The proper name and most common name is Farsi. Brittanica refers to "Farsi", not Persian. Lonely Planet and Collins Gem publish "Farsi" phrase books. Oxford publishes an English-"Farsi" dictionary. The International Bible Society publishes a "Farsi" bible. "FarsiNet" is a major Iranian website. Even the damn Scientologists have "farsi.dianetics.org". I think that's pretty conclusive. - MMGB
Just a side note: the ISO language code listing lists it under "Persian (Farsi)", but the code itself is "FA".
QUOTE Farsi is an old language that has roots from over a thousand years ago. /QUOTE Non-information? Do you know any natural language that does not have roots from over a thousand years ago? -- user:Vassili Nikolaev
I don't know where that quote comes from but to me it seems you misunderstand the quote (perhaps because the quote is scanty). As a Persian speaker who also knows a few other languages, I can tell you that when it comes to etymology of Indo-European roots, in the Persian language you are definitely drinking from the fountainhead or very near to it, whereas in most other languages the meanings are blurry and fuzzy or just invisible. Example: did you ever notice how the spelling of 'daughter' in English is a little strange? Why? Because it comes from German 'Tochter'. So we go to German. But can we really 'see' the word Tochter in German? Not really. But the same word in Persian is Dokhtar, and even an uneducated Persian speaker can see "Dokht + ar" ... and in Persian you have both parts in numerous other constructs .... for instance: Shahdokht = shah + dokht = princess. This is just one small example. I think the quote meant that the roots in Persian even to this day are, for lack of a better word, "original" or preserved. -- Keyvan Partovi.
Likewise, one can offer numerous examples where "Persian" is used and not "Farsi". The fact is that the usage of term "Farsi" instead of "Persian" in the English language is fairly recent. The language itself however, is anything but recent. What is stated in the article is correct, the difference between "Persian" and "Farsi" in English language, is the same as "Spanish" and "Español". I just checked with three of my English dictionaries, and all three contain "Persian", referring to the Languag among other things (such as the Persian culture).
So if we start calling the Persian language (in English) "Farsi", should we also do the same thing for the Persian culture? Calling it "Farsi culture"? Or should we only (for some strange reason) insist on calling the language "Farsi", but continue to call the culture "Persian"? What about "Persian literature"? The Persian language has been called "Persian" in English for centuries.
Also, why not do the same thing with other languages? How about "Magyar" for "Hungarian" or "Deutsch" for "German" for starters?
-Keyvan Partovi. (k1)
- Well, the powers that be would stop us from using English language names for anything over the correct, indigenous names, lest saying otherwise not be culturally sensitive. I am certain that should Iran/Persia not be an Islamic country, that there would not be any qualms of social-sensitivity with refering to the language as Persian and Farsi interchangeably.
I think your "Iran/Persia" gives me a clue as to the root of this confusion. Let me try to clarify. I am an Iranian. Ethnically, I am a Persian (on both sides of my parents). When people in English ask me where I am from or what my nationality is, the answer is "Iranian" (and not Persian). When they ask me what my language is, the answe is "Persian" (not Farsi). Now, I have noticed that many Iranians and even non-Iranians of the region, refer to themselves as "Persian". There are a number of reasons, I suppose, for this, which I won't get into in this talk -- it would go beyond the scope of this discussion. But one thing I have noticed is that the majority of Persian people themselves, refer to themselves as Iranians and not Persian.
Iranian people themselves have always refered to Iran as "Iran" and not "Persia"; as evidenced by our long and rich literature and even pre-Islamic books. The name "Persia" is a Greek construct made up of "Pers + ia" ('ia' = suffix of location, as in Italia, Romania, etc) because the capital province of Iran during the old Persian Empire was the province of Pars (or Pers, as the Greeks must have pronounced it). The Pars province to this day is one of the provinces in Iran.
Just as the Greek language has 'ia' as suffix of location, Persian has 'an' as suffix of location, thus, so many (hundreds) of place names in Iran ending with 'an', such as Iran, Tehran, Isafhan, Gilan, Mazandaran, Khorasan, etc ... Persian has other suffixes of location as well, a famous one is 'istan' as in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, etc ... and that one comes from a Persian verb, but the 'an' suffix is special. The name "Iran" is made up of "Ir (ayr) + an" which literally and etymologically means "Land of the Aryans" (not to be confused with the Nazi notion of the word "Aryan").
In the 1930's, Iran officially asked the world to refer to Iran as "Iran" instead of "Persia" -- a good idea in my opinion.
However, this does not mean that now we should refuse to acknowledge that there is indeed a Persian culture, a Persian language, a Persian literature, Persian epics and other cultural elements that are "Persian". Afterall, there are few people on earth with as much legitimate claim to having a cultural identidy as the Persians. There is even a Persian calendar that is a solar calendar that is to this day, the main, and official calendar of Iran.
The Persian language, regardless of what it is called, is the language that has produced one of the most wonderful literatures of all of humanity. It has seen many regimes come and go, and likely, it will see many more.
I think you are mixing some different conepts, perhaps along with some errornous conclusions based on certain assumptions. The country is Iran, the main language of Iran is Persian (or Farsi, if you like), the largest ethnic group in Iran are the Persians, etc...
Finally, I should like to add, that even those Iranians who are indeed Persian and prefer to refer to themselves as Persians, they have every right to do so, just as an Armenian from Iran has the right to be proud of his or her specific cultural identity, or a Kurd or any other ethnic group. (k1)
For the person who made the comment "Dari-speakers must be laughing"
You only show your, pardon me for the accuracy of my word here, ignorance. There is no language called "Dari", Dari is just Persian with the old Khorasani accent (or Afghani accent of Persian today). The only reason you hear of a languae called 'Dari' today, is because Afghans do not like to call it Persian or Farsi. They even took the word Dari right out of Persian literature. I challenge you to find me one academic work older than 70 years, that makes a distinction between Persian and Dari. Or better yet, ask a so-called "Dari-speaker" to name a few of the great poets and writers of this "Dari" lanuges -- they will give you the names of Persian poets of the Khorasan terriroty, without even realizing that at that time there was not even a country called Afghanistan.
In fact, the funniest thing was when an Afghan 'scholar' was referring to Ferdowsi as the great "Dari" poet. In case you don't know, Ferdowsi is the greatest poet of Persian epics, comparable to Homer for the Classical Greek. But if you study the work of Ferdowsi, it is all about "Iran", and he does not even refer to the language as "Dari" once. You would be hard pressed to go through two or three pages of his 55,000+ epic, the Shahnameh, and not encounter the word "Iran" a few times.
The word "dari" comes from Persian "darbar" meaning "court" (dari means darbari, which means "pertaining to the court" or "belonging to the court"), and that refers to the court of the Sassanids who where the last Persian empire before they fell to the Arabs. Their court was just outside of Baghdad in Iraq today. The Persian language used for official communication (as opposed to the common or colloquial Persian language) was sometimes referred to as "Dari" or the "language of the Darbar (court)" ... and subsequently in some instances, some Persian poets (from all over the place and not just the Khorasan territory) have refered to the Persian language as "Dari" when appropriate. Examples include the great Persian poets Sa'di and Hafiz from Shiraz who have at times referred to Persian as Dari -- so does this mean that the language of Shiraz (capital of Pars province of Iran) is also Dari and not Persian?! :-)
Only recently, some (perhaps most) Afghans from the country Afghanistan have insisted on referring to their language as "Dari" just to avoid calling their language Persian or Farsi. But how old is the country Afghanistan?! This would be tantamount to Austria digging deep into old German literature and finding an obscure word which means "German" but it's not "Deutsch" and start calling their language that name just to avoid using "German" (Deutsch) as the name of their language.
But this "Dari language" is not even a dialect, it is just Persian with the Afghani accent (or I should say with the old Khorasani accent). Again, ask a so-called "Dari-speaking person" to name some of the great works and names of the "Dari language" literature for you and let me know who they are.
-- Keyvan Partovi. (k1)
He's right! Dari is an accent. I would clearly understand what a Afghan is saying, if he were only to pronounce it properly. Secondly, there are many diverse Iranian ethnic groups: Balochis, Armenians, Azeris (Turkic), Turkmen, Gilakis etc... And only half of the countries population consists of Persians or Fars. Alireza Hashemi