestern Iran, corresponding to modern-day Fars). According to the ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'', the term ''Persian'' as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. ', which is the Persian word for the Persian language, has also been used widely in English in recent decades, more often to refer to Iran's standard Persian. However, the name ''Persian'' is still more widely used. The
Academy of Persian Language and Literature The Academy of Persian Language and Literature (APLL) ( fa, فرهنگستان زبان و ادب فارسی, ''Farhangestân-e Zabân-o Adab-e Fârsi'') is the regulatory body for the Persian language, headquartered in Tehran, Iran. Formerly know ...
has maintained that the endonym ' is to be avoided in foreign languages, and that ''Persian'' is the appropriate designation of the language in English, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity. Iranian historian and linguist
Ehsan Yarshater Ehsan Yarshater ( fa, احسان يارشاطر, April 3, 1920 – September 1, 2018) was an Iranian historian and linguist who specialized in Iranology. He was the founder and director of The Center for Iranian Studies, and Hagop Kevorkian Profe ...
, founder of the ''
Encyclopædia Iranica ''Encyclopædia Iranica'' is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times. Scope The ''Encyc ...
'' and
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
's Center for Iranian Studies, mentions the same concern in an academic journal on
Iranology Iranian studies ( fa, ايران‌شناسی '), also referred to as Iranology and Iranistics, is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the research and study of the civilization, history, literature, art and culture of Iranian peoples. It ...
, rejecting the use of ' in foreign languages. Etymologically, the Persian term derives from its earlier form ( in
Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle ...
), which in turn comes from the same root as the English term ''Persian''. In the same process, the Middle Persian toponym ("Persia") evolved into the modern name Fars. The phonemic shift from to is due to the influence of
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
in the Middle Ages, and is because of the lack of the phoneme in Standard Arabic.


Standard varieties' names

The standard Persian of Iran has been called, apart from ''Persian'' and ''Farsi'', by names such as ''Iranian Persian'' and ''Western Persian'', exclusively. Officially, the official language of Iran is designated simply as ''Persian'' (, ). The standard Persian of Afghanistan has been officially named ''Dari'' (, ) since 1958. Also referred to as ''Afghan Persian'' in English, it is one of Afghanistan's two official languages, together with
Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...
. The term ''Dari'', meaning "of the court", originally referred to the variety of Persian used in the court of the Sasanian Empire in capital Ctesiphon, which was spread to the northeast of the empire and gradually replaced the former Iranian dialects of
Parthia Parthia ( peo, 𐎱𐎼𐎰𐎺 ''Parθava''; xpr, 𐭐𐭓𐭕𐭅 ''Parθaw''; pal, 𐭯𐭫𐭮𐭥𐭡𐭥 ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Med ...
(
Parthian Parthian may be: Historical * A demonym "of Parthia", a region of north-eastern of Greater Iran * Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD) * Parthian language, a now-extinct Middle Iranian language * Parthian shot, an archery skill famously employed by ...
). Tajik Persian (, ), the standard Persian of Tajikistan, has been officially designated as ''Tajik'' (, ) since the time of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. It is the name given to the varieties of Persian spoken in Central Asia in general.


ISO codes

The international language-encoding standard
ISO 639-1 ISO 639-1:2002, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages—Part 1: Alpha-2 code'', is the first part of the ISO 639 series of international standards for language codes. Part 1 covers the registration of two-letter codes. There are 1 ...
uses the code fa for the Persian language, as its coding system is mostly based on the native-language designations. The more detailed standard
ISO 639-3 ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for ...
uses the code fas for the dialects spoken across Iran and Afghanistan. This consists of the individual languages Dari (prs) and Iranian Persian (pes). It uses tgk for Tajik, separately.


History

In general, the Iranian languages are known from three periods: namely Old, Middle, and New (Modern). These correspond to three historical eras of
Iranian history The history of Iran is intertwined with the history of a larger region known as Greater Iran, comprising the area from Anatolia in the west to the borders of Ancient India and the Syr Darya in the east, and from the Caucasus and the Eurasian Step ...
; Old era being sometime around the
Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
(i.e., 400–300 BC), Middle era being the next period most officially around the Sasanian Empire, and New era being the period afterward down to present day. vi(2). Documentation. According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language" for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent one and the same language of Persian; that is, New Persian is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian.cf. vi(2). Documentation. Excerpt 1: "Only the official languages Old, Middle, and New Persian represent three stages of one and the same language, whereas close genetic relationships are difficult to establish between other Middle and Modern Iranian languages. Modern Yaḡnōbi belongs to the same dialect group as Sogdian, but is not a direct descendant; Bactrian may be closely related to modern Yidḡa and Munji (Munjāni); and Wakhi (Wāḵi) belongs with Khotanese.'' Excerpt 2: ''New Persian, the descendant of Middle Persian and official language of Iranian states for centuries." Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of Modern Persian. Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian." The known history of the Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods:


Old Persian

As a
written language A written language is the representation of a spoken or gestural language by means of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will pick up spoken language or sign language by exposure eve ...
, Old Persian is attested in royal
Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...
inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription, dating to the time of King Darius I (reigned 522–486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, Romania (
Gherla Gherla (; hu, Szamosújvár; german: Neuschloss) is a municipiu, municipality in Cluj County, Romania (in the historical region of Transylvania). It is located from Cluj-Napoca on the river Someșul Mic, and has a population of 20,203. Three vil ...
),
Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
,
Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...
,
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
, Turkey, and
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
.Kent, R. G.: "Old Persian: Grammar Texts Lexicon", page 6. American Oriental Society, 1950. Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages which is attested in original texts. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by a tribe called ''Parsuwash'', who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province. Their language, Old Persian, became the official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give a good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, ''Parsuwash'' (along with ''Matai'', presumably Medians) are first mentioned in the area of
Lake Urmia Lake Urmia; az, اۇرمۇ گؤلۆ, script=Arab, italic=no, Urmu gölü; ku, گۆلائوو رمیەیێ, Gola Ûrmiyeyê; hy, Ուրմիա լիճ, Urmia lich; arc, ܝܡܬܐ ܕܐܘܪܡܝܐ is an endorheic salt lake in Iran. The lake is l ...
in the records of
Shalmaneser III Shalmaneser III (''Šulmānu-ašarēdu'', "the god Shulmanu is pre-eminent") was king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father Ashurnasirpal II in 859 BC to his own death in 824 BC. His long reign was a constant series of campai ...
. The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian itself coming directly from the older word . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median, according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before the formation of the
Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE.
Xenophon Xenophon of Athens (; grc, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Greek mercenary armies o ...
, a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BCE, which is when Old Persian was still spoken and extensively used. He relates that the
Armenian people Armenians ( hy, հայեր, '' hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora ...
spoke a
language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. Related to Old Persian, but from a different branch of the Iranian language family, was Avestan, the language of the
Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic ...
liturgical texts.


Middle Persian

The complex grammatical conjugation and
declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ...
of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian developed the
ezāfe Ezāfe ( fa, اضافه, lit=extra), also romanized as ''ezâfe'', ''izafet'', ''izafe'', ''izafat'', ''izāfa'', ''ezafe'', and ''izofa'' ( tg, изофа, izofa), is a grammatical particle found in some Iranian languages, as well as Persian-i ...
construction, expressed through ''ī'' (modern ''e/ye''), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system. Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian is not actually attested until 600 years later when it appears in the Sassanid era (224–651 AD) inscriptions, so any form of the language before this date cannot be described with any degree of certainty. Moreover, as a literary language, Middle Persian is not attested until much later, in the 6th or 7th century. From the 8th century onward, Middle Persian gradually began yielding to New Persian, with the middle-period form only continuing in the texts of
Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheisti ...
. Middle Persian is considered to be a later form of the same dialect as Old Persian. The native name of Middle Persian was ''Parsig'' or ''Parsik'', after the name of the ethnic group of the southwest, that is, "of ''Pars''", Old Persian ''Parsa'', New Persian '' Fars''. This is the origin of the name ''Farsi'' as it is today used to signify New Persian. Following the collapse of the Sassanid state, ''Parsik'' came to be applied exclusively to (either Middle or New) Persian that was written in the Arabic script. From about the 9th century onward, as Middle Persian was on the threshold of becoming New Persian, the older form of the language came to be erroneously called '' Pahlavi'', which was actually but one of the ''writing systems'' used to render both Middle Persian as well as various other Middle Iranian languages. That writing system had previously been adopted by the Sassanids (who were Persians, i.e. from the southwest) from the preceding Arsacids (who were Parthians, i.e. from the northeast). While
Ibn al-Muqaffa' Abū Muhammad ʿAbd Allāh Rūzbih ibn Dādūya ( ar, ابو محمد عبدالله روزبه ابن دادويه), born Rōzbih pūr-i Dādōē ( fa, روزبه پور دادویه), more commonly known as Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ ( ar, ابن الم ...
(eighth century) still distinguished between ''Pahlavi'' (i.e. Parthian) and ''Persian'' (in Arabic text: al-Farisiyah) (i.e. Middle Persian), this distinction is not evident in Arab commentaries written after that date.


New Persian

"New Persian" (also referred to as Modern Persian) is conventionally divided into three stages: *Early New Persian (8th/9th centuries) *Classical Persian (10th–18th centuries) *Contemporary Persian (19th century to present) Early New Persian remains largely intelligible to speakers of Contemporary Persian, as the morphology and, to a lesser extent, the lexicon of the language have remained relatively stable.


Early New Persian

New Persian texts written in the Arabic script first appear in the 9th-century. The language is a direct descendant of Middle Persian, the official, religious, and literary language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651). However, it is not descended from the literary form of Middle Persian (known as ''pārsīk'', commonly called Pahlavi), which was spoken by the people of Fars and used in
Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic ...
religious writings. Instead, it is descended from the dialect spoken by the court of the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and the northeastern Iranian region of
Khorasan Khorasan may refer to: * Greater Khorasan, a historical region which lies mostly in modern-day northern/northwestern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan * Khorasan Province, a pre-2004 province of Ira ...
, known as Dari. The region, which comprised the present territories of northwestern Afghanistan as well as parts of Central Asia, played a leading role in the rise of New Persian. Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplanted Parthian language, which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use. New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including from
eastern Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...
northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the
Tahirid dynasty The Tahirid dynasty ( fa, طاهریان, Tâheriyân, ) was a culturally Arabized Sunni Muslim dynasty of Persian dehqan origin, that ruled as governors of Khorasan from 821 to 873 as well as serving as military and security commanders in A ...
(820–872),
Saffarid dynasty The Saffarid dynasty ( fa, صفاریان, safaryan) was a Persianate dynasty of eastern Iranian origin that ruled over parts of Persia, Greater Khorasan, and eastern Makran from 861 to 1003. One of the first indigenous Persian dynasties to eme ...
(860–903) and
Samanid Empire The Samanid Empire ( fa, سامانیان, Sāmāniyān) also known as the Samanian Empire, Samanid dynasty, Samanid amirate, or simply as the Samanids) was a Persianate Sunni Muslim empire, of Iranian dehqan origin. The empire was centred in ...
(874–999).Jackson, A. V. Williams. 1920. Early Persian poetry, from the beginnings down to the time of Firdausi. New York: The Macmillan Company. pp.17–19. (i
Public Domain
Abbas of
Merv Merv ( tk, Merw, ', مرو; fa, مرو, ''Marv''), also known as the Merve Oasis, formerly known as Alexandria ( grc-gre, Ἀλεξάνδρεια), Antiochia in Margiana ( grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐν τῇ Μαργιανῇ) and ...
is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the New Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time. The first poems of the Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in present-day Afghanistan. The first significant Persian poet was
Rudaki Rudaki (also spelled Rodaki; fa, رودکی; 858 – 940/41) was a Persian poet, singer and musician, who served as a court poet under the Samanids. He is regarded as the first major poet to write in New Persian. Said to have composed more tha ...
. He flourished in the 10th century, when the Samanids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works are versified fables collected in the ''
Kalila wa Dimna The ''Panchatantra'' ( IAST: Pañcatantra, ISO: Pañcatantra, sa, पञ्चतन्त्र, "Five Treatises") is an ancient Indian collection of interrelated animal fables in Sanskrit verse and prose, arranged within a frame story. ...
''. The language spread geographically from the 11th century on and was the medium through which, among others, Central Asian Turks became familiar with Islam and urban culture. New Persian was widely used as a trans-regional lingua franca, a task aided due to its relatively simple morphology, and this situation persisted until at least the 19th century.Johanson, Lars, and Christiane Bulut. 2006
Turkic-Iranian contact areas: historical and linguistic aspects
. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on the Persian model: Ottoman Turkish,
Chagatai Turkic Chagatai (چغتای, ''Čaġatāy''), also known as ''Turki'', Eastern Turkic, or Chagatai Turkic (''Čaġatāy türkīsi''), is an extinct Turkic literary language that was once widely spoken across Central Asia and remained the shared literar ...
, Dobhashi Bengali, and Urdu, which are regarded as "structural daughter languages" of Persian.


Classical Persian

"Classical Persian" loosely refers to the standardized language of
medieval Persia The history of Iran is intertwined with the history of a larger region known as Greater Iran, comprising the area from Anatolia in the west to the borders of Ancient India and the Syr Darya in the east, and from the Caucasus and the Eurasian Step ...
used in
literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
and
poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
. This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language and lingua franca under the "
Persianized Persianization () or Persification (; fa, پارسی‌سازی), is a sociological process of cultural change in which a non-Persian society becomes "Persianate", meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Persian ...
" Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian during this time served as lingua franca of
Greater Persia Greater Iran ( fa, ایران بزرگ, translit=Irān-e Bozorg) refers to a region covering parts of Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, Xinjiang, and the Caucasus, where both Iranian culture and Iranian languages have had a s ...
and of much of the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
. It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids,
Buyids The Buyid dynasty ( fa, آل بویه, Āl-e Būya), also spelled Buwayhid ( ar, البويهية, Al-Buwayhiyyah), was a Shia Iranian dynasty of Daylamite origin, which mainly ruled over Iraq and central and southern Iran from 934 to 1062. Coup ...
,
Tahirids The Tahirid dynasty ( fa, طاهریان, Tâheriyân, ) was a culturally Arabized Sunni Muslim dynasty of Persian dehqan origin, that ruled as governors of Khorasan from 821 to 873 as well as serving as military and security commanders in A ...
,
Ziyarids The Ziyarid dynasty ( fa, زیاریان) was an Iranian dynasty of Gilaki origin that ruled Tabaristan from 931 to 1090 during the Iranian Intermezzo period. The empire rose to prominence during the leadership of Mardavij. After his death, his ...
, the
Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
,
Timurids The Timurid Empire ( chg, , fa, ), self-designated as Gurkani ( Chagatai: کورگن, ''Küregen''; fa, , ''Gūrkāniyān''), was a PersianateB.F. Manz, ''"Tīmūr Lang"'', in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Online Edition, 2006 Turco-Mongol empire ...
, Ghaznavids,
Karakhanids The Kara-Khanid Khanate (; ), also known as the Karakhanids, Qarakhanids, Ilek Khanids or the Afrasiabids (), was a Turkic khanate that ruled Central Asia in the 9th through the early 13th century. The dynastic names of Karakhanids and Ilek K ...
,
Seljuqs The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; fa, سلجوقیان ''Saljuqian'', alternatively spelled as Seljuqs or Saljuqs), also known as Seljuk Turks, Seljuk Turkomans "The defeat in August 1071 of the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes by the Turk ...
, Khwarazmians, the Sultanate of Rum, Turkmen beyliks of Anatolia, Delhi Sultanate, the Shirvanshahs,
Safavids Safavid Iran or Safavid Persia (), also referred to as the Safavid Empire, '. was one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Persia, which was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often conside ...
,
Afsharids Afsharid Iran ( fa, ایران افشاری), also referred as the Afsharid Empire was an Iranian empire established by the Turkoman Afshar tribe in Iran's north-eastern province of Khorasan, ruling Iran (Persia). The state was ruled by the Af ...
,
Zands The Zand dynasty ( fa, سلسله زندیه, ') was an Iranian peoples, Iranian dynasty, founded by Karim Khan Zand (1751–1779) that initially ruled southern and central Iranian plateau, Iran in the 18th century. It later quickly came to exp ...
,
Qajars The Qajar dynasty (; fa, دودمان قاجار ', az, Qacarlar ) was an IranianAbbas Amanat, ''The Pivot of the Universe: Nasir Al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831–1896'', I. B. Tauris, pp 2–3 royal dynasty of Turkic origin ...
, Khanate of Bukhara,
Khanate of Kokand The Khanate of Kokand ( fa, ; ''Khānneshin-e Khoqand'', chg, ''Khoqand Khānligi'') was a Central Asian polity in the Fergana Valley centred on the city of Kokand between 1709 and 1876. Its territory is today divided between Uzbekistan, Kyr ...
, Emirate of Bukhara, Khanate of Khiva, Ottomans, and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad. Persian was the only non-European language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China. ; Use in Asia Minor A branch of the Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum, took Persian language, art, and letters to Anatolia., p 734 They adopted the Persian language as the
official language An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
of the empire. The Ottomans, who can roughly be seen as their eventual successors, took this tradition over. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire. The educated and noble class of the Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as Sultan
Selim I Selim I ( ota, سليم الأول; tr, I. Selim; 10 October 1470 – 22 September 1520), known as Selim the Grim or Selim the Resolute ( tr, links=no, Yavuz Sultan Selim), was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. Despite las ...
, despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of
Shia Islam Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, m ...
. It was a major literary language in the empire. Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi's ''Hasht Bihisht'', which began in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the ''Salim-Namah'', a glorification of Selim I. After a period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed toward a fully accepted language of literature, which was even able to satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation. However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%. In the Ottoman Empire, Persian was used for diplomacy, poetry, historiographical works, literary works, and was taught in state schools. ; Use in South Asia The Persian language influenced the formation of many modern languages in West Asia, Europe,
Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
, and
South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...
. Following the Turko-Persian
Ghaznavid The Ghaznavid dynasty ( fa, غزنویان ''Ġaznaviyān'') was a culturally Persianate, Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkic ''mamluk'' origin, ruling, at its greatest extent, large parts of Persia, Khorasan, much of Transoxiana and the northwest ...
conquest of
South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...
, Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. For five centuries prior to the British colonization, Persian was widely used as a second language in the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
. It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts on the subcontinent and became the sole "official language" under the
Mughal emperors The Mughal emperors ( fa, , Pādishāhān) were the supreme heads of state of the Mughal Empire on the Indian subcontinent, mainly corresponding to the modern countries of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The Mughal rulers styled ...
. The Bengal Sultanate witnessed an influx of Persian scholars, lawyers, teachers, and clerics. Thousands of Persian books and manuscripts were published in Bengal. The period of the reign of Sultan
Ghiyathuddin Azam Shah Ghiyasuddin A'zam Shah ( bn, গিয়াসউদ্দীন আজম শাহ, fa, ) was the third Sultan of Bengal and the Ilyas Shahi dynasty. He was one of the most prominent medieval Bengali sultans. He established diplomatic relatio ...
, is described as the "golden age of Persian literature in Bengal". Its stature was illustrated by the Sultan's own correspondence and collaboration with the Persian poet
Hafez Khwāje Shams-od-Dīn Moḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī ( fa, خواجه شمس‌‌الدین محمّد حافظ شیرازی), known by his pen name Hafez (, ''Ḥāfeẓ'', 'the memorizer; the (safe) keeper'; 1325–1390) and as "Hafiz", ...
; a poem which can be found in the ''Divan of Hafez'' today. A
Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
dialect emerged among the common
Bengali Muslim Bengali Muslims ( bn, বাঙালি মুসলমান; ) are adherents of Islam who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis. Comprising about two-thirds of the global Bengali population, they are the sec ...
folk, based on a Persian model and known as
Dobhashi Dobhashi ( bn, দোভাষী, Dobhāṣī, bilingual) is a neologism used to refer to a historical Register (sociolinguistics), register of the Bengali language which borrowed extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian. It became ...
; meaning ''mixed language''. Dobhashi Bengali was patronised and given official status under the
Sultans of Bengal The Sultanate of Bengal ( Middle Bengali: শাহী বাঙ্গালা ''Shahī Baṅgala'', Classical Persian: ''Saltanat-e-Bangālah'') was an empire based in Bengal for much of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. It was the dominan ...
, and was a popular literary form used by Bengalis during the pre-colonial period, irrespective of their religion. Following the defeat of the
Hindu Shahi The Hindu Shahis (also known as Odi Shahis, Uḍi Śāhis, or Brahman Shahis, 822–1026 CE) were a dynasty that held sway over the Kabul Valley, Gandhara and western Punjab during the early medieval period in the Indian subcontinent. Details ...
dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under
Ghaznavid The Ghaznavid dynasty ( fa, غزنویان ''Ġaznaviyān'') was a culturally Persianate, Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkic ''mamluk'' origin, ruling, at its greatest extent, large parts of Persia, Khorasan, much of Transoxiana and the northwest ...
rule over the northwestern frontier of the
subcontinent A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...
. Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in the region during the following centuries. Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in
Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...
through the early 19th century serving finally as the official state language of the
Sikh Empire The Sikh Empire was a state originating in the Indian subcontinent, formed under the leadership of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who established an empire based in the Punjab. The empire existed from 1799, when Maharaja Ranjit Singh captured Lahor ...
, preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent. Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in the extent of its influence on certain languages of the Indian subcontinent. Words borrowed from Persian are still quite commonly used in certain Indo-Aryan languages, especially
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
-
Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''
Hindustani), Punjabi,
Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...
, and Sindhi. There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious execution in
Qajar Iran Qajar Iran (), also referred to as Qajar Persia, the Qajar Empire, '. Sublime State of Persia, officially the Sublime State of Iran ( fa, دولت علیّه ایران ') and also known then as the Guarded Domains of Iran ( fa, ممالک م ...
and speak a Dari dialect.


Contemporary Persian

; Qajar dynasty In the 19th century, under the Qajar dynasty, the dialect that is spoken in
Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
rose to prominence. There was still substantial Arabic vocabulary, but many of these words have been integrated into Persian phonology and grammar. In addition, under the Qajar rule numerous
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
, French, and English terms entered the Persian language, especially vocabulary related to technology. The first official attentions to the necessity of protecting the Persian language against foreign words, and to the standardization of Persian orthography, were under the reign of Naser ed Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty in 1871. After Naser ed Din Shah, Mozaffar ed Din Shah ordered the establishment of the first Persian association in 1903. This association officially declared that it used Persian and
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
as acceptable sources for coining words. The ultimate goal was to prevent books from being printed with wrong use of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully printed books. Words coined by this association, such as ''rāh-āhan'' () for "railway", were printed in ''Soltani Newspaper''; but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in a dictionary called ''Words of Scientific Association'' (), which was completed in the future and renamed ''Katouzian Dictionary'' (). ; Pahlavi dynasty The first academy for the Persian language was founded on 20 May 1935, under the name ''Academy of Iran''. It was established by the initiative of
Reza Shah Pahlavi , , spouse = Maryam Savadkoohi Tadj ol-Molouk Ayromlu (queen consort)Turan AmirsoleimaniEsmat Dowlatshahi , issue = Princess Hamdamsaltaneh Princess ShamsMohammad Reza Shah Princess Ashraf Prince Ali Reza Prince Gholam Reza Prin ...
, and mainly by
Hekmat e Shirazi Hekmat-e Shirazi حکمت شیرازی or Mirza Ali-Asghar Khan Hekmat-e Shirazi (16 June 1892 – 25 August 1980) was an Iranian politician, diplomat and author who served as the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Justice, and Mi ...
and
Mohammad Ali Foroughi Mohammad Ali Foroughi ( fa, محمدعلی فروغی; early August 1877 – 26 or 27 November 1942), also known as Zoka-ol-Molk ( Persian: ذُکاءُالمُلک), was a writer, diplomat and politician who served three terms as Prime Mini ...
, all prominent names in the nationalist movement of the time. The academy was a key institution in the struggle to re-build Iran as a nation-state after the collapse of the Qajar dynasty. During the 1930s and 1940s, the academy led massive campaigns to replace the many
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
,
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
, French, and
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
loanwords whose widespread use in Persian during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty had created a literary language considerably different from the spoken Persian of the time. This became the basis of what is now known as "Contemporary Standard Persian".


Varieties

There are three standard varieties of modern Persian: *''
Iranian Persian Iranian Persian, Western Persian or Western Farsi, natively simply known as Persian (, ), refers to the varieties of the modern Persian language spoken in Iran and by minorities in neighboring countries, as well as by Iranian communities throu ...
'' (''Persian'', ''Western Persian'', or ''Farsi'') is spoken in
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, and by minorities in
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
and the
Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bod ...
states. *''
Eastern Persian Eastern Persian or Eastern Farsi may refer to: * Dari language * Tajik language Tajik (Tajik: , , ), also called Tajiki Persian (Tajik: , , ) or Tajiki, is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by Tajiks. It is closely rela ...
'' (''Dari Persian'', ''Afghan Persian'', or ''Dari'') is spoken in
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
. *''
Tajiki Tajik (Tajik: , , ), also called Tajiki Persian (Tajik: , , ) or Tajiki, is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by Tajiks. It is closely related to neighbouring Dari with which it forms a continuum of mutually intelligibl ...
'' (''Tajik Persian'') is spoken in
Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
and
Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked cou ...
. It is written in the
Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
. All these three varieties are based on the classic Persian literature and its literary tradition. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from the standard Persian. The
Hazaragi dialect Hazaragi ( fa, , Həzārəgī; haz, , links=no, Āzərəgī) is an eastern dialect of Persian that is spoken by the Hazara people, primarily in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan, as well as other Hazara-populated areas of Afghanistan ...
(in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan),
Herat Herāt (; Persian: ) is an oasis city and the third-largest city of Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Safē ...
i (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan),
Basseri The Basseri ( fa, باسری or باصری) are a Persian nomadic and pastoral tribe of the Fars Province in Iran. Their migratory area is around Shiraz. They are one of the five tribes of the larger Khamseh confederation. The "tent" is the bas ...
(in Southern Iran), and the
Tehrani accent The Tehrani accent ( fa, لهجهٔ تهرانی), or Tehrani dialect (), is a dialect of Persian spoken in Tehran and the most common colloquial variant of the Western Persian. Compared to literary standard Persian, the Tehrani dialect lacks or ...
(in Iran, the basis of standard Iranian Persian) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of
mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
. Nevertheless, the ''
Encyclopædia Iranica ''Encyclopædia Iranica'' is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times. Scope The ''Encyc ...
'' notes that the Iranian, Afghan, and Tajiki varieties comprise distinct branches of the Persian language, and within each branch a wide variety of local dialects exist. The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects: *
Luri Luri may refer to: * Luri people or Lurs, an Iranian people * Luri language, Western Iranian language continuum spoken by the Lurs * Luri language (Nigeria), dialect of the Afro-Asiatic language Polci * Luri, Haute-Corse, commune in France * Luri ...
(or ''Lori''), spoken mainly in the southwestern Iranian provinces of Lorestan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari some western parts of Fars Province, and some parts of
Khuzestan Province Khuzestan Province (also spelled Xuzestan; fa, استان خوزستان ''Ostān-e Xūzestān'') is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is in the southwest of the country, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Its capital is Ahvaz and it covers ...
. *
Achomi Achomi ( fa, اچُمی), also known as Larestani and Khodmooni, is a Southwestern Iranian Persian language spoken by people in southern Fars and western Hormozgan and by significant numbers of immigrant groups in Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, ...
(or ''Lari''), spoken mainly in southern Iranian provinces of Fars and Hormozgan. * Tat, spoken in parts of Azerbaijan, Russia, and Transcaucasia. It is classified as a variety of Persian.Gernot Windfuhr, "Persian Grammar: history and state of its study", Walter de Gruyter, 1979. pg 4:""Tat- Persian spoken in the East Caucasus"" (This dialect is not to be confused with the Tati language of northwestern Iran, which is a member of a different branch of the Iranian languages.) *
Judeo-Tat Judeo-Tat or Juhuri (''cuhuri'', , ) is the traditional language of the Mountain Jews of the eastern Caucasus Mountains, especially Azerbaijan and Dagestan, now mainly spoken in Israel. The language is a dialect of Persian which belongs to the ...
. Part of the Tat-Persian continuum, spoken in Azerbaijan, Russia, as well as by immigrant communities in Israel and New York. More distantly related branches of the Iranian language family include Kurdish and Balochi.


Phonology

Iranian Persian has six vowels and twenty-three consonants; both Dari and Tajiki have eight vowels.


Vowels

Historically, Persian distinguished length. Early New Persian had a series of five long vowels (, , , , and ) along with three short vowels , , and . At some point prior to the 16th century in the general area now modern Iran, and merged into , and and merged into . Thus, older contrasts such as ''shēr'' "lion" vs. ''shīr'' "milk", and ''zūd'' "quick" vs ''zōr'' "strength" were lost. However, there are exceptions to this rule, and in some words, ''ē'' and ''ō'' are merged into the diphthongs and (which are descendants of the diphthongs and in Early New Persian), instead of merging into and . Examples of the exception can be found in words such as (bright). Numerous other instances exist. However, in Dari, the archaic distinction of and (respectively known as ''Yā-ye majhūl'' and ''Yā-ye ma'rūf'') is still preserved as well as the distinction of and (known as ''Wāw-e majhūl'' and ''Wāw-e ma'rūf''). On the other hand, in standard Tajik, the length distinction has disappeared, and merged with and with . Therefore, contemporary Afghan Dari dialects are the closest to the vowel inventory of Early New Persian. According to most studies on the subject (e.g. Samareh 1977, Pisowicz 1985, Najafi 2001), the three vowels traditionally considered long (, , ) are currently distinguished from their short counterparts (, , ) by position of articulation rather than by length. However, there are studies (e.g. Hayes 1979, Windfuhr 1979) that consider vowel length to be the active feature of the system, with , , and phonologically long or bimoraic and , , and phonologically short or monomoraic. There are also some studies that consider quality and quantity to be both active in the Iranian system (such as Toosarvandani 2004). That offers a synthetic analysis including both quality and quantity, which often suggests that Modern Persian vowels are in a transition state between the quantitative system of Classical Persian and a hypothetical future Iranian language, which will eliminate all traces of quantity and retain quality as the only active feature. The length distinction is still strictly observed by careful reciters of classic-style poetry for all varieties (including Tajik).


Consonants

Notes: * in
Iranian Persian Iranian Persian, Western Persian or Western Farsi, natively simply known as Persian (, ), refers to the varieties of the modern Persian language spoken in Iran and by minorities in neighboring countries, as well as by Iranian communities throu ...
and have merged into ɢ.html" ;"title="voiced_uvular_stop.html" ;"title="voiced uvular stop">ɢ">voiced_uvular_stop.html" ;"title="voiced uvular stop">ɢ as a voiced velar fricative when positioned intervocalically and unstressed, and as a voiced uvular stop otherwise.


Grammar


Morphology

Suffixes predominate Persian
morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
, though there are a small number of prefixes. Verbs can express tense and
aspect Aspect or Aspects may refer to: Entertainment * ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art * Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company * Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England * ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...
, and they agree with the subject in person and number. There is no
grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
in modern Persian, and pronouns are not marked for
natural gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
. In other words, in Persian, pronouns are gender neutral. When referring to a masculine or a feminine subject the same pronoun is used (pronounced "ou", ū).


Syntax

Normal declarative sentences are structured as ''(S) (PP) (O) V'': sentences have optional subjects,
prepositional phrase An adpositional phrase, in linguistics, is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or ci ...
s, and
objects Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...
followed by a compulsory
verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
. If the object is specific, the object is followed by the word ''rā'' and precedes prepositional phrases: ''(S) (O + ''rā'') (PP) V''.


Vocabulary


Native word formation

Persian makes extensive use of word building and combining affixes, stems, nouns, and adjectives. Persian frequently uses derivational
agglutination In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lang ...
to form new words from nouns, adjectives, and verbal stems. New words are extensively formed by
compounding In the field of pharmacy, compounding (performed in compounding pharmacies) is preparation of a custom formulation of a medication to fit a unique need of a patient that cannot be met with commercially available products. This may be done for me ...
– two existing words combining into a new one.


Influences

While having a lesser influence on
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
and other languages of
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
and its core vocabulary being of
Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle ...
origin, New Persian contains a considerable number of Arabic lexical items, which were Persianized and often took a different meaning and usage than the
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
original. Persian loanwords of Arabic origin especially include
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
ic terms. The Arabic vocabulary in other Iranian, Turkic, and Indic languages is generally understood to have been copied from New Persian, not from Arabic itself. John R. Perry, in his article "Lexical Areas and Semantic Fields of Arabic", estimates that about 20 percent of an everyday vocabulary of 20,000 words in current Persian, and around 25 percent of the vocabulary of classical and modern Persian literature, are of Arabic origin. The text frequency of these loan words is generally lower and varies by style and topic area. It may approach 25 percent of a text in literature.John R. Perry, "Lexical Areas and Semantic Fields of Arabic" in Éva Ágnes Csató, Eva Agnes Csato, Bo Isaksson, Carina Jahani, ''Linguistic convergence and areal diffusion: case studies from Iranian, Semitic and Turkic'', Routledge, 2005. p.97 According to another source, about 40% of everyday Persian literary vocabulary is of Arabic origin. Among the Arabic loan words, relatively few (14 percent) are from the semantic domain of material culture, while a larger number are from domains of intellectual and spiritual life. Most of the Arabic words used in Persian are either synonyms of native terms or could be glossed in Persian. The inclusion of Mongolic and Turkic elements in the Persian language should also be mentioned, not only because of the political role a succession of Turkic dynasties played in Iranian history, but also because of the immense prestige Persian language and literature enjoyed in the wider (non-Arab) Islamic world, which was often ruled by sultans and emirs with a Turkic background. The Turkish and Mongolian vocabulary in Persian is minor in comparison to that of Arabic and these words were mainly confined to military, pastoral terms and political sector (titles, administration, etc.). New military and political titles were coined based partially on Middle Persian (e.g. for "army", instead of the Uzbek ; ; ; etc.) in the 20th century. Persian has likewise influenced the vocabularies of other languages, especially other
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
such as
Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
, Urdu, Bengali, and Hindi; the latter three through conquests of Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan invaders;
Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia ( Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic l ...
such as Ottoman Turkish, Chagatai,
Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary
is an umbrella term for different
, Turkish, Turkmen,
Azeri Azerbaijanis (; az, Azərbaycanlılar, ), Azeris ( az, Azərilər, ), or Azerbaijani Turks ( az, Azərbaycan Türkləri, ) are a Turkic people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most numer ...
, Uzbek, and
Karachay-Balkar Karachay-Balkar (, ), or Mountain Turkic (, ), is a Turkic language spoken by the Karachays and Balkars in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay–Cherkessia, European Russia, as well as by an immigrant population in Afyonkarahisar Province, Turkey. ...
;
Caucasian languages The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Linguistic comparison allows t ...
such as
Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
, and, to a lesser extent, Avar and Lezgin; Afro-Asiatic languages like
Assyrian Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyrian ...
(
List of loanwords in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic Loanwords in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic came about mostly due to the contact between Assyrian people and Arabs, Persians, Kurds and Turks in modern history, and can also be found in the other two major dialects spoken by the Assyrian people, these bei ...
) and
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
, particularly
Bahrani Arabic Bahrani Arabic (also known as Bahrani and Baharna Arabic) is a variety of Arabic spoken by the Baharna in Eastern Arabia and Oman. In Bahrain, the dialect is primarily spoken in Shia villages and some parts of Manama. In Saudi Arabia, the dial ...
; and even
Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...
indirectly especially
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...
,
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...
,
Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...
, and Brahui; as well as Austronesian languages such as
Indonesian Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...
and
Malaysian Malaysian may refer to: * Something from or related to Malaysia, a country in Southeast Asia * Malaysian Malay, a dialect of Malay language spoken mainly in Malaysia * Malaysian people, people who are identified with the country of Malaysia regard ...
Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...
. Persian has also had a significant lexical influence, via Turkish, on Albanian and
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and ...
, particularly as spoken in
Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...
. Use of occasional foreign synonyms instead of Persian words can be a common practice in everyday communications as an alternative expression. In some instances in addition to the Persian vocabulary, the equivalent synonyms from multiple foreign languages can be used. For example, in Iranian colloquial Persian (not in Afghanistan or Tajikistan), the phrase "thank you" may be expressed using the French word (stressed, however, on the first syllable), the hybrid Persian-Arabic phrase ( being "thankful" in Arabic, commonly pronounced in Persian, and the verb ''am'' meaning "I am" in Persian), or by the pure Persian phrase .


Orthography

The vast majority of modern Iranian Persian and Dari text is written with the Arabic script. Tajiki, which is considered by some linguists to be a Persian dialect influenced by
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
and the
Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia ( Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic l ...
of
Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
, is written with the
Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
in
Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
(see
Tajik alphabet The Tajik language has been written in three alphabets over the course of its history: an adaptation of the Perso-Arabic script, an adaptation of the Latin script and an adaptation of the Cyrillic script. Any script used specifically for Tajik ...
). There also exist several romanization systems for Persian.


Persian alphabet

Modern Iranian Persian and Afghan Persian are written using the Persian alphabet which is a modified variant of the Arabic alphabet, which uses different pronunciation and additional letters not found in Arabic language. After the
Arab conquest of Persia The Muslim conquest of Persia, also known as the Arab conquest of Iran, was carried out by the Rashidun Caliphate from 633 to 654 AD and led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire as well as the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion. Th ...
, it took approximately 200 years before Persians adopted the Arabic script in place of the older alphabet. Previously, two different scripts were used, Pahlavi, used for Middle Persian, and the
Avestan alphabet The Avestan alphabet (Middle Persian: transliteration: ''dyn' dpywryh'', transcription: ''dēn dēbīrē'', fa, دین دبیره, translit=din dabire) is a writing system developed during Iran's Sasanian era (226–651 CE) to render ...
(in Persian, Dīndapirak, or Din Dabire—literally: religion script), used for religious purposes, primarily for the Avestan but sometimes for Middle Persian. In the modern Persian script, historically short vowels are usually not written, only the historically long ones are represented in the text, so words distinguished from each other only by short vowels are ambiguous in writing: Iranian Persian ' "worm", ' "generosity", ' "cream", and ' "chrome" are all spelled ' () in Persian. The reader must determine the word from context. The Arabic system of vocalization marks known as ''
harakat The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include: consonant pointing known as (), and supplementary diacritics known as (). The latter include the vowel marks termed (; singular: , '). The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where s ...
'' is also used in Persian, although some of the symbols have different pronunciations. For example, a ''
ḍammah The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include: consonant pointing known as (), and supplementary diacritics known as (). The latter include the vowel marks termed (; singular: , '). The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where s ...
'' is pronounced , while in Iranian Persian it is pronounced . This system is not used in mainstream Persian literature; it is primarily used for teaching and in some (but not all) dictionaries. There are several letters generally only used in Arabic loanwords. These letters are pronounced the same as similar Persian letters. For example, there are four functionally identical letters for (), three letters for (), two letters for (), two letters for (). On the other hand, there are four letters that don't exist in Arabic .


Additions

The Persian alphabet adds four letters to the Arabic alphabet: Historically, there was also a special letter for the sound . This letter is no longer used, as the -sound changed to , e.g. archaic > 'language'


Variations

The Persian alphabet also modifies some letters of the Arabic alphabet. For example, ''alef with hamza below'' ( ) changes to '' alef'' ( ); words using various hamzas get spelled with yet another kind of hamza (so that becomes ) even though the latter has been accepted in Arabic since the 80s; and ''
teh marbuta Taw, tav, or taf is the twenty-second and last letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Tāw , Hebrew Tav , Aramaic Taw , Syriac Taw ܬ, and Arabic ت Tāʼ (22nd in abjadi order, 3rd in modern order). In Arabic, it is also gives ri ...
'' ( ) changes to '' heh'' ( ) or ''
teh ''Teh'' is an Internet slang neologism most frequently used as an English article, based on a common typographical error of "''the".'' ''Teh'' has subsequently developed grammatical usages distinct from ''the''. It is not common in spoken or writt ...
'' ( ). The letters different in shape are: However, in shape and form is the traditional Arabic style that continues in the Nile Valley, namely, Egypt, Sudan, and South Sudan.


Latin alphabet

The
International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Art ...
has published a standard for simplified
transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...
of Persian into Latin, ISO 233-3, titled "Information and documentation – Transliteration of Arabic characters into Latin characters – Part 3: Persian language – Simplified transliteration" but the transliteration scheme is not in widespread use. Another Latin alphabet, based on the
Common Turkic Alphabet The Common Turkic Alphabet ( tr, Ortak türk alfabesi; az, Ortaq türk əlifbası, اورتاق تورک الیفباسی; tt-Cyrl, Уртак төрки әлифба, translit=Urtaq törki älifba; kk, Ortaq türkı älıpbiı) is a project of ...
, was used in
Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
in the 1920s and 1930s. The alphabet was phased out in favor of Cyrillic in the late 1930s.
Fingilish Romanization of Persian or Latinization of Persian ( fa, لاتین‌نویسی فارسی, Lâtin-Nevisi-ye Fârsi, link=no, ) is the representation of the Persian language (Iranian Persian, Dari and Tajik) with the Latin script. Several diff ...
is Persian using
ISO basic Latin alphabet The ISO basic Latin alphabet is an international standard (beginning with ISO/IEC 646) for a Latin-script alphabet that consists of two sets (uppercase and lowercase) of 26 letters, codified in various national and international standards and ...
. It is most commonly used in chat,
email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...
s, and
SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...
applications. The orthography is not standardized, and varies among writers and even media (for example, typing 'aa' for the phoneme is easier on computer keyboards than on cellphone keyboards, resulting in smaller usage of the combination on cellphones).


Tajik alphabet

The Cyrillic script was introduced for writing the
Tajik language Tajik (Tajik: , , ), also called Tajiki Persian (Tajik: , , ) or Tajiki, is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by Tajiks. It is closely related to neighbouring Dari with which it forms a continuum of mutually intelligi ...
under the
Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic The Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic,, ''Çumhuriji Şūraviji Sotsialistiji Toçikiston''; russian: Таджикская Советская Социалистическая Республика, ''Tadzhikskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Resp ...
in the late 1930s, replacing the
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
that had been used since the
October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...
and the Persian script that had been used earlier. After 1939, materials published in Persian in the Persian script were banned in the country.


Examples

The following text is from Article 1 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, ...
.


See also

*
Academy of Persian Language and Literature The Academy of Persian Language and Literature (APLL) ( fa, فرهنگستان زبان و ادب فارسی, ''Farhangestân-e Zabân-o Adab-e Fârsi'') is the regulatory body for the Persian language, headquartered in Tehran, Iran. Formerly know ...
*
Indo-European copula A feature common to all Indo-European languages is the presence of a verb corresponding to the English verb ''to be''. General features This verb has two basic meanings: *In a less marked context it is a simple copula (''I’m tired''; ''That ...
*
Iranian Persian Iranian Persian, Western Persian or Western Farsi, natively simply known as Persian (, ), refers to the varieties of the modern Persian language spoken in Iran and by minorities in neighboring countries, as well as by Iranian communities throu ...
, Western Persian *
List of countries and territories where Persian is an official language The following is a list of sovereign states that have Persian as an official language. Official language Significant minority language Historical language Indian subcontinent The Persian language in the Indian subcontinent, before the B ...
*
List of English words of Persian origin This article will be concerned with loanwords, that is, words in English that derive from Persian, either directly, or more often, from one or more intermediary languages. Many words of Persian origin have made their way into the English lang ...
* List of French loanwords in Persian *
Pahlavi (disambiguation) Pahlavi may refer to: Iranian royalty *Seven Parthian clans, ruling Parthian families during the Sasanian Empire *Pahlavi dynasty, the ruling house of Imperial State of Persia/Iran from 1925 until 1979 **Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878–1944), Shah of ...
*
Persian Braille Persian Braille ( Persian: بریل فارسی) is the braille alphabet for the Persian language. It is largely compatible with Arabic Braille, which may be found (in uncontracted form) within Persian Braille texts. There are a few additional Per ...
*
Persian metres Persian metres are patterns of long and short syllables in Persian poetry. Over the past 1000 years the Persian language has enjoyed a rich literature, especially of poetry. Until the advent of free verse in the 20th century, this poetry was alway ...
*
Persian name A Persian name or Iranian name consists of a given name (Persian: نام ''Nâm''), sometimes more than one, and a surname (نام‌ خانوادگی). Given names Since the Muslim conquest of Persia, some names in Iran have been derived from A ...
*
Romanization of Persian Romanization of Persian or Latinization of Persian ( fa, لاتین‌نویسی فارسی, Lâtin-Nevisi-ye Fârsi, link=no, ) is the representation of the Persian language ( Iranian Persian, Dari and Tajik) with the Latin script. Several diff ...


Citations


Works cited

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General references

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Further reading

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External links


Academy of Persian Language and Literature official website

Assembly for the Expansion of the Persian Language official website

Persian language Resources

Persian Language Resources
parstimes.com
Persian language tutorial books for beginners
* Haim, Soleiman
New Persian–English dictionary
Teheran: Librairie-imprimerie Beroukhim, 1934–1936. uchicago.edu * Steingass, Francis Joseph
A Comprehensive Persian–English dictionary
London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1892. uchicago.edu
Persian
ucla.edu
How Persian Alphabet Transits into Graffiti
Persian Graffiti
Basic Persian language course (book + audio files)
USA Foreign Service Institute (FSI) {{Authority control Iranian culture Languages attested from the 6th century BC Languages of Afghanistan Languages of Azerbaijan Languages of Bahrain Languages of Iran Languages of Iraq Languages of Kuwait Languages of Russia Languages of Tajikistan Languages of the Caucasus Languages of Uzbekistan Southwestern Iranian languages Stress-timed languages Subject–object–verb languages Articles containing video clips