FARSI

Zan amrikaei

Well, I am glad that you mention that about your  FLAWLESS and not FAULTLESS persian.

Believe me, Correcting a person who speaks poor english or any other language, although may see the right thing to do, is THE most offensive thing in the world. It should be done in Private and saying "goosh bedid and yad begirid" hardly helps the matter.

Dear Ari, thanks for an important blog on Farsi and Persian

Dear Ari, Sometimes when I used the word Farsi, I was doubting myself but your article makes me more comfortable. Farsi is fine. I also like where you noted in your comment:"...I'm hoping some minimal change will happen to our alphabet dots to make it easier to read in small computer fonts. Haven't come up with a practical idea yet. A natural evolution of writing to adapt to changing times seems reasonable. But a radical change from Farsi script to a foreign alphabet is overkill.   ..."

Looking forward to a succinct correction next time...

Thank you for englightening me as to my error.  No offence taken.

visit....//www.tudehpartyiran.org/mardom.asp

But it's not "Thanks God"...

Since we are on the topic of proper use of language (well, not really, but I am going to use this as my jumping off point), I would like to take this opportunity to bring up what Comrade wrote.  

S/he wrote, "Thanks God" which is, I have found, exceptionally common to hear from Iranians.  For some reason, those who use this incorrect phrase never seem to recognize that native Engish speakers are saying, "Thank God."   The proper form is THANK GOD. 

"Thank God" is an imperative sentence.  It means, "Say thank you to God!"  Or, "I am telling myself to say thank you to God."  

Lotfan, khahesh mikonam, goosh bedid va yaad begirid.  It's one thing--and usually a delightful thing--to speak English with an accent. It's another thing to speak it incorrectly when it would be so easy to fix.

That's just my two cents about this little phrase.   I am not saying it to offend anyone nor to pretend that my Persian is faultless (Very far from it!!). I am hoping that at least SOME of the people here who do this will suddenly have an epiphany and never do it again.

مخلص آقا

.

Mehman, thanks God!

جنابعالی هم خودتان صاحبخانه تشریف دارید قربان!

visit....//www.tudehpartyiran.org/mardom.asp

Comrade

You are not a nut.

Thanks, Ari (in Farsi)

Some changes are long overdue. We have to do more reading without guessing. I found your side note very interesting, but I don't need an Aramaic logogram to pronounce it Farsi. It has always been Farsi for me.  I say it in Farsi, I write it in Farsi, I read it in Farsi. I am a proud FARSI nut!

visit....//www.tudehpartyiran.org/mardom.asp

comrade, Latin alphabet

As an interesting side note, we've done worse with alphabets before. You may know that Pahlavi made extensive use of  Aramaic logograms. We would write "kalb" in Aramaic and pronounce it "sag!" English does this occasionally, for example we write "lb." and pronounce it "pound," even though there is no "l" or "b" in "pound."  Similarly, there is no "s" sound in $. But imagine entire texts written in an "alphabet" littered with logograms! If some hypothetical extremist alphabet reform folks go that way, Iranians could end up writing "Persian," and pronouncing it "Farsi." 

"Excellent Blog Ari"

One might find the argument over why we should adopt the Latin alphabets sadly funny which is made by a bunch of nuts, nevertheless it seems necessary to remind our friend to distinguish the language from its alphabets. They are two different entities.

Am I looking for another nut to reopen that debate? Not, really. 

visit....//www.tudehpartyiran.org/mardom.asp

شیطنت چرا، دیوانه محترم

ناقلا تازه آروم گرفته بودیم

OBAMA

We use persian too.

BTW I 've the same dictionary too (jelde sahafi meshki)  a-k &l-z by hayem gheymat 200 tooman each.

 Maziar

Guys on both sides

Ok, no more fighting, lets agree on Parsi.

Excellent Blog Ari

very well articulated, there are some people who endeavor for useless items, I remember a while ago some of these nuts advocated the changing of our alphabet... It is funny and sad.

Very well said hass.

I'd feel fine if the Germans insisted we use "Deutch"

It would be more accurate.

"Persian" = OGHDEH

Agha joon, give it a rest. Iran is NOT "Persia" and so the language of Iran is not "Persian". We call it FARSI, because that's what it is. FARSI.

"Persian" is a FOREIGN name for us and our language.

 All you people who want to use "Persian" really just have OGHDEH and think that associating with Cyrus the Great etc. will somehow impress Westerners whose asses you like to kiss so much. Cyrus is dead. It was 2500 years ago. Give it a rest already. Who the hell cares what others think of us and who are they to have any opinions!

Ari jaan I agree Persian and Farsi can both be used on occasions

Everything is sacred

obama, that's the idea

                                                                         Post diaspora some may have tried to load politics onto "Persian" vs. "Farsi" and the attempt does nothing but create unnecessary dissension. Here's an IC anecdote illustrating the issue: I once wrote an article for IC praising the work of a very talented diaspora artist and sent it to the artist for fact checking. The artist politely asked if I could change an occurence of the word "Farsi" in my article into "Persian." I met the problem half way and deleted the language reference altogether. In this case, clearly the person who used "Farsi" was an ally to the person who used "Persian." Yet the artist's being tangled in the Persian-Farsi issue risked alienating a supporter.

By the way, I would appreciate it if you could cite  any writing urging people to use the word "Farsi" exclusively as a replacement for "Persian." All the lets-get-rid-of-the-word articles and emails I've seen have been directed against "Farsi," never against "Persian."  

I still have my 1975 "Persian Dictionary"!

This was the first dictionary that I purchased before heading to America! Unless, the name of the dictionary is changed to "Farsi" I will continue to use Persian! Do you speak torki or turkish, Arabic, or Arabi, Russian or Rusi, spanish, or espanol, japanese or niponi, chinese or che-xaoung, .....? In ALMANI, we say PERSISCH! Did the iranians from the 60s change that to farsi too?

Ari, as much as I respect you, I respectfully disagree with you on this issue.

Those who insist on this are trying to change the english language when none of us are natives! Why? What do you gain? I find it intersting that some of those who use farsi are the same people who say they are PERSIANS! Why don't you just say that you are FARSI? because you want to say torki?

By finding an article that says farsi, you really are not proving anything. Of course, there were some educated people who knew that word since they learned it when they were busy stealing our oil, but that was not the official usage in the english language. They might say they call it farsi in iran. If you find one article, I'll find hundreds saying persian.

The point is that the new comers who started coming around the revolution, have been trying very hard to spread it like a wild fire to the point of replacing with persian.

Those iranians who use farsi are the ones who have many iranian friends and relatives. However, some of us who are not married to iranians and don't live in iranian neghborhood, and don't bring all of our families here, use persian!

You go ahead and use what you want, and i stick with my persian dictionary! Thank you!

Thanks

A valuable, substantive blog.

visit....//www.tudehpartyiran.org/mardom.asp

Anonymouse

Hold on a minute

Ari, are you suggesting that the use of "Farsi" cannot be attributed to "diaspora Iranians" because the article was printed in 1978 and the revolution took place, officially, a year later?   If you are even remotely suggesting this, I have to take exception with it and say that such a conclusion is mere semantics, at best.  In the 1970s there were many Iranians living in the United States--most of them, perhaps, students at colleges and universities.  Irrespective of any revolution and subsequent diaspora, these Iranians were nevertheless speaking English and relating with native English speakers...and no doubt from time to time, when an American would ask about the Iranian speaking Arabic (LOL--but, seriously, that is usually what happened, as we all know!!)--the Iranian would say--after getting incensed at being accused of--again, insert laughter here--being Arab--that the language s/he spoke was not Arabic but Farsi.  Unless, of course, the Iranian knew that English already had a word for that language and knew the actual word, which, as we have already discussed at length, is the word "Persian."

Am I making sense?  That Sam Adams Summer Ale is starting to take effect.

Still, on a very serious note, I think it is hasty to dismiss the Iranians living in the US as a/the significant source of the mass entry into English of the word, "Farsi."

And now, back to the beer.

ZA 

Fozolie, now I'm wondering

As many have mentioned before, we associate "Persian" with the refined and the sophisticated. But the despotic mindset shown in your rhetorical question--refusing to acknowledge demonstrated proof and carelessly (or dishonestly) inferring that the above article "insists" on Farsi instead of Persian--could reflect poorly on the cause of "Persian." We would like "Persian" to continue to associate with art, poetry, science and civilization, and stay away from boorishness. I am just as concerned about your disservice to the honorable image of "Persian" as I am by your attempts to put a Farsi gag on the English language. 

I am a Farsi kind of guy. Educated in Farsi and practice Farsi.

Everything is sacred

You are welcome Literary Critic

How would you feel if Gernans insisted on you using Deutsch?

Mr. Fozolie

Thank you Ari

You have articlulated the very point that I have been trying to highlight on a different web page on this site. Farsi has just as much validity in English usage as have such words as Hindi, Malay and Afrikaans when referring to the languages spoken in most parts of India, Malaysia, and South Africa, respectively.