Farsi: Bittersweet?
June 8, 1998
The Iranian
The following comments on the usage of Persian v. Farsi in the English language were posted on Adabiyat last month. Adabiyat is a scholarly discussion list for Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Urdu and related literatures, both medieval and modern.
* Becoming prevalent?
* Western journalists
* "Pretending to be experts
* Like it or not...
* Nationalist pride
* Will be around a long time
* Not in London
* Not derogatory
* Lacking sense of splendor
* Well-entrenched
* Perpetuating neologisms
* Fact of life
* I read Farsi, speak Farsi...
* Farsi, normal
* Down with the F-word!
* Popularized around 1979
* Teheran & Tehran
* More modern
* Sense of proportion
* Prophets spoke Persian
* Becoming prevalent?
Those of you in Northern California may want to take your kids to see the following production of Bizhan Mofid's children's play. Note the use of "Farsi" for Persian; even the U.S. State Department Spokesperson has been calling it "Farsi" in recent press conferences.
I know the udabaa would never say this, but please point out to offending students and colleagues that unless they talk about the Deutsch language or espagnol literature and franc,ais speakers, they should be saying "Persian"! Is "Farsi" becoming prevalent for "Persian" in European languages, too, or is this confined to North America? --
Franklin D. Lewis
Assistant Professor of Persian
Department of Middle Eastern Studies
Emory University
Atlanta, GA
flewis@EMORY.EDU
* Western journalists
Dear Frank,
Thanks for the message. Of course the usage of "Farsi" instead of Persian is not as innocent as Deutsch instead of German and francais instead of French.
In 1994 I had to threaten the German publisher DIPA in Frankfurt with a law suite because when they published a book that I translated (Fahimeh Farsaie: Die Flucht und andere Erzaehlungen), the credentials said: "Uebersetzung aus dem Farsi von Nima Mina." To my big surprise, it turned out the author wished it to be that way. It is a shame. I should have asked them to remove my name from that book's credentials altogether.
I think this "Farsi" business started about 20 years ago, when a bunch of western journalists who didn't speak the language were sent to Iran to report about the revolution. Using this exotic word "Farsi" instead of Persian might have made the impression that they knew what they were talking about, which very often they didn't. I was just a teenager at that time, but I still remember. In most cases they were hanging out in the hotel "marmar" and drinking beer, then reproducing bar gossip as authentic reports from the heart of the revolution.
Later the term "Farsi" was used whenever Western media reports were constructing the evil terrorist image of Iran and its "violent aggressive culture." "Persian" has too many connotations with ancient Persian culture, Persian mysticism and poetry, Hafis (who is the incarnation of tolerance), etc. Instead of changing the connotations of the word "Persian," the manipulators chose another strategy. "Farsi" was a fresh term and could develop whatever connotations Farsi speakers and their country(ies) had to receive.
Unfortunately a lot of Iranians are using this term as well. It is rather surprising because Iranians are usually receptive to conspiracy theories. I believe my explanation was right up their alley (?).
Thanks again!
Nima M i n a
Universite de Montreal
Litteratures et langues Modernes
minan@ERE.UMONTREAL.CA
* "Pretending to be experts
Dear Nima Mina
I share your reflections concerning this most silly and senseless use of the word "farsi" in any Europhone context representing the meaning of good old "Persian", "Persane". "persidskii" or "Persisch". But, the whole thing was invented much earlier that at the revolutionary turn of the year 1978/9.
When I was young - not anymore a teenager but, still close to this age (in the sixties) - I spent some years in Tehran and witnessed already at that time those typical Western diplomats and journalists sitting in the lounge of the "famous" Marmar-Hotel, sipping their beers and so on and talking about that language "Farsi". I assume that this belonged to that very characteristic local semi-pidginized "chiqueria"-slang this kind of people invent everywhere in the world just in order to proove their expertise on the country they are living in. In the appropriate form of German, this sounds like this:
(quotation) "Dann sagte ich zu unserer Badschi, sie soll uns noch einen Tschai machen, nach schnell den Aschgal hinuntertragen, der Aschgali muesse ja jeden Moment kommen. Ausserdem ist es heute heiss, sie soll die Hasire vor dem Fenster zumachen. Dann kann sie ruhig nach Hause fahren, sie kann diesesmal durchaus ein Savari nehmen, denn auf den Strassen ist der Baer los, die machen ja heute alle Ali-Hossein-cha-cha-cha (i.e. ` ashura)."
If an imagined Western visitor would have asked such an ignorant idiot what he was talking about he might have answered: "Oh, I am sorry but, since I am living in this country, I am talking Farsi all day long! Believe me, I am a real expert on this country".
Yours,
Bert Fragner
Head of Dept. of Iranian Studies
University of Bamberg, Germany
bert.fragner@SPLIT.UNI-BAMBERG.DE
* Like it or not...
I have some observations on the use of the term "Farsi," too, that might be worthwhile sharing:
1) It is now part of the vocabulary of American English whether we Persianists like it or not. On numerous occasions, I have been asked by English speakers upon mentioning to them that I study Persian, "Is that the same as Farsi?"
2) The word "Farsi" fits in English along the same pattern as the names of some other languages, such as Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, and Swahili.
3) I have not noticed any pejorative connotation associated with the term "Farsi." Indeed, Iranians in the U.S. in my experience tend to call their language "Farsi" when speaking English much more often than not.
4) As for your association of "Persian" with ancient Persian culture, Persian mysticism, poetry, and Hafez ... the vast majority of Americans don't share these associations. Most have never heard of Hafez, though many have heard of Omar Khayyam. Persian cats and Persian carpets are most likely to come to mind, and these are indeed generally deemed to be Good Things. But in most parts of America, Persian/Iranian culture is little known.
While Webster's 9th Collegiate Dictionary (1986) does not include a citation for "Farsi," I would be surprised if the next edition does not. For better or worse, "Farsi" is part of the American English vocabulary.
I agree with your logic that we should no more call Persian "Farsi" than we should call German "Deutsch," but the adoption of loan words seems to have a logic of its own.
As for the origin of the use of the term "Farsi" in English, I think that would make an interesting topic of research. Your suggestion that it was foisted upon us by journalistic "manipulators" will need some empirical evidence. It seems rather doubtful to me that it is part of some sinister plot. :-) However, it is not hard to imagine that the use of the term "Farsi" by the press has helped to lend it currency.
It seems plausible to me that the adoption of "Farsi" in the English language was made easier by the fact that we no longer use the name "Persia" to refer to Iran.
Regards from The Hague (Den Haag),
George Maschke
gmaschke@ucla.edu
Graduate Student, Near Eastern Languages & Cultures,
UCLA Translator,
Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, The Hague
Home Page
PGP
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* Nationalist pride
I'm afraid the use of "Farsi" (and by speakers of it!) goes back much further than 20 years. I can remember it from my undergrad days at Berkeley. Seems to me it represents some sort of "nationalism" (don't call your language what the colonial "other" calls it -- sorry, that's not my line of thought); and would it be reaching to associate the usage with the famous story by Jamalzada, "Farsi shakar ast", as a manifestation of national/linguistic pride as well as indignation concerning the "contamination" of the language by foreign elements?
Somebody ought to do a Ph.D. thesis on this...
Julie Meisami
Lecturer in Persian
University of Oxford
MEISAMI@SERVER.ORIENT.OX.AC.UK
* Will be around a long time
My first stay in Iran was 1962-4, and I remember well that U.S. embassy and military types used Farsi as a replacement for Iranian as well as Persian. "Do you like that farsi food?"
I would agree that it was more often in the mouths of those who didn't know the language than those who did. My experience was also that it was picked up by nationalists somewhat on the model of Reza Shah's decision that foreigners should refer to the country as Iran not Persia.
I hate to say it, but I think it is going to be with us for a long time.
Jerome W. Clinton
Department of Near Eastern Studies
Princeton University
jwc@PHOENIX.PRINCETON.EDU
* Not in London
I hate to hear it (almost as much as I loathe the term 'Persianist'), alas, some will indubitably think it very P.C. to use Farsi instead of Persian.
At SOAS, we make sure that in all our departmental literature we use the term 'Persian' when referring to the language and the literature (not to mention the cat, the food, the carpet...)
Narguess Farzad
Lecturer in Persian
Dept. of the Near & Middle East
School of Oriental & African Studies
University of London
NF1@soas.ac.uk
* Not derogatory
I have read this discussion with interest . However the first time I heard the word Farsi was in July 1974. I was in the Negev desert in a development town on a field trip . One member of our party was from British Foreign Office who was able to speak to the Persian Jews in Farsi. I had assumed that this was the correct name and not derogatory any more than it is to use the word Ivrit for the Hebrew language.
Michael Franks
Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales
michaelfranks@CHETHAMS.CO.UK
Website
* Lacking sense of splendor
Saying Farsi instead of Persian robs the language and the culture of all the sense of splendor the name Persian has taken on in western languages through two and a half millennia of war, trade, religious and cultural influence, and other forms of confrontation or subtle interaction. Indeed it not only insults the people and cultures of Iran, it also impoverishes English. Great civilizations earn the right to have corrupted forms of their names, their adjectives, and their place names in other languages through long periods of contact and influence, and the conceptual and connotational range of the recipient languages is considerably enriched by the adoption of the corrupted forms. If a newly discovered tribe calls itself "Nunu-Susu," for example, then we will call it Nunu-Susu as well, using the closest possible approximation to the original. Similarly their language will be Nunu-Susu, and a member of the tribe will be a Nunu-Susu.
If we compare the position of this hypothetical tribe in all the languages to which the tribe is new with that of, say, of the Dutch in English, for whose race and whose country a thesaurus is needed to record the English variants, the point becomes clear. Something else also becomes clear. If we know a people well enough to respect them, we will not tamper with the corrupt forms of their names, their place names, and the names of their languages. It is only when we do not have sufficient respect that we yield to the urgings of the mapmakers and revert to the "native" form. No one would seriously consider substituting Deutschland for Germany, or Deutsch/Deutscher for German in English. "Deutschland" exists, of course, in English, but with connotations for which a high price was paid. For better or worse, the language was enriched.
"Farsi" also exists in English, with a very specific meaning. But to use the word as the normal term for the national language of Iran has to be classified as one of the greatest affronts to great cultures in our time.
Others:
- Beijing for Peking (Beijing duck, a Beijingese dog? The usage is insulting, even if the Chinese [plural intended] asked for it.) - Chinese for Chinaman (would we ever say a "French" for a Frenchman, or a "Spanish" for a Spaniard)
From Norwegian:
-Roma for Rom (older form for Rome) -Venezia for Venedig (older form for Venice) -Hellas for Grekenland (older form for Greece)
One wonders what the point is in being the world's biggest civilization, and one of the oldest? Or in being one of the cornerstones of western civilization.
Joseph Bell
Professor of Arabic Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures
University of Bergen
Bergen, Norway
joseph.bell@MSK.UIB.NO
* Well-entrenched
For what it's worth...
A search of Deja News <www.dejanews.com>, which indexes Usenet newsgroup postings showed:
about 64,000 instances of "persian"
about 54,000 instances of "farsi"
A search of the Alta Vista WWW index showed:
493,250 matching documents for "persian"
50,760 matching documents for "farsi"
I searched on lower-case versions to catch both capitalized and uncapitalized instances, as many Usenet posters don't pay scrupulous attention to the rules of capitalization. Of course, not all instances of "Persian" refer to the Persian language. There are references to Persian cats and carpets and the Persian Gulf War (the variant "Arabian" Gulf is of course an entirely different can of worms) :-) . But it seems that in almost all cases "Farsi" refers to the Persian language, the most notable exception being the family name "Farsi."
Another bit of randomness in the mix is that not all Usenet postings and Web documents indexed are in English.
Yet a perusal of these Internet files shows that "Farsi" is indeed well-entrenched. Although I am philosophically in the "Persian" camp myself, it is all but apparent that the battle is unwinnable. And it seems wise not to fight a battle that cannot be won.
The English lexical item "Farsi" meaning "the Persian language" is going to be around for a while. No amount of pontificating or browbeating by indignant Orientalists will reverse this situation. At best, scholarly writings might be kept immune from such blasphemous neologisms.
But perhaps it is not such a Bad Thing after all that a handful of academics cannot control the English language.
George Maschke
gmaschke@ucla.edu
Graduate Student, Near Eastern Languages & Cultures,
UCLA Translator,
Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, The Hague
Home Page
PGP
Public Key
* Perpetuating neologisms
In connection with my earlier comment today, I did a similar check (HotBot net search) on Beijing/Peking, resulting in about 5 to 1 in "favor" of Beijing, but also reminding me that the people at Peking University have been sufficiently sensitive to avoid changing the English name of their proud institution to "Beijing."
A handful of pontificating academics may not change what happens, but they have a right to complain when a handful of journalists with powerful media in their hands perpetuate derogatory and denigratory neologisms, perceived as eulogisms, which go over the heads of millions.
Joseph Bell
Professor of Arabic Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures
University of Bergen
Bergen, Norway
joseph.bell@MSK.UIB.NO
* Fact of life
Although in The Iranian I have made a conscious attempt to make sure our language is referred to as Persian, the vast majority of email I receive (especially Iranians) refer to it as Farsi.
And in casual conversation, here in northern California at least, I often hear Iranians explaining to Americans that they speak Farsi. I may have done it too on occasion and I suspect I will do so more often.
My guess is that the 3-4 million Iranians who migrated since 1979 are the main reason why the term Farsi has become so common (I would clear American journalists and diplomats of this particular conspiracy!).
Iranian emigrants do not really care about lingustic correctness and certainly they feel much more comfortable with Farsi. This is a fact of life and I have never heard any one object to it during casual conversation.
It seems clear that this issue concerns mostly academics. Most other Iranians have made their choice and they're happy with it.
I agree with the historical, logical, linguistic validity of Persian. Still, I see nothing wrong with Farsi!
Jahanshah Javid
Publisher
The Iranian
jj@iranian.com
* I read Farsi, speak Farsi...
I am not a linguist but I have been following this "Persian vs. Farsi" debate with interest for quite some time. A decade ago, Professor Ehsan Yarshater spoke against the use of Farsi in place of Persian. The debate has continued and every now and then it resurfaces again, mostly outside of Iran.
I personally agree that it is better to use Persian when referring to the language spoken by people in Iran. All technical and logical reasons provided in support of such a usage make sense. However, for the life of me, I do not understand this notion of "insult" or "affront." I am an Iranian -- and a nationalist one too -- but I do not feel degraded or insulted if someone refers to my native language as "Farsi." After all, I read Farsi and speak Farsi. Millions of Iranians refer to their language in Iran as Farsi.
Hearing the word "Farsi" in the English speaking world does not give me any less positive feelings about that language than it does at home. Using "Farsi" instead of "Persian" might be a bad choice but it is not an insult. Let's not get carried away. I feel we are romanticizing the notion of Persian beyond what it is (all those references to Persian Art, Persian Cat, Persian Rugs, Persian Empire, etc).
Peace and regards,
Akbar Mahdi, Ph.D.
Department of Sociology/Anthropology
Ohio Wesleyan University
Delaware, Ohio
aamahdi@CC.OWU.EDU
* Farsi, normal
I think the word " Farsi" has entered other languages as more foreigners have travelled to Iran and got to know our language and culture by themselves and not through books. We Iranians, ourselves, especially those who live in Iran call our language Farsi not Persian. For example if we see a foreigner or even a man from the Azarbayejan region we ask him in Persian: Farsi midani? Or for instance the title of "Farsi" is written on the cover of the Persian Literature school books at the primary level.
So it is not strange for a foreign student, journalist or tourist coming to Iran to use the word "Farsi" instead of Persian. Although I understand the point of view of the educated Iranians but I also think that many of the Iranians who immigrated after the revolution, especially to the US or other more accessible countries,had not even heard the name Persian before as most were not able to speak good English. Therefore it seemed normal to use the word Farsi while naming their language.
Jammeah newspaper (Iran- Tehran) has recently published an interesting interview with Daryoush Shayegan (a famous Iranian philosopher) in three issues about Culture, East and West, Modernization and ... He says that there is an inverse relationship between the complexity of a culture and the ability to accept it. Of course he is speaking about the American culture and its acceptability in the world. He thinks that this is due to it's simplicity. He also says that it is not the world that is becoming Americanized but the American culture which is becoming universal. This is due to the nature of this culture.... I think this idea also applies to languages too.
Simplicity and acceptability of a word in a language (which is a part of culture)- fortunately or unfortunately - is very important especially when the relationship between different cultures is developing. Here I must note that I am not trying to defend or promote the use of the word "Farsi", but I think that it will become more popular as time goes by.
Masomeh Shambayati
masomeh@neda.net
* Down with the F-word!
Having once initiated a round of this debate in the days before, I find it interesting to get an update on the situation. You've said it all; I have little to add to the points pro and con, except to note with some surprise that the younger Iranians among us apparently have no sense of the affective connotations of language names. This goes for Americans and Europeans, too.
I'm pretty sure that if an Iranian during a conversation in Persian insisted on referring to my native tongue as English (khAhesh mikonam, un-o be Engliish tekrAr koniin...) I'd be either annoyed or horrified. Some are born with language, some achieve language, and some have language thrust upon them: if only the Arabs had been so accommodating a millennium ago and accepted the Persian term for the language -- including the P, which they could have used in their phonetic repertory -- instead of imposing an Arabicized form of the language name on its speakers!
The current battle may be lost, but both English and Persian speakers with any respect for the serious registers of their respective languages and any sense of history have a right to fight a forlorn rearguard action if they wish. Down with the F-word!
John R. Perry
University of Chicago
kkhz@MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU
* Popularized around 1979
Here's the OED entry for "Farsi"... Looks like some members of the Udaba are right about its popularization in English around the time of the Revolution -- before then it was just considered what Iranians (or Arabs) called the language. And the 1984 citation indicates that this has been a source of annoyance for "Persianists" for quite some time:
1. Farsi
Farsi , sb. (a.). Also Fa+rsi+, Farsee. a. Pers., f. Fa+rs, the Arabic name for the region of Pars in Iran: see Parsee and Persian a. and sb.
a. = Parsee 2.
b. The Persian name for the modern Persian language; cf. Persian sb. 2. Also attrib. or as adj.
1878 Chambers's Encycl. VI. 426/1 The transition from the ancient to the modern Persian is formed by the Parsee, or, as the Arabs call it, Farsi, in use from 700 to 1100 A.D.
1926 Chambers's Encycl. VIII. 39/1 The present or modern Persian (which is invariably called Farsi by the modern Persians).
1951 N. B. Jopson Persian Lang. 8 In the old province of Fars, where Fa+rsi+ (or Pa+rsi+), the language of Persia, originated.
1962 Whitaker's Almanack 1963 907 Persian, or Farsi, the language of Iran, and of some other areas formerly under Persian rule, is an Indo-European tongue with many Arabic elements added.
1979 Observer 25 Nov. 5/5 One of the aides is the Press Secretary, who presents Farsi translations..of British Press reports.
1980 Times Lit. Suppl. 5 Sept. 972/4 The disgusting state of the walls of the London Underground stations, defaced by slogans in Farsee or Arabic characters.
1984 Bull. British Soc. Middle Eastern Studies xi. 123 It may still not be too late to put an end to the grotesque affectation of applying the name `Farsi' to the language which for more than five hundred years has been known to English-speakers as Persian.
Narges Erami
n-erami@UCHICAGO.EDU
* Teheran & Tehran
Professor Bell's observation of the replacement of "Peking" with "Beijing" brings to mind the replacement of "Teheran" with "Tehran."
To the best of my recollection, the new names for both these capital cities came into vogue in 1979, as U.S.-Chinese relations reached a new high point and U.S.-Iranian relations reached a new low.
For me, "Teheran" has a certain ring to it that "Tehran" lacks. The syllable-final aspirated "h" followed by the liquid "r" just doesn't sound right in English; the epenthetic "e" in "Teheran" made good phonetic sense. But "Teheran" is no longer seen, and seems to have passed into oblivion without protest.
As for "Beijing," it has no problems phonetically in English, and I can see some advantage in adopting the Pinyin transliterations of Chinese place names in English. Perhaps I find the Peking -> Beijing transformation more palatable than Teheran -> Tehran because my wife is from Beijing.
I recall that the outgoing British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, in an interview with CNN's Bernard Shaw repeatedly referred to the capital of China as "Peking." Mr. Shaw queried him about this, and the governor responded that the proper English name was "Peking," just as we call the capital of France "Paris" (Perris) and not "Paree." Yet it seemed to me that Mr. Patten's real purpose was to thumb his nose at the Chinese.
George Maschke
gmaschke@ucla.edu
Graduate Student, Near Eastern Languages & Cultures,
UCLA Translator,
Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, The Hague
Home Page
PGP
Public Key
* Farsi more modern
In teaching Persian, I am proud of introducing my students into an old literature. It might be different in teaching "Farsi" instead even if the content would be the same. In my feeling, Farsi refers more to the modern Iranian version of this language (even if the name Farsi has been used since centuries by Iranians) and therefore lacks in universality.
If my teaching would concern Dari, I guess nobody would object that it restricts its goal to the Afghan version. I would not object if "Franco-provencal" was taught in a foreign university, but I would not expect the course to include Racine and Corneille.
Yann Richard
Etudes iraniennes
Sorbonne nouvelle
Paris
yann.richard@UNIV-PARIS3.FR
* Sense of proportion
But of course, if the subtle offensive qualities supposedly inherent in the name "Farsi" can be said to "go over the heads of millions" who use the name, how lastingly offensive can they be? Most non-specialist Americans whom I know would use Farsi or Persian or whatever name they could grope for, quite without any "derogatory and denigratory" intent. Both the negative qualities, and the idea that the term is perceived as a "eulogism," are in the eye of specialists and insiders only.
All my Urdu-speaking friends refer to Persian as "Farsi," which is its Urdu name; they tend to transfer that name into English quite naturally. I picked up the habit directly from them. Once I realized that this was offensive to Persianists, I stopped, of course. But in the absence of special knowledge, there was absolutely nothing inherent in the word or usage that could have alerted me, so I certainly can't feel culpable for having been mistaken. And how much less so the real non-specialists!
Let's keep a sense of proportion here. As people have already pointed out, the replacement of "Persia" as a country name, and the parallel cases of names like Hindi, Urdu, Pushto, Panjabi, have increased the likehood that people will use the name Farsi in honest ignorance-- or even as a sign of respect, thinking (wrongly no doubt, but still with good intentions) that they are calling the language what the native speakers themselves choose to call it.
cordially,
Frances Pritchett
fp7@COLUMBIA.EDU
* Prophets spoke Persian
Regarding Prof. de Bruijn point: "The simplicity of its grammar [Persian] and the likeness to Dutch and other Germanic languages showed that it was still very close to original speech of mankind," as the translators of Tabari's Tafsir point out, all the prophets from Adam to Isma`il spoke Persian...
Dr. J.S. Meisami
Lecturer in Persian
University of Oxford
MEISAMI@SERVER.ORIENT.OX.AC.UK
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