THE IRANIAN
Letter
Persian or Farsi? A layman's view
December 18, 1997
[In response to "Persian or Farsi?"]
I suppose one is better advised to leave this subject to scholars. However, scholars generally do not make categorical statements. They usually make the argument for both sides (perhaps with a slight, but natural, bias of their own) and leave judgment to observers. Students and others, on the other hand, can be forgiven a little partiality. Mr. Kamran Tallatof would do well to ponder a little about this layman's comments:
1- The fact that some uninformed (less charitably, malicious) Greeks, having barbarically defeated the Iranian army, called the entire country Perse, is not a good justification for everybody else to do the same. And just because people in the West know Iran as Perse, is a poor excuse to ignore the 1.3 billion people of the Indian subcontinent or the 1.2 billion of Chinese heritage, to say nothing of all the peoples surrounding the Caspian Sea, all of whom refer to the country as Iran.
2- I wonder how an American would react if the United States was called New York, Texas or California, if a future and ignorant army invaded the country from the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific respectively.
3- Do you know how many people resent being called English, or their country, England? Well, I don't know either. I have forgotten the number of Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish but bet they make up at least 50% of the British population.
4- Farsi, or better still, Parsi, is one of the rare languages that correctly distinguishes between the people and the language of a country. Just because the French or the English don't make the distinction for themselves, is a good reason to allow them to do the same for us? Incidentally, Tajik or Dari are the words used in the West to describe "Farsi-ye Tajik" or "Farsi-ye Dari" as the Tajik and Afghans themselves call their language.
5- The ridicule to call the Persian Gulf, "Farsi Gulf", or Persian Cat, "Farci Cat", shows a lack of appreciation of the distinction of Farsi for the language and Perse for the province. Iranians do not advocate a blind following of whatever Westerners choose to do.
6- Lastly, the example of Farsi being mistaken for Farci (as in Moule Farci, I suppose) brings to mind the joke about Bob Dole, had he won the U.S. presidential election. I suppose had Iran been a Great Power, Dole to avoid possible ridicule would have had to change his name. By the way, on that same subject, one would probably advocate the change of name for such places as "Costa Rica", "Cancun" or the unfortunate bubbly drink popular in France, "Kiri", which by the way, for those who have tried it, is an apt name!
Hashem Farhang
<ashfarhang@worldnet.att.net>
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