Free Iran in 2010

in many parts of asia

persian is known (and admired) as a culture, nationality or language, depending on the context, but farsi is known as the language of iranians. the terms are used as synonyms for our language.

in the west, iran and iraq are often confused, and most (?) people think we speak arabic while the association between persia and iran is not as widely known as we may think. shocking really as iran is in the news every single day. persian is known as a language, food or a type of cat. the most learned are familiar with the term farsi.

asia probably has a larger number of english speakers than the west.

not sure about the picture in africa outside of muslim countries. among middle easterners and many african muslims, farsi and persian are synonymous.

who knows what they say in latin america! really, does anyone know?

the position of western scholars on the issue is not as relevant as we may think. scholars eventually have to follow popular usage. this is how language evolves, and academics respond to this by periodically updating their definitions of terms.

You are misquoting me!

Ari:

If you quote me, then quote the entire sentence:

["Farsi is the word in the Persian language and is not an english word (or has been added as a technical word recently)"]

So once again, your point is void.

PT

...

.

The Pahlavis, all mullahs, and all public figures associated with the Green Movement  must disclose the source and the amount of their wealth/income.

Thanks ptehrani

It was fun engaging you. I took your premise literally when you stated in your blog, "Farsi is the word in the Persian language and is not an english word."

It seems you had planned to finally change your premise to "Farsi has become an English word, and that's not a good idea." It is my failing that I was not aware of your well planned change of premise in advance. My apologies.

Regards.

Gumbo!

Ari,

I am criticizing the very fact that farsi has become a word in English. And you are countering my elaborate reasoning by saying "it is a word in english"?!? You talked about 'authority' and 'decree'. Not me. I simply say "You Should not use it". I don't say "You must not use it".

Let's just leave it at this. You are mixing many notions in a gumbo. Democracy does not mean not fighting for your ideals or opinions. It actually means having the freedom of doing so and influencing the future. I hope that, say by 2030, the word farsi will no longer be in the English dictionary just like the word 'negro' has lost its widespread usage.

I respect your opinion and thank you for participating in this debate.

PT

ptehrani, on authority

No link to politics

Ari,

Please refrain from generalizing and politicizing everything. There is nothing wrong with people being passionate and pushing for their beliefs and trying to convince others in a civilized manner. That is how political parties are formed.

Referencing credible authorities is not wrong either. I gave you many reasons and many credible opinions to support my argument. You gave me an example of "young" vs "Juvenile" (which do not mean the same thing) and simply claim that it is a personal choice.

It is a personal choice as no one should impose such things on others. You have the choice to start calling the language of Brazil Brazish or xyz. However that should not prevent us from having an intellectual debate on a subject. Counter my arguments with yours but don't put a sticker on me just because I am passionate about this subject.

A revelation for the turbulent times

The convention

By academic convention (I forget the year), "Persian" is used as the english word for the language.

I must admit, initially I had trouble accepting this (as do some others in this thread). How I got over it was the result of my personal regard for Professor Richard Nelson Frye of Harvard University, who provided a convincing justification for its adoption in the english-speaking world.

Now I know some of you are going to reject Prof. Frye for not being Iranian, but keep in mind this reference is based within the english-speaking world (not Iran or limited to the diaspora), and the the authority of this respected iranologist should be recognized and accepted. 

Persian Language

To Ari and Benross:

What "Encyclopedia of Linguistics" says is about a very technical term irrelevant to how we should be calling the language in English. There is historical proof that 'farsi' in the English language did not exist and was not part of any dictionary until recently. If we were to employ technical terms, French should not be called French but "La Langue d'oïl".

"dubbed into farsi or Persian" means exactly the same thing unless you have already been "polluted" (sorry for the choice of word here. No offense is intended.) by the word 'farsi'.

Again I am not discussing the distinction between a Persian person as opposed to Iranian. That is another conversation. I am talking about the name of the language in English and other western languages. There is nothing really emotional about it. This is a matter of using the correct term and not adding a new word that has no association with Iran's culture or history in western litteratures.

From Wikipedia:

The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has declared that the name "Persian" is more appropriate, as it has the longer tradition in the western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity. Some Persian language scholars also have rejected the usage of "Farsi" in their articles.

Farsi/Persion

Sorry I jump here paberahneh. I just browsed all the comments (hope i'm not offtrack again :)) To confirm what Anvar brought here, I must say that I have been told that Persian is a language while Farsi is only a Dialec. That was an email sent to us about 6 years ago by a lady scolar, expert in Persian language. If I find that email, I will be back to post it here.

to "hamfekr"

Mr. Hamfekr,

It has been a long time with no comments from you? It is always nice to see your feedbacks, while it puzzles me that how come you never write an article. I have no doubt all of us can benefit from your great viewpoints and experiences. This opinion I gathered after about three years of watching your occasional fair comments and corrections.

Best Regards,

JD

p.s. since it is not possible to send you a private email, I made the comment on this blog, hope the author did not mind.

Benross, some speculations

2. Before the revolution there were a large number of Americans in Iran who may have also helped in importing the word. To verify this hypothesis we could research pre 1979 memos, letters, etc. from Americans who had lived in Iran prior to 1979.

3. After the hostage crisis, the word "Iran" became associated with "enemy." So "Persian" was used as shorthand for "I'm not your enemy."  The language name "Persian" was valuable corroborative evidence.

4. Related to reason #3, Iranian businesses understandably had to distance themselves from the word "Iran" and the street name used for her language. So there was an economic incentive to downplay "Farsi" in favor of "Persian." 

Social factors are sometimes represented in individual minds as emotions. For example, the economic desire to hang on to slavery would encourage the feeling that the enslaved race is inferior.

Farsi is Persian, but not all Persian languages are Farsi

Until I see a more convincing source, I base my opinion based on the following information.

Here’s a very short excerpt from a chapter on Farsi/Parsi, Old Persian, Middle Persian, and Modern Persian in the Encyclopedia of Linguistics.

//www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Linguistics-Phi...

“Farsi is one of the three major variants of Persian, a member of the Iranian language family. The other two variants are Dari, spoken in Afghanistan, and Tajiki, spoken in Tajikistan. The Iranian languages belong to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Farsi is the official language in Iran, and is the native tongue of about half the population of this country. Other Iranian languages spoken in Iran include Gilaki, Kurdi, Lori, and Baluchi.”

There’s a whole lot more, but I don’t want to violet any copyrights. : )

Anvar

("Persian" would not

("Persian" would not identify which country the film was being shown in.)

I'm not sure 'Farsi' would Ari.

But I was always bewildered how this issue becomes emotional. I personally always use 'Persian' when writing or speaking in English, unless the communication in English in itself is an anomaly and it should have been in Persian to begin with! in which case, assuming my interlocutor is Iranian, I don't mind using 'Farsi'. I suppose this is how the word took widespread use in English, by diaspora, specially in LA, and became officially added to the English language. This is not a bad or a good thing. It's just a thing that happened. I usually use 'Persian' but for Iranians, it seems to me that discussing what English language should use to express a specific meaning, is a bit out of context... and somehow inferioriating. It sounds like we lost the battle in our own culture and are just nagging around.

Not my intention to convince anyone

For your info--with no intention to convert--here are two sentences where I would not interchange "Persian" and "Farsi."

"Hafez is a prime example of Persian poetry." (Interchange with "Farsi" limits Hafez' sphere of literary influence)

"The film was dubbed into Farsi." ("Persian" would not identify which country the film was being shown in.)

Ari: not convincing

Ari:

I asked you to give me examples of contexts where you think farsi would be more appropriate and you gave me an inapplicable example about juvenile and young!

It is not the same thing at all. farsi always means Persian but the opposite is not true.

ptehrani

Compare:

"A kiss makes the heart young again."

to:

"A kiss makes the heart juvenile again."

The two words, though almost identical in denotation,  have radically different connotations to the average reader. Writers would not sacrifice their own sense of what a word feels like with your sense of what it should feel like.

Writers have enough trouble making their meanings clear to their reader--as your continued non-sequiturs on my position illustrates--without being hampered by artificial constraints.

As to the correctness of Webster, as I asserted in a previous post:

"Webster makes dictionaries by collecting words from books, magazines, newspapers, menus, flyers, banners, cable TV, internet, anything that uses language. Then the words are scrutinized in the contexts they were used and their meaning is inferred. In this sense Webster can’t be wrong or right, anymore than a subwoofer can be right or wrong. Webster is simply a machine that broadcasts what English is uttering. Of course once a new word appears in Webster it tends to stablize, but it won't make it that far unless it is already pretty well established in English."

بازم جوجه حزب اللهی "يوخت فکر"اومد خارج از دستور نطق و تخ کرد

اون ملتی رو که اين  ترشيده  امتي ادعايه دوستيشو داره که اون امامش خامنه ای داره سلاخی ميکنه و اين بچه ولايت خفه خون گرفته .من موندم  تازه اين بچه شيخ رو  چه به پارسی و پرشيان و ايران . بهتر همينه که خودشو و شترش رو ببره تو همون ولايتش کربلا پارک کنه. 

عمو تهرونی ميبخشی داشتم پشه کشی ميکردم

Response to Ari

Ari,

You are of course entitled to use any word of your liking but I would like to encourage Iranians to use "Persian" instead of "Farsi" when referring to the language as in my opinion, there is no background for the latter. Can you please explain what background there is? In what context in your opinion the usage of 'farsi' is more appropriate than 'Persian'? Saying 'modern' persian is farsi is not a well founded argument just like Deutsch is not the modern German, nor Nihongo the modern Japanese.

I understand the word 'farsi' has been added to the dictionary but that does not make it correct for the reasons I explained in my text above. You may also (unfortunately) find Arabian Gulf in some maps but Iranians should not use it.

ptehrani

However if it takes authority to persuade "Persian" to stop meddling with "Farsi", the new English word has a solid enough background in current journalistic usage and common speech to be included in Webster's.  

This is not a political post.

Scroll down my friend, scroll down. The world doesn't revolve around you, and me.

This is not a political post.

Hamfekr,

What are you talking about and who exctaly are you addressing? There is no political goals here and there are no spelling mistakes in my article. What is your point? This is about the usage of the word "Persian" in english and as such the debate should be held in English and not in Persian or Portuguese.

هم ميهن گرامی

از ظاهر متن و تعداد اشتباهات املائی چنین بر میاید که نگارنده
ناتوانی خود را، چه در طرح مساله و چه در ارائه راه حل، به  ناچار وبه گمان خود در
قالب طنز گنجانیده. جالب اینست که این دوستان، مدعیِ دوستیِ ملتی هستند که
به این زبان و خط گفت و شنود و مطالعه و مکاتبه میکنند، اما خود، به دلیل
بیسوادی و ناتوانیِ ناشی‌ از برخی‌ اهداف سیاسی،  از ایجاد ارتباط با همان
ملت عاجزند.

Not inconsistent

Ari:

Your argument does not hold. The word Persian is of course of Iranian origin 'parsi'.

The word 'farsi' is a new fabricated term and in my opinion should not apply.

I also recommend the book "The Persians" by Homa Katouzian. She also explains why we should not use 'farsi' as it is void of any historical background.

Thank you,

PK

Assume your History!

SamSam:

Allow me to disagree with you. We need to assume and accept our history. There is nothing wrong with trying to use more 'pure' persian words but you cannot change 1400 years of history and culture. The Persian language like any other language in the world is a "living language" and evolves. The current English has the foundation of the old (germanic) English but contains tens of thousands of words from various languages especially French. Same holds for any other living language. The only languages that do not evolve and remain the same are 'dead languages'.

Let us assume our history and move on. We have a beautiful language and we should see its foreign words as a richness as opposed to a weakness.

In any case, my article above is about how the western world should refer to our language. Our internal nomination is another debate.

Thank you

PK

Inconsistent attitude

balcony, bronze, candy,chess, jackal, jasmine, kiosk, lemon, magic, mummy,navy,orange,spinach, pyjama...

In fact we go out of our way to twist etymologies in our favor. Maz Jobrani's insightful spoof of the attitude: Tom Cruise= Teymour Khorous.

Yet when it comes to the newly adopted English word "Farsi," a faction of expats makes an exception in its concern for the purity of the English language.

English writers sense this inconsistency as intrusive and unpleasant political arm-twisting. Graciously ignoring this breach of manners, many English writers reserve "Persian" for when they wish to evoke the wonderful history mentioned in your blog, and they use "Farsi" when addressing their readers in a modern context.

هم ميهن گرامی

 سخن پارسی گويشی است با واژگانی ساده و روان در نوشتن, اسان به ديده و آوايی شيرين وشيوا به گذر و خوانا در نگر .

تکلم فارسی زبانيست ثقيل به قراعت و مضمعل به صماعت که چه در مکتوبه و چه در محاوره بغير از مشابهت اسمی ربطی به زبان پارسی نداشته و عللهذا مقدور و مطبوع است به اقتضای صور ظاهری و ترکيب لغات انيرانيش در منقولات انرا به لفظ صحيحش که همانا فارسی ست  قراعت کرده و از استفاده از اسم مطهر پارسي در باب ان اجتناب و احتراز کنيم که قدٌاستش محفوظ ماند.

سخن پارسی يادمانی زنده  از ايران شهر و نياکان وارسته کيان است که به دست  نخبگان و شيخان خانگی به زهره ماری  سازه و دگرگون شد که انرا امروز به درست فارسی ناميم که همانا يکی از ديالکت هايه زبان عربيست .

خود به چشم ديديم همانچه ري*يم که با شکر شکر کردن دهان شيرين نميشود و با سر در برف کردن تنها خود را گول ميزنيم.عادت قديمي ما جماعت پرششششيان که در دروغ به خود تمثيل افاقيم اينست که ماست را کره جلب کنيم تا خود و جماعت را گول زنيم تا نعوزال بالله شخصی مخصوصان خارجی در حيث عدم پرششششيان بودن گويش ما مرتکب جرم ذاله شک و ترديد نشود.  محتاج ذکر است که ما حضرات عالی يا مقيم سياره مريخيم و يا تابعه ايالت کاليفرنيا که از رؤیت هوييت و زبان امتی فعلی که در اصل و شکل لهجه ايست فرعي از زبان عربي, بی اطلاييم و با قياص من الفارق و کتمان حقيقت به مثال کبک ,سعی در نفی حقيفتی و ادله ای ميکنيم که به عين رصد کنيم . حلوا حلوا گفتن الکی و کاذب نه تنقلات و حلوات نصيب شما گرداند و در اصل دايره باطلی است که ما امٌت از خود راضی را مدحوش خيالات واهی کرده و از اصل منفصل و تا اين معايب را به ديده بصيرت نبينيم و سعی در معالجه ان نکنيم نه من نتيجه کورشم و نه ما پرششششييييان .مناسب و ممدوح بود که اين ادله مثبوت را لهذا حتی الامکان  به همان زبانی نقل شود که ادعا و داعيه پارسی بودن انرا داريم.

مخلص هموطن عزيز که اگه موعظه و روضه خوانی زيادی کرده ام ,التماس دعا

Path of Kiaan Resurrection of True Iran Hoisting Drafshe Kaviaan //iranianidentity.blogspot.com //www.youtube.com/user/samsamsia

...

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYy7fYLiAyo

"Farsi" as a term of protest

Some of us went to learn Persian in our American university classrooms but we found a baagh-e vahsh instead of a classroom. We decided we'll start using the word Farsi for what goes on in the classrooms and Persian for the language we respect and wish we could have had the right to learn in our classrooms. Luckily, we found many kind and generous Persian-speakers in the Iranian-American community (outside the classrooms) who cared about Persian who helped us learn the language. Thank you to those who care not only about the name but what it means.