Jump to content

New Persian

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
New Persian
فارسی نو,پارسی نو
Fārsiwritten inPersian calligraphy(Nastaʿlīq)
Native to
Native speakers
70 million[7]
(110 million total speakers)[6]
Early forms
Persian alphabet(IranandAfghanistan)
Tajik alphabet(Tajikistan)
Hebrew alphabet
Persian Braille
Official status
Official language in
Regulated by
Language codes
ISO 639-1fa
ISO 639-2per(B)
fas(T)
ISO 639-3fas
Glottologfars1254
Linguasphere
58-AAC (Wider Persian)
> 58-AAC-c (Central Persian)
Areas with significant numbers of people whose first language is Persian (including dialects)
Persian Linguasphere.
Legend
Official language
More than 1,000,000 speakers
Between 500,000 – 1,000,000 speakers
Between 100,000 – 500,000 speakers
Between 25,000 – 100,000 speakers
Fewer than 25,000 speakers / none
This article containsIPAphonetic symbols.Without properrendering support,you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbolsinstead ofUnicodecharacters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.

New Persian(Persian:فارسی نو,romanized:Fārsī-ye No), also known asModern Persian(فارسی نوین) is the current stage of thePersian languagespoken since the 8th to 9th centuries until now inGreater Iranand surroundings. It is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian (8th/9th centuries), Classical Persian (10th–18th centuries), and Contemporary Persian (19th century to present).

Dari is a name given to the New Persian language since the10th century,widely used inArabic(seeIstakhri,al-Maqdisiandibn Hawqal) and Persian texts.[10]Since 1964,Darihas been the official name in Afghanistan for the Persian spoken there.

Classification

[edit]

New Persian is a member of theWestern Iranian groupof theIranian languages,which make up a branch of theIndo-European languagesin theirIndo-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 whichKurdishis the most widely spoken.[11]

Etymology

[edit]

"New Persian" is the name given to the final stage of development of Persian language. The termPersianis anEnglishderivation ofLatinPersiānus,the adjectival form ofPersia,itself deriving fromGreekPersís(Περσίς),[12]a Hellenized form ofOld PersianPārsa(𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿),[13]which means "Persia"(a region in southwestern Iran corresponding to modern-dayFars province). According to theOxford English Dictionary,the termPersianas a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century.[14]

There are different opinions about the origin of the wordDari.The majority of scholars believesDarirefers to the Persian worddarordarbār"court" (دربار) as it was the formal language of theSasanian dynasty.[15]The original meaning of the worddariis given in a notice attributed toIbn al-Muqaffaʿ(cited byIbn al-NadiminAl-Fehrest).[16]According to him, "Pārsīwas the language spoken by priests, scholars, and the like; it is the language ofFars."This language refers to theMiddle Persian.[15]As forDari,he says, "it is the language of the cities of Madā'en; it is spoken by those who are at the king's court. [Its name] is connected with presence at court. Among the languages of the people ofKhorasanand the east, the language of the people ofBalkhis predominant. "[15]

History

[edit]

New 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.[17]

Early New Persian

[edit]

New Persian texts written in theArabic scriptfirst appear in the 9th-century.[18]The language is a direct descendant of Middle Persian, the official, religious and literary language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651).[19]However, it is not descended from the literary form of Middle Persian (known aspārsīk,commonly called Pahlavi), which was spoken by the people ofFarsand used inZoroastrianreligious writings. Instead, it is descended from the dialect spoken by the court of the Sasanian capitalCtesiphonand the northeastern Iranian region ofKhorasan,known as Dari.[18][20]Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplantedParthian language,which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use.[18]New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including fromeasternnorthern and northern Iranian languages such asSogdianand especially Parthian.[21]

The mastery of the newer speech having now been transformed from Middle into New Persian was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, theTahirid dynasty(820–872),Saffarid dynasty(860–903) andSamanid Empire(874–999), and could develop only in range and power of expression.[22]Abbas ofMervis mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the newer Persian tongue and after him the poems ofHanzala Badghisiwere among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time.[23]

The first poems of the Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in Afghanistan.[24]The first significant Persian poet wasRudaki.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 theKalila wa Dimna.[25]

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-regionallingua franca,a task for which it was particularly suitable due to its relatively simple morphological structure and this situation persisted until at least the 19th century.[26]In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on the Persian model:Ottoman Turkish,Chagatai,Dobhashiand Urdu, which are regarded as "structural daughter languages" of Persian.[26]

Classical Persian

[edit]
See also:List of Persian-language poets and authors

"Classical Persian" loosely refers to the standardized language of medieval Persia used inliteratureandpoetry. This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language andlingua francaunder the "Persianized"Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries.[27]

Persian during this time served as lingua franca ofGreater Persiaand of much of theIndian subcontinent. It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids,Buyids,Tahirids,Ziyarids,theMughal Empire,Timurids,Ghaznavids,Karakhanids,Seljuqs,Khwarazmians,theSultanate of Rum,Delhi Sultanate,theShirvanshahs,Safavids,Afsharids,Zands,Qajars,Khanate of Bukhara,Khanate of Kokand,Emirate of Bukhara,Khanate of Khiva,Ottomans and also many Mughal successors such as theNizam of Hyderabad. Persian was the only non-European language known and used byMarco Poloat the Court ofKublai Khanand in his journeys through China.[28]

Contemporary Persian

[edit]
A variant of the Iranian standard ISIRI 9147 keyboard layout for Persian
Qajar dynasty

In the 19th century, under theQajar dynasty,thedialectthat is spoken inTehranrose 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 numerousRussian,French,andEnglishterms 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 ofPersian orthography,were under the reign ofNaser ed Din Shahof theQajar dynastyin 1871.[citation needed]After Naser ed Din Shah,Mozaffar ed Din Shahordered the establishment of the first Persian association in 1903.[29]This association officially declared that it used Persian andArabicas 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 asrāh-āhan(راهآهن) for "railway", were printed inSoltani Newspaper;but the association was eventually closed due to inattention.[citation needed]

A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in a dictionary calledWords of Scientific Association(لغت انجمن علمی), which was completed in the future and renamedKatouzian Dictionary(فرهنگ کاتوزیان).[30]

Pahlavi dynasty

The first academy for the Persian language was founded on 20 May 1935, under the nameAcademy of Iran.It was established by the initiative ofReza Shah Pahlavi,and mainly byHekmat e ShiraziandMohammad Ali Foroughi,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 manyArabic,Russian,French,andGreekloanwords 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

[edit]

There are three standard varieties of modern Persian:

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. TheHazaragi dialect(in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan),Herati(in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan),Basseri(in Southern Iran), and theTehrani accent(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 ofmutual intelligibility.[31]Nevertheless, theEncyclopædia Iranicanotes 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.[32]

The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects:

Standard Persian

[edit]
Main article:Standard Persian

Standard Persian is thestandardvariety of Persian that is the official language of theIran[8]andTajikistan[38]and one of the two official languages ofAfghanistan.[39]It is a set of spoken and written formalvarietiesused by the educatedpersophonesof several nations around the world.[40]

As Persian is apluricentric language,Standard Persian encompasses variouslinguistic norms(consisting ofprescribed usage). Standard Persian practically has three standard varieties with official status inIran,Afghanistan,andTajikistan.The standard forms of the three are based on theTehrani,Kabuli,andBukharanvarieties, respectively.[41][42]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^abcSamadi, Habibeh; Nick Perkins (2012). Martin Ball; David Crystal; Paul Fletcher (eds.).Assessing Grammar: The Languages of Lars.Multilingual Matters. p. 169.ISBN978-1-84769-637-3.
  2. ^"IRAQ".Encyclopædia Iranica.Retrieved7 November2014.
  3. ^"Tajiks in Turkmenistan".People Groups.
  4. ^Pilkington, Hilary; Yemelianova, Galina (2004).Islam in Post-Soviet Russia.Taylor & Francis. p. 27.ISBN978-0-203-21769-6.Among other indigenous peoples of Iranian origin were the Tats, the Talishes and the Kurds.
  5. ^Mastyugina, Tatiana; Perepelkin, Lev (1996).An Ethnic History of Russia: Pre-revolutionary Times to the Present.Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 80.ISBN978-0-313-29315-3.The Iranian Peoples (Ossetians, Tajiks, Tats, Mountain Judaists)
  6. ^abWindfuhr, Gernot:The Iranian Languages,Routledge 2009, p. 418.
  7. ^"Persian | Department of Asian Studies".Retrieved2 January2019.There are numerous reasons to study Persian: for one thing, Persian is an important language of the Middle East and Central Asia, spoken by approximately 70 million native speakers and roughly 110 million people worldwide.
  8. ^abConstitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran:Chapter II, Article 15: "The official language and script of Iran, thelingua francaof its people, is Persian. Official documents, correspondence, and texts, as well as text-books, must be in this language and script. However, the use of regional and tribal languages in the press and mass media, as well as for teaching of their literature in schools, is allowed in addition to Persian. "
  9. ^Constitution of the Republic of Dagestan:Chapter I, Article 11: "The state languages of the Republic of Dagestan are Russian and the languages of the peoples of Dagestan."
  10. ^"DARĪ – Encyclopaedia Iranica".
  11. ^Windfuhr, Gernot (1987). Comrie, Berard (ed.).The World's Major Languages.Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp.523–546.ISBN978-0-19-506511-4.
  12. ^Περσίς.Liddell, Henry George;Scott, Robert;A Greek–English Lexiconat thePerseus Project.
  13. ^Harper, Douglas."Persia".Online Etymology Dictionary.
  14. ^Oxford English Dictionaryonline,s.v. "Persian", draft revision June 2007.
  15. ^abcLazard, G."Darī – The New Persian Literary Language",inEncyclopædia Iranica,Online Edition 2006.
  16. ^Ebn al-Nadim, ed. Tajaddod, p. 15; Khjwārazmī,Mafātīh al-olum,pp. 116–17; Hamza Esfahānī, pp. 67–68; Yāqūt, Boldān IV, p. 846
  17. ^Jeremias, Eva M. (2004). "Iran, iii. (f). New Persian".Encyclopaedia of Islam.Vol. 12 (New Edition, Supplement ed.). p. 432.ISBN90-04-13974-5.
  18. ^abcPaul 2000.
  19. ^Lazard 1975,p. 596.
  20. ^Perry 2011.
  21. ^Lazard 1975,p. 597.
  22. ^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. (inPublic Domain)
  23. ^Jackson, A. V. Williams.pp.17–19.
  24. ^Adamec, Ludwig W. (2011).Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan(4th Revised ed.). Scarecrow. p. 105.ISBN978-0-8108-7815-0.
  25. ^de Bruijn, J.T.P. (14 December 2015)."Persian literature".Encyclopædia Britannica.
  26. ^abJohanson, Lars, and Christiane Bulut. 2006.Turkic-Iranian contact areas: historical and linguistic aspects.Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
  27. ^ according toiranchamber.com"the language (ninth to thirteenth centuries), preserved in the literature of the Empire, is known as Classical Persian, due to the eminence and distinction of poets such as Roudaki, Ferdowsi, and Khayyam. During this period, Persian was adopted as the lingua franca of the eastern Islamic nations. Extensive contact with Arabic led to a large influx of Arab vocabulary. In fact, a writer of Classical Persian had at one's disposal the entire Arabic lexicon and could use Arab terms freely either for literary effect or to display erudition. Classical Persian remained essentially unchanged until the nineteenth century, when the dialect of Teheran rose in prominence, having been chosen as the capital of Persia by the Qajar Dynasty in 1787. This Modern Persian dialect became the basis of what is now called Contemporary Standard Persian. Although it still contains a large number of Arab terms, most borrowings have been nativized, with a much lower percentage of Arabic words in colloquial forms of the language."
  28. ^John Andrew Boyle,Some thoughts on the sources for the Il-Khanid period of Persian history,inIran:Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, British Institute of Persian Studies, vol. 12 (1974), p. 175.
  29. ^Jazayeri, M. A. (15 December 1999)."Farhangestān".Encyclopædia Iranica.Retrieved3 October2014.
  30. ^نگار داوری اردکانی (1389).برنامهریزی زبان فارسی.روایت فتح. p. 33.ISBN978-600-6128-05-4.
  31. ^Beeman, William."Persian, Dari and Tajik"(PDF).Brown University.Archived(PDF)from the original on 25 October 2012.Retrieved30 March2013.
  32. ^Aliev, Bahriddin; Okawa, Aya (2010)."TAJIK iii. COLLOQUIAL TAJIKI IN COMPARISON WITH PERSIAN OF IRAN".Encyclopaedia Iranica.
  33. ^Gernot Windfuhr, "Persian Grammar: history and state of its study", Walter de Gruyter, 1979. pg 4: "" Tat- Persian spoken in the East Caucasus ""
  34. ^V. Minorsky, "Tat" in M. Th. Houtsma et al., eds., The Encyclopædia of Islam: A Dictionary of the Geography, Ethnography and Biography of the Muhammadan Peoples, 4 vols. and Suppl., Leiden: Late E.J. Brill and London: Luzac, 1913–38.
  35. ^V. Minorsky, "Tat" in M. Th. Houtsma et al., eds., The Encyclopædia of Islam: A Dictionary of the Geography, Ethnography and Biography of the Muhammadan Peoples, 4 vols. and Suppl., Leiden: Late E.J. Brill and London: Luzac, 1913–38. Excerpt: "Like most Persian dialects, Tati is not very regular in its characteristic features"
  36. ^C Kerslake, Journal of Islamic Studies (2010) 21 (1): 147–151. excerpt: "It is a comparison of the verbal systems of three varieties of Persian—standard Persian, Tat, and Tajik—in terms of the 'innovations' that the latter two have developed for expressing finer differentiations of tense, aspect and modality..."[1]
  37. ^Borjian, Habib (2006). "Tabari Language Materials from Il'ya Berezin's Recherches sur les dialectes persans".Iran & the Caucasus.10(2): 243–258.doi:10.1163/157338406780346005.,"It embraces Gilani, Talysh, Tabari, Kurdish, Gabri, and the Tati Persian of the Caucasus, all but the last belonging to the north-western group of Iranian language."
  38. ^"Tajikistan Drops Russian As Official Language".RFE/RL – Rferl.org. 7 October 2009.Archivedfrom the original on 4 March 2016.Retrieved13 September2013.
  39. ^"What Languages are Spoken in Afghanistan?".2004.RetrievedJune 13,2012.Pashto and Dari are the official languages of the state. are – in addition to Pashto and Dari – the third official language in areas where the majority speaks them
  40. ^"Standard Persian"(PDF).www.sid.ir.Retrieved28 October2020.
  41. ^"History of Tehrani accent".Iranian students news agency.Retrieved28 October2020.
  42. ^Ido, Shinji (2014)."Bukharan Tajik".Journal of the International Phonetic Association.44.www.cambridge.org: 87–102.doi:10.1017/S002510031300011X.S2CID232344116.

Sources

[edit]
[edit]
Persian editionofWikipedia,the free encyclopedia
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_Persian&oldid=1217528524"