Interesting Facts about Persian Language

Persian language is one of the languages that belong to the Iranian Branch of Indo-European family. Different sources I have read, say that there are aprox. 130 million speakers of this language around the world, Mainly in countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and in countries where there are big communities of speakers like USA, Canada, Turkey, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates. It is a language with a Great literary and historical traditional.

Here I bring some interesting facts about Persian, a language I have been using for a while.

1.- Persian is a very Old language. According to the web page http://www.ancientscripts.com/oldpersian.html the oldest records of written Old Persian are cuneiform texts from the 6^th century BCE. There are reasons to think that this language is even older.

2.- Most people relate Persian language with “Farsi”, the official language of Iran. It is indeed the most spoken form of Persian, but there are other varieties as well. In Afghanistan, their Persian language is called “Dari”, it is one of its official languages and is the language used the most for inter-ethnic communications. In Tajikistan, the official language is “Tajik”, another variety of Persian language. Although there are some differences in their grammar and vocabulary, speakers of any of those varieties of Persian language can understand each other, and this is something I experienced speaking in Persian with people from any of those countries.

3.- Persian is written in a modified version of Arabic Script. But in Tajikistan, it is written using its own version of Cyrillic alphabet. But throughout its history, Persian has been put in written using a lot of scripts systems, being perhaps the language that has used the most. In the page http://www.omniglot.com/writing/persian.htm , there is a list of those scripts. Here I am going to provide a quite different list, based on my own experience reading and watching texts in this language. Arabic and Cyrillic alphabets start this list. Old Persian was written using Cuneiform system. Middle Persian was written using basically Pahlevi script. During that time, many literary and religious works related with Zoroastrianism, were written in a modified version of Avestan Script. Texts that belong to Manichean tradition were written using a script based on Aramaic. Latin alphabet is very often used in the media online and for SMS. There are also some documents in the Judeo Persian dialect written with Hebrew letters.    

4.- Persian has a very particular grammar. There are no genders and no articles. Conjugate a verb is easy and there is no need to use personal pronouns. Most of plurals are regular and less used than in other languages; they are not used after a number. There are no cases in written Persian. The word order is SOV (Subject - Object - Verb). A particular characteristic of Persian and other Iranian languages is the use of “Ezafe”, an unstressed final vowel (or a “ye” syllable after a vowel) used to link 2 words, mainly used to link an Adjective with the noun or to describe possession. 

5.- Persian is a language that has many different dialects. As we may expect, dialects change from one region to another. But something very particular from Persian dialects, not common in other languages, is that even religious minorities who live in Iran have developed their own dialects. According to the page http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/persian-language-1-early-new-persian exist dialects spoken by Jewish and Zoroastrians. The Zoroastrian dialect is called “Dari”, and is not related with the Afghan Dari. The Jewish dialect of Persian is called Judeo Persian. There are evidences that Christians and Manichean Persians also had their own dialects, not used any more. But this also leads us to the following point:

6.- Persian was used for religious texts. Majority of religious literature in Persian are related with Zoroastrianism and Islam. There are also Persian Manuscripts with Jewish, Christian and Manichean texts. An important part of Baha’i sacred texts were also composed originally in Persian. Although I did not find any reference to Buddhist texts in Persian, there are Buddhist texts in other Iranian languages, and it is well recorded the activities of Buddhist missioners in Iran and the role played by Iranian Monks helping this religion to spread in the Western part of China. I believe that it is just matter of time to discover more in this area. Today, anyone with access to Google and knowledge in languages like English, French or German, has access to valuable information about world religions. But one thousand years ago, with no Google and no word regarding those languages, Persian played an important role in documenting the different religious teachings of the time.

        

7.- Persian has a very rich literary tradition, that includes poetry, books, documentaries and many other artistic and written expressions. But the work that deserves credit for its influence over, not only Persian arts and Language, but over the language itself is the “Shahnameh”, the great epic of the Kings, written by the great Persian poet Ferdowsi Tusi. Shahnameh is not only the masterpiece of the Persian literature but many people, including great scholars, believe that this epic work has influence the revival of Persian language after the fall of the Sassanian empire. It is also said that thanks to this great epic work, Persian language has changed very little in the last 1000 years, just after it was written. More can be read in http://shahnameh.eu/ferdowsi.html

8.- Although Persian language has a great list of poets and writers, at least, until the beginning of 2017, is perhaps the Most important language of the world that has no literary works awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature.  

9.- Artistic expressions using Persian language are not limited to literature, but there are also expressions through Calligraphy. History of Calligraphy starts aprox. During the 7^th Century after the adoption of Arabic script, but there are experts that state that this art in Persian started centuries before.  Persian artists have contributed to make writing into a more fluent style where beauty and Harmony plays an important role. The style that is used the most in modern Persian Arab script is Nastaleeq. This style follows natural curves, unlike the Arabic styles that tend to be Geometrical. More can be read in http://www.persiancalligraphy.org/History-of-Calligraphy.html

Here is a sample of Persian Calligraphy. It writes: "Good thoughts, good words, good deeds". The composition is courtesy from http://www.nastaliqonline.ir/ where you can compose your own sample of Calligraphy.  

10.- Persian is a very romantic language.  There are many different expressions in this language to express Love, some of them are very original. Here are some:

دلبرم   (Delbar-am)  = It means “The one who holds my heart”. It can also mean, “The one who stole my heart”. It is used to refer to a Soul mate. 

همسرم  (Hamsar-am) = Literally it means “My equal head”, it is mostly used for the spouse.  

جگرم   (Jigar-am) = it is a phrase for endearment, that means “My sweetie”, but literally means: “My Liver”.

صد قلب هم برای رساندن همه عشق من به تو خیلی کم است

(Sad Qalb ham baraaye resaandan-e hameye eshq-e man be to kheily kam ast) = It means something like: “A hundred hearts would be too few to bring all my love for you!”

In my article about slangs, I already referred to another very original endearment phrase in Persian slang, and it is “Moosh Bokhoradet” that literarily means: “A Mouse should eat you”. Basically means “You are cute” and it is used with children.

You can visit http://www.chaiandconversation.com/2014/12-things-call-your-persian-lover and also https://www.persianpod101.com/persian-vocabulary-lists/15-love-phrases-for-valentines-day for more romantic phrases, or ask any  Persian friend you trust.  

11.- Persian has given some words that are used now in different languages. Among those words originally Persian, we have:

-Paradise. It comes from the Persian word  فردوس  (Ferdous) that means garden. Other possible word of origin is پردیس (Pardis). Those words are most probably from the Avestic word “Pairi-Daeza”

-Bazaar: From Persian بازار (Baazaar).

-Caravan: From the word  کاروان (Kaarvaan)

-Jasmine: From word یاسمین (Yaasamin). In middle Persian “Yaasaman”

-Nowruz:  From word نوروز (Nowruz) = نو (Nou) that means “New” + روز (Ruz) that means “Day”. Nowruz is the name of the Persian New Year’s day. Now is common to see in calendars in Europe and North America, the word “Nowruz” marking the beginning of the spring.    

My Best wishes to my readers and to all my Persian Friends for a Great Festive of Nowruz and a very Blessed and happy Persian New year!

به همه دوستان ایرانی و هم کیشان زرتشتیان من، امیدوارم که  سال نو و جشن نوروز خجسته باد

به همگی تندرستی و شادی ارزو میکنم. شاد و پیروز باشید

Наврӯзатон Хуҷаста бод!  Наврӯзатон пирӯз!

Наврӯз Муборак бошад!