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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 ge ...
belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran,
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 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 a ...
standard varieties A standard language (also standard variety, standard dialect, and standard) is a language variety that has undergone substantial codification of grammar and usage, although occasionally the term refers to the entirety of a language that includes ...
, 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 th ...
(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 (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, as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of
Greater Iran 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 si ...
. It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the
Persian alphabet The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran (Western Persian) and Afghanistan (Dari Persian) since the 7th centu ...
, a derivation of the
Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...
, and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet, a derivation of the Cyrillic script. Modern Persian is a continuation of Middle Persian, an official language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of
Old Persian Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan language, Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native ...
, which was used in the
Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...
(550–330 BCE). It originated in the region of
Pars Pars may refer to: * Fars Province of Iran, also known as Pars Province * Pars (Sasanian province), a province roughly corresponding to the present-day Fars, 224–651 * ''Pars'', for ''Persia'' or ''Iran'', in the Persian language * Pars News A ...
( Persia) 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, and South Asia. Old Persian is attested in Old Persian cuneiform on inscriptions from between the 6th and 4th century BC. Middle Persian is attested in Aramaic-derived scripts ( Pahlavi and Manichaean) on inscriptions and in Zoroastrian 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, since then adopting the Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a 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. E.Watson; Walte ...
on writing in the Muslim world, 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, the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns 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, and Indo-Aryan languages. 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'' by
Ferdowsi Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi ( fa, ; 940 – 1019/1025 CE), also Firdawsi or Ferdowsi (), was a Persians, Persian poet and the author of ''Shahnameh'' ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poetry, epic poems created by a sin ...
, the works of
Rumi Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( fa, جلال‌الدین محمد رومی), also known as Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (), Mevlânâ/Mawlānā ( fa, مولانا, lit= our master) and Mevlevî/Mawlawī ( fa, مولوی, lit= my ma ...
, the ''
Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám ''Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám'' is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains (') attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048–1131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia". Altho ...
'', the ' of Nizami Ganjavi, ''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 Nis ...
'' 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'' 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, Ahmad Shamlou,
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, Ah ...
, Rahi Mo'ayyeri, Mehdi Akhavan-Sales, and Forugh Farrokhzad. There are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, including Persians,
Lurs Lurs () are an Iranian people living in the mountains of western Iran. The four Luri branches are the Bakhtiari, Mamasani, Kohgiluyeh and Lur proper, who are principally linked by the Luri language. Lorestan Province is named after the Lur ...
,
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 Taji ...
,
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 scat ...
,
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 lang ...
,
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 K ...
,
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 a ...
, Tats, and Aimaqs. 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, which make up a branch of the Indo-European languages 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 and Balochi are the most widely spoken.


Name

The term ''Persian'' is an English derivation of Latin , the adjectival form of , itself deriving from Greek (), a Hellenized form of
Old Persian Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan language, Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native ...
(), which means " Persia" (a region in southwestern Iran, corresponding to modern-day Fars). According to the '' Oxford English Dictionary'', 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, 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'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), 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 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. E.Watson; Walte ...
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. 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 ( Parthian). Tajik Persian (, ), the standard Persian of Tajikistan, has been officially designated as ''Tajik'' (, ) since the time of the Soviet Union. 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 18 ...
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 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; Old era being sometime around the
Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...
(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 even i ...
, 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 em ...
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, Romania (
Gherla Gherla (; hu, Szamosújvár; german: Neuschloss) is a 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 villages are a ...
),
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 a ...
, Iraq, Turkey, and Egypt.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 in the records of Shalmaneser III. 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, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...
and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Xenophon, 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 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 Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scri ...
, the language of the Zoroastrian liturgical texts.


Middle Persian

The complex
grammatical conjugation In linguistics, conjugation () is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). For instance, the verb ''break'' can be conjugated to form the words ''break'', ...
and declension 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-inf ...
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. 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 The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...
. 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 The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...
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 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 The Parthian language, also known as Arsacid Pahlavi and Pahlawānīg, is an extinct ancient Northwestern Iranian language once spoken in Parthia, a region situated in present-day northeastern Iran and Turkmenistan. Parthian was the language of ...
, 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 ...
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 (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (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 K ...
(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 Ḥanẓalah Badghisi or Ḥanẓalah of Badghis ( fa, حنظله بادغیسی; about 850 A.D.) was one of the earliest Persian poets. Hanzalah was born in Badghis province of Afghanistan, and lived in the time of the Tahirids (820–872 AD), wh ...
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. 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 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 Ottoman Turkish ( ota, لِسانِ عُثمانى, Lisân-ı Osmânî, ; tr, Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extens ...
,
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 and poetry. This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language and lingua franca under the " Persianized" 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 si ...
and of much of the Indian subcontinent. 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. Coupl ...
, Tahirids, Ziyarids, the Mughal Empire, Timurids, Ghaznavids, Karakhanids,
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
Shirvanshah ''Shirvanshah'' ( fa, شروانشاه), also spelled as ''Shīrwān Shāh'' or ''Sharwān Shāh'', was the title of the rulers of Shirvan from the mid-9th century to the early 16th century. The title remained in a single family, the Yazidids, ...
s, Safavids,
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 ...
, Zands,
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,
Emirate of Bukhara The Emirate of Bukhara ( fa, , Amārat-e Bokhārā, chg, , Bukhārā Amirligi) was a Muslim polity in Central Asia that existed from 1785 to 1920 in what is modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It occupied the land ...
, Khanate of Khiva, Ottomans, and also many Mughal successors such as the
Nizam of Hyderabad The Nizams were the rulers of Hyderabad from the 18th through the 20th century. Nizam of Hyderabad (Niẓām ul-Mulk, also known as Asaf Jah) was the title of the monarch of the Hyderabad State ( divided between the state of Telangana, Mar ...
. Persian was the only non-European language known and used by
Marco Polo Marco Polo (, , ; 8 January 1324) was a Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known as ''Book of the Marv ...
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 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, despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam. 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 Ottoman Turkish ( ota, لِسانِ عُثمانى, Lisân-ı Osmânî, ; tr, Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extens ...
(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, and South Asia. Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia, 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. 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 t ...
. The
Bengal Sultanate 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 ...
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; 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 of the Bengali language which borrowed extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian. It became the most customary form for c ...
; 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 domina ...
, 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 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 The Punjabis ( Punjabi: ; ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ; romanised as Panjābīs), are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group associated with the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of eastern Pakistan and northwestern India. Th ...
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 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- Urdu (also historically known as Hindustani),
Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...
, Kashmiri, and
Sindhi Sindhi may refer to: *something from, or related to Sindh, a province of Pakistan * Sindhi people, an ethnic group from the Sindh region * Sindhi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them People with the name * Sarkash Sindhi (1940–2012 ...
. 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 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 p ...
, 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 Persian (), also known by its endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and ...
, 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 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. E.Watson; Walte ...
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, and mainly by Hekmat e Shirazi 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 Minis ...
, 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 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. E.Watson; Walte ...
,
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 p ...
, French, and Greek 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 th ...
'' (''Persian'', ''Western Persian'', or ''Farsi'') is spoken in Iran, and by minorities in Iraq and the Persian Gulf states. *'' Eastern Persian'' (''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 intelligible ...
'' (''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. It is written in the Cyrillic script. 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 Afghanist ...
(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 ba ...
(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 ori ...
(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. 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 (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. *
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. 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 th ...
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 modern Persian, and pronouns are not marked for natural gender. 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 cir ...
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 ai ...
followed by a compulsory verb. 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 langu ...
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 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. E.Watson; Walte ...
and other languages of Mesopotamia and its core vocabulary being of Middle Persian 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 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. E.Watson; Walte ...
original. Persian loanwords of Arabic origin especially include Islamic 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 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 such as
Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish ( ota, لِسانِ عُثمانى, Lisân-ı Osmânî, ; tr, Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extens ...
, Chagatai,
Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary
is an umbrella term for different
, Turkish, Turkmen, Azeri, Uzbek, and Karachay-Balkar;
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 ...
such as Georgian, 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 * Assyri ...
(
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 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. E.Watson; Walte ...
, 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 diale ...
; and even Dravidian languages indirectly especially
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...
, Tamil,
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, 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 Malay. Persian has also had a significant lexical influence, via Turkish, on Albanian and Serbo-Croatian, 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 He ...
. 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 The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...
. 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 p ...
and the Turkic languages of Central Asia, is written with the Cyrillic script 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). There also exist several romanization systems for Persian.


Persian alphabet

Modern Iranian Persian and Afghan Persian are written using the
Persian alphabet The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran (Western Persian) and Afghanistan (Dari Persian) since the 7th centu ...
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 Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scri ...
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'' is also used in Persian, although some of the symbols have different pronunciations. For example, a '' ḍammah'' 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 The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran (Western Persian) and Afghanistan (Dari Persian) since the 7th centu ...
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'' ( ) changes to '' heh'' ( ) or ''
teh ''Teh'' is an Internet slang neologism most frequently used as an English article (grammar), article, based on a common typographical error of "''the".'' ''Teh'' has subsequently developed grammatical usages distinct from ''the''. It is not commo ...
'' ( ). 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 has published a standard for simplified transliteration 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 , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = Gr ...
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 differ ...
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 Chat or chats may refer to: Communication * Conversation, particularly casual * Online chat, text message communication over the Internet in real-time * Synchronous conferencing, a formal term for online chat * SMS chat, a form of text messagin ...
, emails, and SMS 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 intelligibl ...
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 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 moment ...
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.


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 *
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 th ...
, 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 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


Citations


Works cited

* * * * * * * *


General references

* * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


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 Francis Joseph Steingass (March 16, 1825, Frankfurt am Main – January 1903) was a British linguist and orientalist of German Jewish descent. Biography Steingass completed his education, including a Ph.D., in Munich, Germany. Later, he was ...

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)
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