Fārsī · Pārsī

Farsi (Modern Persian)

Language information: The names “Modern Persian” and “Farsi” tend to be used interchangeably in reference to a group of language varieties used primarily in present-day Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and (mostly urban) Uzbekistan.
      The varieties of Afghanistan, especially the standard variety of that country, are officially referred to as “Dari” (from Fārsī-yi Darī “Courtly Persian”). The varieties of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and also some of those used in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, are referred to as “Tajik” (also spelled “Tadjik” or “Tadzhik” based on Russian Таджик) or “Tajiki” (< Tājikī, Tojikī) after the name of the Central Asian Tajik ethnicity. [N.B.: The so-called “Tajik” of Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang, China) is not really Tajik but covers two Pamir Iranian languages: Wakhi and Sarikoli.]
      Having all descended from Middle Persian (Pahlavi) and Old Persian (which is closely related to the Avestan language of Zoroastrianism), these three Persian groups still constitute a fairly intact dialect continuum. But these days they have their own respective standard or lead dialects that influence other dialects within their respective political power ranges, and this has been leading to a certain degree of alienations between the groups. Added to this are Russian (thus Slavonic) and Uzbek (thus Turkic) influences on Tajik. Despite the fact that mutual comprehension remains fairly good between them, especially when Tajik speakers avoid Russian and Uzbek loanwords, there is on the part of Tajikistan a definite, mostly nationalistically motivated tendency toward regarding Farsi, Tajik and Dari as being three languages. In fact, in Tajik they are officially called Forsī, Tojikī and Darī respectively, while in Iranian Farsi all of them tend to be referred to as Fārsī, if needed with the specifications Fārsī Tājīkī for Tajik and Fārsī Darī for Dari. In 1999, the word Forsī (Farsi) was removed from the state language law of Tajikistan. Considering the long period of Russian influences and particularly close contacts with Turkic (especially Uzbek), as well as today’s views and aspirations among Tajiks living within the area of the former Soviet Union, international acceptance of Tajik as a separate language now or in the future appears to be inevitable.
      There are several ethnospecific subgroups of Modern Persian. Among these are the Hazaragi of Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s Hazara people (who are of predominantly Mongolic descent), the Aymaq varieties of Afghanistan, and also Jidi (Dzhidi), Judeo-Shirazi and Bukharan (Bokhari) used by Jews in and from Iran, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the latter three usually written using the Hebrew alphabet.                             

Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (1207–1273 CE), the great Persian mystic that is buried in Konya, Turkey, is considered the originator of Sufism, certainly of Mevlana Sufism.

              In Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and urban Uzbekistan alone, there are currently at least seventy million native Persian speakers as well as large numbers of persons that use Persian as a non-native language. This figure does not include numerous Persian-speaking communities elsewhere, such as in Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iraq, Israel, the Netherlands, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the USA. Since the fall of the Iranian monarchy, much of the Iranian Persian entertainment industry is based in emigrant communities, especially in California.
      All three Modern Persian standard varieties are written languages. Traditionally, they have been written using the Perso-Arabic script (i.e., a modified version of the Arabic script, which does not normally represent short vowels). This remains the practice in Iran and Afghanistan, also in Tajik communities outside the area of the former Soviet Union. Within the area of the former Soviet Union, Tajik used to be written with the Perso-Arabic script. In the early part of the 20th century, a Latin-based system was introduced, soon the be replaced by a Cyrillic-based system. The late 1980s saw the beginning of a gradual reintroduction of the Perso-Arabic system for Tajik in Tajikistan’s education and public life. However, the rise of Tajik nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism slowed down the script reintroduction program, and as of 2004 the Cyrillic-based system for Tajik is still the de facto standard, with only a small minority of Tajikistan’s and Uzbekistan’s Tajik speakers being able to use the Arabic-based system.
      Persian has absorbed numerous foreign influences, most notably Arabic influences that began with the adoption of Islam. Mutual influences between Persian and Turkic varieties go back several centuries. In more recent times, Iranian Persian absorbed many French loanwords through formal education, and English influences are now noticeable in most Persian varieties. Tajik came to be inundated with Russian loanwords ever since the integration of most of its territory into the Russian-dominated power sphere. However, Persian influences on neighboring languages and beyond may be considered even stronger.
      Persian used to play a very important role as an international language of higher learning and art among Islamicized Turkic speakers all over Eurasia, while Arabic has been serving as the language of religion among these peoples. This has led to very noticeable Persianization of these Turkic languages, including the introduction of most words of Arabic origin by way of Persian. This is especially strong in Azeri (Azerbaijani), Crimean, Khalaj, Khorasani Turkic, Qashqai, Turkish, Turkmen, Uyghur and Uzbek. Toward the east, Persian influenced most northern Indo-Aryan languages, especially Urdu, Hindi, Sindhi, Panjabi, Gujarati and Bengali, in large part because it served as much of India’s de facto official language from the beginning of the Mughal era (1526) until it was replaced as such by English as late as in 1842. Ancient Persian with its large sphere of influence from China to the Mediterranean Sea left traces in Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic, to name but a few.
      These days, Persian is mostly used by Muslims, but it is also an important language among followers of the Manichaean and Bahá’í faiths, and it is the ancestral language of the Parsi faith and of other branches of Zoroastrianism.
      Persian literature has a long and glorious history, with many important works not only in Old and Middle Persian but also in Modern Persian (which began in approximately 900 C.E.). Persian literature, especially Persian poetry, used to be highly esteemed and influential throughout Islamic Central Asia and as far west as in the European reaches of the Ottoman Empire, eventually meeting with much appreciation in Western Europe and the rest of the world. Among the greatest Persian writers are the world-renown Anvari (Awhad ad-Din ‘Ali ibn Vahid ad-Din Muhammad Khavarani), Ferdowsi (Hakīm Abū-l-Qāsem Ferdousī ̣Tūsī, the author of the Iranian epic Shāhnāma), Hafez (Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi), Nezami (Nizām ad-Dīn Abū Muhammad Ilyās ibn-Yusūf ibn-Zakī ibn-Mu’ayyid), Omar Khayyám (Ghiyath al-Din Abu’l-Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim Al-Nisaburi Khayyāmi), Sa‘di (Muslih-ud-Din Mushrif-ibn-Abdullah) and Rumi (Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, the patriarch and primary poet of Mevlevi Sufism).
     Being an Indo-European language, Persian has numerous relatives near and far, from the languages of Northern India and Bangladesh in the east to most languages of Europe in the west. Its closest relatives are Bashkardi, Fars, Kumzari, Lari, Luri and Tat. It is somewhat more distantly related to languages such as Avestan, Bactrian, Kurdish, Ossetian, Pashto, Scythian, Sogdian and the Pamir Iranian languages.

Genealogy: Indo-European > Indo-Iranian > Iranian > Western > Persian

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Author: Reinhard F. Hahn