Persian is the only language that is currently called by three different names (Farsi, Tajik and Dari) in English.


My name is Fereshteh Davaran and I am writing my Ph.D. dissertation in the NES department at U. C. Berkeley and teaching Persian in Diablo Valley College.

I wanted to ask you, as Iranians, not to use "Farsi" when you refer to Persian language in an English text.
Persian is the only language that is currently called by three different names (Farsi, Tajik and Dari) in English.
You do not see anybody calling German, Almani or Deusche in English?
You do not hear anybody call English, Irish or Australian or for that matter American.

Categorizing languages has a scientific method. According to
Linguistics, the Persian language belongs to the Iranian branch of Indo-Iranian languages.
The Iranian branch is composed of many languages such as Persian, Sughdi, Kurdish, Parthian, etc.
The Persian branch has different dialects such as Tajik, Dari, Farsi, Isfahani, etc.
To call Persian, Farsi is just as bad as calling Persian Gulf, Arabian Gulf or even the Gulf.

In the absence of an interested government, we Iranians have to defend our heritage more vigorously.

"Persia" is what Greek historians called Parsis at the time of the Achaemenids, and like all historic proper names its antiquity is its best defense.

Over the centuries "Persian" was used to refer to the whole country of Iran and therefore could be used interchangeably with Iranian.

Fars and Farsi is the Arabic form of Parsis and Persia. Since Arabs did not have P sound, they turned Pars to Fars.

Calling the Persian language by the three names of Farsi, Dari and Tajik is quite a recent phenomenon.

As I said, linguists have agreed to call the language of Darius and
Cyrus Old Persian, the language of Sasanids, Middle Persian and our language "Persian," which makes it the grand child of Old Persian and the Child of Middle Persian (Pahlavi).

All three stages of Persian language (old, middle and present) belong to Iranian branch of Indo-Iranian languages.

Dari, Tajik, Farsi, Isfahani and Khurasani are different dialects of the Persian language, unlike Kurdish and Sughdian which are different languages in the Iranian branch of Indo-Iranian languages.

Would it make sense to call Arabic, Iraqi or Egyptian, although they are three different dialects and have many differences?
Would the Arabs allow it?
Ask a question on any topic and get answers from real people. Go to Yahoo! Answers.

Hi,

I cannot understand how do you compare naming the persian gulf(in accordance with the UN and based on historical refrences) with application of persian instead of farsi in english texts.
Is there any one else or any other ref. other than you (and of course eincient greek documents)telling such?
Please refer to our literature, Parsi is used frequently by Iranian poets and writers such as Ferdowsi 1000 years ago and Saadi some 700 years ago.

cheers
sassan
--------------------------

Hello,
You have raised a very important issue and as an Iranian I do thank you for this, however the way you have developed it, and examples you have used are not professional at all and has weakened your argument great deal..

If what you say is correct, which one would believe is correct, please come up with some references and develop your point in a professional manner.

We need to learn, help us to learn
Thank you
--------------------------

Since you are discussing the names of languages, you might want to correct the spelling of "Deusche" to Deutsch.
It will lend you more credibility.
--------------------------

Can I say that I find this logic absolutely wrong? Am I being too
subtle?

Persia, Pars and Fars are equivalent and so are Persian, Parsi and Farsi
when referring to the language. They also refer to the majority ethnic
group in Iran. This is why it is more appropriate to say Iran and not
Persia when referring to the country.

As to the analogy with English, the author intends to induce a positive
argument to reinforce her theory, while it is actually a counter-example.
English is called English, because people in England (i.e. the English!)
spoke the language. We actually have Australian English, American English,
etc which are dialects of English. In a similar manner, Farsi is called
Farsi because people in Pars spoke the language, as a result we have Farsi
spoken in most of Iran and then Afghani Farsi (Farsi Dari), Tajik Farsi,
etc.

I just wish we didn't take defending our heritage to these extremes!
--------------------------

Dear Fereshteh,

I appreciate your effort here, but I do have a suggestion. As an attorney, I have been trained in the art of formulating argument. In my opinion, the basic flaw in the presentation of your argument is that you do not tie your points together. You simply state a number of facts, without stating how they relate to each other. Consequently, instead of making the argument for your audience, you force them to try to decipher your logical lines of reasoning.

I suggest that you get in touch with someone who has some experience in crafting arguments, and revise the presentation of your argument.

Best of luck to you.

- AMS
--------------------------