The Persian language is a sub-branch of Iranian languages. At the meeting of European writers and linguists in 1872, Persian language, Greek language, Latin and Sanskrit were announced as the classical languages of the world.
The origin of the Persian language
The Persian language was one of the dialects of the Persian people who migrated to the southwest of the Iranian plateau. With the Achaemenid dynasty gaining power from this people, the Persian language (at that time ancient Persian) was spread as an official and administrative language in the lands of the Achaemenid Empire. The Persian language or ancient Persian was originally a complex grammar with various verbs. However, by learning non-Persian languages, Persian grammar gradually became easier. This expansion of the language in non-Persian speaking lands is mentioned as a reason for the simplification of this language. At the end of the Achaemenid period, the Persian language or Old Persian had become an early form of Middle Persian.
At the time of the rise of the Parthian dynasty, Farsi or Persian had influences from the Parthian language (the official Parthian dialect), but during the Sassanid era, this language, which was middle Persian at that time, was the first and official language of Iran. Almost all the lands of the Sasanian empire spoke this language.
The writings of the first kings of the Sassanid dynasty in the third century AD are recorded in three languages: Parthian, Middle Persian, and Greek. The language of Parthian kings was Parthian. Parthian territory started from North Khorasan and spread over all of Iran.
Middle Persian was used more during the Sassanid period. This dynasty started from the Fars state and with the failure of the Parthian government, they chose Tisophon as the capital of their government. During this period, Parthian language was spoken in the north of Iran and Middle Persian in the south of Iran.
During the 400-year rule of the Sassanids, there were fundamental changes in the Persian language. The Parthian language fell out of vogue in general, and from the fourth century of the Sasanian rule onwards, all the remaining inscriptions were written in Persian.
Distribution of Persian language in Iran and the world
The countries with the largest Persian-speaking population in the world are Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Of course, Farsi is called Dari, Persian and Tajik in countries other than Iran. After these countries, Bahrain, Pakistan, India, Iraq, Turkey and China are in the next ranks of Persian speaking population.
Farsi in Bahrain is known as Ajami or Larestani. In India, Persian was also one of the official languages before British colonization of this country. There are many poets and writers of Indian descent who have created works in Persian language.
According to the official census conducted in 1375 (1996 AD), the native Persian population in Iran constitutes 73-75% of the total population of Iran, and 82-83% of the people speak Farsi. The population of Persian speaking people in other countries of the world is as follows:
20 million people in Afghanistan
Five million people in Tajikistan
Seven million people in Uzbekistan
Populations in Bahrain, India, and Pakistan are unknown
In his book "Iranian Languages", which he published in 2009, Gernot Windfur, a professor emeritus of the Middle East Studies School of the University of Michigan, refers to the population of people who have Persian as their mother tongue or master it as a second language. In this book, the population of Persian speakers in the whole world is reported to be about 110 million people.
Farsi language in web content
Persian is the fifth most used language on the Internet. The table below is the report of the "Web Technology Surveys" website regarding the languages used in web content.
The evolution of the Persian language in the Islamic era
In the fourth lunar century, the Iranian poet Abulqasem Ferdowsi played a prominent role in reviving many forgotten words of the Persian language by composing the Shahnameh. If this action of Ferdowsi was not carried out, the fate of the identity of the Persian language would have been unknown.
Middle Persian, or Pahlavi language in other words, was a form of Persian language, which is referred to as an intermediary between ancient Persian and today's language. The word Pahlavi is a form of the word Part. It can be said that this language was the language used by the Parthians. This language was later changed to New Farsi, which is today's Farsi.
In the early centuries of Islamic rule in Iran, the word "Persian" was used for the "New Persian language" which was the evolution of "Middle Persian". Using Farsi for Middle Persian, which was the common Persian during the Sassanid era, would cause confusion. As a result, the word Pahlavi was chosen as another name for "Middle Persian" to avoid ambiguity in contrast with "New Persian".
Persian language in the Islamic era
After the victory of the Arabs in Iran, Farsi in the form of speech moved eastward and reached Afghanistan and Trans-Nahr through the Iranian troops. The Arabic script was used for writing Persian for the first time in Khorasan. The reason for this happened was the presence of Zoroastrians and Mobadans in the West and Persia, whose writing style was still Pahlavi, i.e. Middle Persian. The Pahlavi script was still a serious competitor to the new Arabic script and did not allow the creation of a new written form for the Persian language.
Farsi was the local dialect of the southernmost region of Iran, which spread to the north and east of Iran in the same way. After that, it became a literary language in northeastern Iran and again reached the east and south of Iran and gradually reached large parts of the Asian continent.
A new way of writing Persian language
Today's Persian script is Persianized Arabic script. The Arabic script itself is also derived from Kufic and visual lines. The main difference between the Persian script and the Arabic script is the addition of the letters "p", "zh", "g" and "ch" to Persian writing. In other countries, including Tajikistan, Persian script is written in Cyrillic script.
Persian script in its present form is common in Iran and Afghanistan. And it is considered the official line of these two countries. The exact date of the start of using this type of writing for Farsi is not known. But some researchers, such as Richard Fry, are of the opinion that the modern Persian script was invented by Rudaki Samarkandi.
It should be said that according to some experts, modern Persian script has flaws and is not suitable for use in Persian writing. Some of the defects of this script are the lack of sound recording in written form and the possibility of errors in reading the text, the presence of several different letters with a common sound, which have made it difficult to learn Persian writing. Also, the abundance of dots and the tastefulness of some writing forms are other major flaws of the current Persian script.
Persian language in Afghanistan
Farsi in Afghanistan is known as Dari Farsi in the official administrative writing, but the people of Afghanistan consider their spoken language to be Farsi or Parsi. The main languages of Afghanistan are Farsi, Dari and Pashto. Although some people in Afghanistan consider Farsi and Dari Farsi to be independent of each other, in Iran, the differences between these two languages are not enough to consider them independent of each other. Anyway, Farsi is one of the most important dialects of the Persian language. Another name of Dari Farsi can be called Hazargi dialect. Hazaras in Afghanistan have a similar culture to other Persian-speaking ethnic groups. Although Arabic, Turkish, and Mongolian words have entered Dari or Hazara Persian, they make up only 20% of the total words in this dialect. Also, the Hazaragi dialect includes some features of Persian grammar that have remained unchanged since the 4th and 5th centuries of Hijri. The Hazargi dialect itself, regardless of its dialect, originated from the Farsi of Ghazni and Eastern Khorasan.
Persian language in Tajikistan
The people of Tajikistan have a historical, cultural and linguistic closeness with Persian and Iranian languages. Even Tajiks in China speak Eastern Farsi. Tajik language or Tajik Persian, which is also called Trans-Rudi Persian or Trans-River Persian, is a common language in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In 1999, the Majlis of Tajikistan removed the word Farsi from the Farsi-Tajik language and declared Tajik as the official language of Tajikistan.
The Tajik Persian language, or the Tajik language, is written with the Cyrillic alphabet. One of the reasons why Tajik Farsi is far from Farsi is the change of its script. Of course, this line change happened during the Soviet era. The course of changing Tajik Persian script was first to Latin and then to Cyrillic. Due to the difference in writing, it was not possible for Tajik people to communicate with other Farsi speakers.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independence of Tajikistan in 1991, the people and government of Tajikistan demanded to change the Tajik alphabet to the Persian alphabet, but this has not happened yet. According to the authorities of Tajikistan, changing the line is not in the interest of the country and it will cost a lot.
Why language change is important for Tajiks
Currently, there are no publications or media in the Persian script in Tajikistan, and few Tajik people are familiar with the Persian script. Tajik cultural experts say that expanding the teaching of Persian script means reviving the script of ancestors and making it possible for the Tajik people to access the vast resources of the Persian language, which are in the libraries and databases of Persian-speaking countries, especially Iran. A large number of cultural and literary figures of Tajikistan consider the Cyrillic script and alphabet to be an imposition, which makes Tajikistan more dependent on Russia. Mohammad Jan Shakuri, one of the cultural personalities of Tajikistan and a member of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature in Iran, is of the opinion that the Tajik authorities do not intend to return to the Persian script, which has hindered the growth of the Tajik Persian language.
Persian language in Uzbekistan
In Uzbekistan, it has a special historical, cultural and scientific place in the cities of Samarkand, Bukhara, Khwarezm, Surkhan Darya and Qashqa Darya provinces. In Uzbekistan, most of the manuscripts and literature before the Soviet rule were written in Farsi. After the rise of the Soviet Union and the leadership of Sharaf Rashidov in Uzbekistan, speaking Persian was punishable by a fine of five Russian rubles. Speaking in all languages except Farsi was allowed during this period. Teaching was done in Persian in educational institutions, including Samarkand University, which was established by order of Lenin. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the language of this university was changed to Uzbek.
Persian language and literature in India
The history of Persian language and literature in India is long. They first met Persian speakers in the third century of Hijri. Ibn Hawqal in the book of Surah al-Ariz and Istakhari in the book of Al-Masalak and Al-Mamalek state that at that time the people of "Multan" and "Mansoura" spoke Arabic and Sindhi, and the people of "Mokran" spoke to each other in Farsi. One of the famous poets from Sindh is Rabia bint Kaab, whose poems are all written in Persian. From this, we can conclude that the dialect of Sindh people was Farsi. In India before British colonialism, Persian was the second official language of the country and it was a cultural and scientific language. Persian was the first official language during the Gurkanian period. After England entered India in 1832, after about 700 years of presence of Persian language in India as an official language, in 1836 English was replaced by Charles Terry Willian as the second language.
When did the Persian language enter India?
Persian entered India during the Ghaznavid period. During the Ghaznavid era, Persian was the language of literature, culture and science. After the establishment of the Mughal Empire in India, the Persian language reached the peak of its prosperity in India and then became the official language of India. During the time of the Gorkans of India, it expanded a lot. In fact, before the Gurkans came to power in India, Persian-speaking mystics had brought Islam to India, but it was the coming of the Gurkans that made Persian flourish and became the official language of the people and courtiers.
It was at this time that a large number of Iranian artists, writers and poets immigrated to India. Great poets such as Bidel Dehlavi and Amir Khosro Dehlavi, as well as Indian poetic style, are Persian products of India. Another famous Persian language poet of India is Iqbal Lahori. Valuable cultures for the Persian language have also been collected, the Ebrahimi culture by Ebrahim Qavamuddin Foroughi and the Anandraj culture by Mohammad Pasha are examples of them.
The current situation of Persian language education in India
Persian language and literature are currently taught in more than 50 Indian universities. In several universities of this country, there is an independent department of Persian language. The universities with independent section are Aligarh, Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, National Islamic Society, Kashmir, Lucknow, Varanasi, Patna, Bhopal, Osmania, Bombay, Guwahati, Biarambidkar (Muzaffarnagar) and Magadh. Persian language research center is also active in Aligarh, Maulana Azad, Patna, Malir Kotla and Ahmedabad universities. However, the exact number of educational centers of this language in India is still not known. Until now, a large number of Persian language students from Indian universities have been sent to Iran for additional courses in Persian language and literature.
Persian language in Indian buildings
In the beautiful and unique building "Taj Mahal" which is known in the world as a symbol of love, sentences and poems are written in Persian. On the tombstone of Jahan Ara, the daughter of Shah Jahan, this poem is engraved: "No one should cover my grave without greens / as this plant is enough to cover the graves of strangers."
According to Dr. Ali Asghar Hekmat in the book "Persian Role on Indian Stones", Persian poems and writings can also be seen in many historical works of India. Delhi Grand Mosque, Bibi's Tomb, Humayun's Tomb, Nurmahal Palace, Sikandra, Fatehpur Sikri, Agra Fort, Moinuddin Chishti, Lal Qala (Delhi), Babri Mosque, Badshahi Mosque, Fatehpur Sikri are examples of these buildings.
Persian language in Kashmir
Kashmir and Jammu Valley are very similar to Iran in terms of climate, and for this reason, Kashmir is called a small Iran. The influence of Iranian art can be seen in the gardens and buildings, especially the Kashmir carpet.
In the period before the Timurids, Persian literature in Kashmir is very rich and valuable. The arrival of the Persian language in Kashmir and the Jammu Valley coincided with the arrival and spread of Islam in the early 8th century. Although there were few Muslim people living in Kashmir since the first century of Hijri. Prominent Iranian Sufis such as Syed Sharafuddin Bulbul Shah Turkestani and Mir Syed Ali Hamdani and many of their companions lived in Kashmir in the 8th century and spread Islam and Persian language and literature in Kashmir and the Jammu Valley.
