What Is the English Name of Iran's Language?

Payvand ^ | 12/13/03 | Pejman Akbarzadeh

[freedom44]

If you notice the title of dictionaries that have been written by several great Persian scholars (eg. Prof. Moein, Prof. Aryanpour, Prof. Baateni, etc.) The title of all of them is "English-Persian Dictionary" not "English-Farsi Dictionary". Meanwhile the official institution "Farhangestan" (the Academy of Persian language and literature, in Tehran) in an announcement has rejected the use of the word 'Farsi' instead of 'Persian' in English. (I have attached it).

According to Dr. Hossein Sameie (visiting linguistics professor of Emory University in Atlanta), "PERSIAN, alongside the name of a language, may be used, as an adjective, for the other aspects of our history and culture. For example, we can speak about 'Persian Literature', 'Persian Gulf', 'Persian Carpet', 'Persian Food'; this way, 'Persian' may be a common concept and function as a link between all aspects of Iranian [Persian] life, including language. 'Farsi' does not have such a characteristic€¦"

And finally, of course you are aware that all international brocasting centres (eg. BBC, VOA, DW, etc.) have "Persian Service" not "Farsi Service" ; BBC: www.bbcpersian.com VOA: http://www.voanews.com/persian/index.cfm DW: http://www.dwelle.de/persian/ Radio Free Europe: http://www.rferl.org/bd/ir/ etc.

More information on this matter can be found in my bilingual (English/Persian) article which was published last year in "Persian Heritage Quarterly" in New Jersey (USA); http://www.iran-heritage.org/interestgroups/iranorpersia.htm

I hope all countrymen pay more attention to this very important issue and to protect our national interests use the proper English name for our language; PERSIAN (or its variants in other Western languages; Persane, Persisch, Persiska, etc.) not FARSI.

Pejman Akbarzadeh Member of ARTISTS WITHOUT FRONTIERS (Tehran Chapter) http://artistswithoutfrontiers.com/pakbarzadeh/

P.S.--- The Announcement of the Persian Academy: The Language of the nation of Iran [Persia] in English is called "Persian" [or in other European languages: Persane, Persisch, Persa, Persiska, etc.] and is known worldwide as PERSIAN. Recently some Iranians [Persians] have been trying to use "Farsi" instead of Persian, the trend which has also been followed by some non-Iranians. This has occurred to the extent that it has raised the question "Which is the correct word, in English, for the language of Iran's people, Persian or Farsi?!..." This question was put to the official institution FARHANGESTAN (Persian Language and Literature Academy in Tehran) by the Commerce Department for Australia, at Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In their 34th meeting on 7th of December 1992, the Persian Academy unanimously passed the resolution that this language must be called PERSIAN and the reasons given were:

1- PERSIAN has been used in a variety of publications including cultural, scientific and diplomatic documents for centuries and, therefore, it connotes a very significant historical and cultural meaning. Hence, changing PERSIAN to FARSI is to negate this established important precedence.

2- Changing PERSIAN to FARSI may give the impression that it is a new language, and this may well be the intention of some Farsi users.

3- It may also give the impression that FARSI is a dialect of some parts of Iran and not the predominant (official) language of this country.

4- Fortunately, FARSI has never been used in any research paper or university document in any Western language and the proposal of its usage will create doubt and ambiguity about the name of the official language of our country.

[Joe 6-pack]

Who cares...the country's full of foreigners.

[freedom44]

Called educating yourself.

[Joe 6-pack]

Lighten up killer. Maybe log off and go look for your sense of humor.

[Tax Government]

Do things really *have* names?

I thought people just offered names to things, but in most cases the things didn't accept them.

And, like sticky labels, the names eventually fall off.

[Blackyce]

Typical ploy of Islamic Fundamentalism. The whole culture is designed to make the people forget they had a history before Muhammed showed up. To make them forget that the most backwards part of the world was the most advanced for most of human history.

[Freebird Forever]

From the CIA world factbook:

Persian and Persian dialects 58%
Turkic and Turkic dialects 26%
Kurdish 9%
Luri 2%
Balochi 1%
Arabic 1%
Turkish 1%
other 2%

[freedom44]

Very true. They've tried to destroy everything about Iran's history.

Unfortunately for them they've been unable to even inside Iran where books about Cyrus the Great, Darius, Xerxes, the culture and history are springin up everywhere

[nuconvert]

No mention of Parsi. Because Arabs can't say "P"?

[jimtorr]

4- Fortunately, FARSI has never been used in any research paper or university document in any Western language...

Hmmm, I'm not sure that this is accurate. The linguistic community in USA uses the term Farsi to distinguish the old Persian languages from the other languages spoken in Iran.

I was once asked to learn Farsi, but chose Chinese Mandarin instead.

[cake_crumb]

They DID have a history beofre Muhammad showed up and used his crusading pseudo culture to destroy it. They had a very long, rich history. The FOOLING part is when modern propagandists try to pretend that Islamic history is ancient Egyptian history or Persian history...it isn't. Islamic history was born when Muhammad invented Islam out of a ...probably sincere...wish to cinvert his people to an early form of Judaeo-Christianity which was easily acceptable to people of common Semitic culture, but the opium-laced wine he took for his ailments - and probable agendist politics by his biographers - drove him into the nutzo zone.

Freedom, both are correct as far as I know. Farsi has other historical implications, but for all modern intents and purposes, including common culture and history, is equally correct. It has connotations from India, when the various local tribes, boundaries and political structures were considerably different. Due to the normal evulotion of language, combined with Pesia's turbulant history, only time and chance could turn up a an older Persian language...but it's very possible the people who spoke it weren't even "Persian" as we consider it today...or 1,400 years ago, before the subsumation of the Persian culture by Islamic crusadors.

[BSunday]

Ragheadese ? Towlheadian ?

[Verginius Rufus]

The ancient Medes were very similar to the Persians and the two are often named together (as in the Book of Esther). The Greeks tended to refer to the Persians as Medes (those who sided with the Persians in 480 B.C. were said to have Medized).

One of the noteworthy features of the Persian Empire was the Royal Road which ran from Sardis to the capital. We still honor this accomplishment by calling the empty space between opposing lanes of divided highways Median strips.

[Spell Correctly]

Iranians are not Arabs.

They are Parsis (Persian), or Farsis (same thing).

[nuconvert]

"Iranians are not Arabs."

Yes, I'm well aware of that. Farsi is the Arab name for Parsi.

[nuconvert]

Arabs have great difficulty pronouncing "P".
Hence a Pepsi, is a "Bebsi". Easier to change the "P" to an "F", and call it Farsi.

[Spell Correctly]

Ahh thank you.

Kind of like how Cuban's cannot pronouce "y."

The New York Yankees are the "New Jork Jankees."

[cake_crumb]

Yep. The same can be said for most currently Islamic countries. The Arabs are the invaders who gained a bit of ligitimacy via the obviously failed idea of Pan Arabism.

[ccmay]

They DID have a history beofre Muhammad showed up and used his crusading pseudo culture to destroy it. They had a very long, rich history.

Darn right they did. They had a very rich culture of mixed Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians who lived in peace and prosperity until the Mohammedan wackos showed up and ruined everything.

I've got a few good friends and neighbors who are Persian. They are wonderful people, definitely an asset to this country, and they absolutely loathe the Islamonazis.

If you want to insult a Persian/Iranian, call him an Arab. They rightfully consider themselves a much older and more accomplished culture, and hold the tribal camel herders and ignorant wild-eyed jihadis of the Arab world in contempt.

-ccm

[muir_redwoods]

My one and only Iran-born friend felt sure the native language he grew up speaking was Farsi. Hey! but then what does he know?