Persian is the English name for the language known as Farsi by its speakers, which usually is called also by the names of Dari, Farsi, Parsi or Parsi-Dari, can be classified linguistically as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanian Iran, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenids. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names. Persian/Dari is a pluricentric language and its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages. The Persian language has been a medium for literary and scientific contributions to the eastern half of the Islamic world. The Middle East is a melting pot of language, culture, and tradition. The dialects spoken and the alphabets used in the region for thousands of years eventually gave way to a common language and alphabet that were influenced by the Muslims when they conquered and converted the region. Over 150 million people speak it, with well over 61 million native speakers of the language and along with 8,000 years history. Use in the Indian subcontinent: For five centuries prior to the British colonization, Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent. It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts in South Asia and became the sole official language under the Mughal emperors. Persian/Dari has had a considerable influence on neighboring languages, particularly the Turkic languages in Central Asia, Caucasus, and Anatolia, neighboring Iranian languages, as well as Armenian and other languages. It has also exerted a strong influence on Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Saraiki and other South Asian languages. Persian belongs to the Western group of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family, and is of the subject object verb type. The Western Iranian group contains other related languages such as Kurdish, Mazandarani, Gilaki, Talyshi and Baluchi. The language is in the Southwestern Iranian group, along with and very similar to the Tat language of Caucasus Larestani and Luri languages. There are three modern varieties of standard Persian: 1, Modern Iranian Persian (Western Farsi) is the variety of Persian spoken in Iran, also known as Farsi (in Persian) or Persian (in English). 2, Dari (Eastern Farsi) is the local name for the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. 3, Tajiki is the variety of Persian used in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Russia, but unlike the Persian used in Iran and Afghanistan, it is written in the Cyrillic script rather than Persian script. The three mentioned varieties are based on the classic Persian/Dari literature. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from the standard Persian. Hazaragi (in Afghanistan), Darwazi (In Afghanistan and Tajikistan) and Dehwari in Pakistan are examples of these dialects.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 15:15:24 +0000
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