Persian language

Persian (local names: فارسی, Fārsi ; or پارسی, Pārsi , see Nomenclature) is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Bahrain. The Persian language, whose native names are فارسی Fārsi, Pārsi, Dari or Pārsi-ye-Dari (Dari Persian), is classified by most linguists as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanid Persia, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of Persian Empire in Achaemenids era.^[2][3][4] Persian is a pluricentric language and its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages.^[5] The Persian language has been a medium for literary and scientific contributions to the eastern half of the Muslim world.

Persian 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, Arabic and other languages. It has also exerted a strong influence on South Asian languages, especially Urdu, as well as Hindi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Saraiki, Sylheti, and Bengali.^{[2][5][6][7][8][9]}

Classification

Persian belongs to the Western group of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family, which also includes Kurdish, Mazandarani, Gilaki, Talyshi and Baluchi. The language is in the Southwestern Iranian group, along with the Larestani and Luri languages,^[10] and the Tat Persian of the Caucasus.^[11][12][13]

Contemporary local nomenclature

• Dari (from دربار‎ /dærbɒr/ "court") is the local official name in Afghanistan, since 1964^[14][15]
• Farsi (فارسی / پارسی‎) (transliteration: Fârsi/Pârsi) is the local name of the language in Iran.
• Tajiki (тоҷикӣ in the Cyrillic Tajik alphabet) is the local name in Central Asia, especially in Tajikistan.

English nomenclature

Persian, the more widely used name of the language in English, is an Anglicized form derived from Latin *Persianus < Latin Persia < Greek Πέρσις Pérsis, a Hellenized form of Old Persian Parsa. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century.^[16] Native Iranian Persian speakers call it "Pârsi" (local name) or Fârsi.^[17] Fârsi is the arabicized form of Pârsi, due to a lack of the 'p' phoneme in Standard Arabic.^[18][19] In English, this language is historically known as "Persian", though some Persian speakers migrating to the West continued to use "Farsi" to identify their language in English and the word gained some currency in English-speaking countries.^[20] "Farsi" is encountered in some linguistic literature as a name for the language, used both by Iranian and by foreign authors.^[21] According to the OED, the term Farsi was first used in English in the mid-20th century.^[17] 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.^[22] Most Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater and Kamran Talattof have also rejected the usage of "Farsi" in their articles.^[23][24]