Farsi Language

Farsi: the Language of Iran

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. The Farsi language, known as the Persian language today, is the most widely spoken language in the Iranian branch of the Indo-Irania languages. Persian is the official language of the countries of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. Over 100 million people speak it, with well over 61 million native speakers of the language.

Historically, the Farsi language was spoken in a wide geographic area, ranging from the Middle East to parts of India. Now, it is spoken primarily in Iran and Afghanistan, with a sizeable enough population of speakers in Tajikistan to make it the official tongue, though there are also considerable numbers of speakers of the language in the United States, due to immigration there. Here are several dialects spoken of Persian in the Middles Eastern regions, between the Iranians, Afghans, and Tajiks. Unlike many regional dialects of a language, these dialects are in general reciprocally understood among the different groups.

Historically, there were three phases of the Persian language (or Farsi language) which evolved into the language that is spoken today: Old, Middle, and Modern Iranian. Old Iranian is characterized by Old Persian and Avestal (a religious language that died out before the arrival of Islam). Middle Iranian is characterized by Middle Persian, and the ancient Partian language. A great deal of Middle Persian writings were translated into Arabic, upon the Islam conversion, but the original writings were unfortunately lost sometime in the Islamic era. Modern Persian had developed by the 9th century AD. It is a combination of Parthian and Middle Persian language elements.  It has been the official language of Persian (modern day Iran) since it's first emergence.

The Farsi language is an older name that was used by regional, local speakers of the tongue. Many modern speakers of Persian still refer to it as Farsi. However, globally it is referred to as Persian. In fact, the Academy of Persian Language and Literature has declared that the Farsi language is not an appropriate term to use for the Persian Language in English-speaking matters. 

Most Persian writings are executed in a form of the Arabic alphabet. After Persia was converted to Islam, it took nearly 150 years for the Persian people to replace their previous alphabet with the Arabic one. The Latin alphabet has been employed in recent years by some factions for technological reasons, as well as for ease of communication with the Western world.

Farsi contains many words that were acquired from other languages around the world, including Arabic, English, and French. There is also no shortage of influence from the Farsi language on other languages globally.  The Persian language has hade some bearing on many lexicons, including English. Some examples of Persian-inspired English vocabulary include: bazaar (Persian for "market"), bronze (Persian "birinj"), guitar (Persian "sitaar"), paradise (Persian "pairidaeza"), talc (Persian "talk"), and many, many more.

The Persian Empire was a great civilization that rivaled the mighty Greeks in architecture, art, and technology. Though they were eventually overtaken by the Muslims and converted to Islam, they managed to retain a great deal of their cultural heritage, including their language. Even though the Persian language went through many manifestations, including heavy impact from the Arabic alphabet and tongue, it exists today in the modern form that has been in use for nearly 2 millennia. The impact of the Persians, past and present, is evidenced by the huge influence the Farsi language has had on our own English vocabulary.

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