Persian language

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Fārsi written in Persian (Nastaʿlīq script)
Pronunciation [fɒːɾˈsiː]
Native to
Native speakers
45 million (2007)[6] – 60 million (2009)[5]
(110 million total speakers)[5]
Early forms
Official status
Official language in
 Afghanistan (as Dari)
 Tajikistan (as Tajik)
Regulated by
Language codes
ISO 639-1 fa
ISO 639-2 per (B)
fas (T)
ISO 639-3 fasinclusive code
Individual codes:
pes – Western Persian
prs – Dari language (Afghan Persian)
tgk – Tajiki
aiq – Aimaq dialect
bhh – Bukhori dialect
haz – Hazaragi dialect
jpr – Judeo-Persian
phv – Pahlavani
deh – Dehwari
jdt – Judeo-Tat
ttt – Caucasian Tat
Glottolog fars1254[7]
58-AAC (Wider Persian)
 > 58-AAC-c (Central Persian)
Persian Language Location Map1.png
Areas with significant numbers of Persian speakers (including dialects).
Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.svg
  Countries where Persian is an official language.

Persian (/ˈpɜːrʒən/ or /ˈpɜːrʃən/), locally known as Parsi or Farsi[8] (فارسی fārsi [fɒːɾˈsiː]), the predominant modern descendant of Old Persian, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan (officially known as Dari since 1958 for political reasons),[9] and Tajikistan (officially known as Tajiki since the Soviet era for political reasons),[10] and some other regions which historically were Persianate societies.

The Persian language is classified as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of the Sasanian Empire, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenid Empire.[11][12][13] Persian is a pluricentric language and its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages.[14] Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, modern-day Fars Province, hence the name Persian (Farsi).[15] A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone.[16]


Persian has had a considerable (mainly lexical) influence on neighboring languages, particularly the Turkic languages in Central Asia, Caucasus, and Anatolia, neighboring Iranian languages, as well as Armenian, Georgian, and Indo-Aryan languages, especially Urdu. It also exerted some influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic,[18] while borrowing much vocabulary from it after the Muslim conquest of Persia.[11][14][19][20][21][22]

With a long history of literature in the form of Middle Persian before Islam, Persian was the first language in the Muslim world to break through Arabic's monopoly on writing, and the writing of poetry in Persian was established as a court tradition in many eastern courts.[17] Some of the famous works of Persian literature are the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, the works of Rumi, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the Divān of Hafez and the two miscellanea of prose and verse by Saadi Shirazi, the Golestān "Rose Garden" and the Bustān "The Garden" (literally "Place of Fragrance").




Persian language name in Persian[edit]

In Persian, the language is known by several names:

  • Western Persian or Farsi (فارسی fārsi or زبان فارسی zabān-e fārsi) has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for political reasons, in English, Farsi has become the name of the Persian language as it is spoken in Iran.
  • Dari (دری darī or فارسی دری fārsi-ye dari) was originally a synonym for Fārsi but since the latter decades of the 20th century has become the name for the variety of Persian spoken in Afghanistan, where it is one of the two official languages; it is sometimes called Afghan Persian in English.[24]
  • Tajiki (тоҷикӣ, تاجیکی tojikī or забони тоҷикӣ / فارسی تاجیکی zabon-i tojiki) is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks.

Persian language name in English[edit]

Persian, the historically more widely used name of the language in English, is an anglicized form derived from Latin *Persianus < Latin Persia < Greek Περσίς Persís "Persia",[25] a Hellenized form of Old Persian Parsa.[26] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century.[27] Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi.[28] Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic (i.e., the /p/ was replaced with an /f/).[29][30][31] The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs.[29][30][31] In English, this language has historically been known as "Persian", though "Farsi" has also gained some currency. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Farsi was first used in English in 1926, while Parsi dates to 1790.[28] "Farsi" is encountered in some linguistic literature as a name for the language, used both by Iranian and by foreign authors.[32]


The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has declared that the name "Persian" is more appropriate, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity.[33] Some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of "Farsi" in their articles.[34][35]




History of the
Persian language
Proto-Iranian (ca. 1500 BCE)

Western Iranian languages

Old Persian (c. 525 BCE - 300 BCE)

Old Persian cuneiform

Middle Persian (c.300 BCE-800 CE)

Pahlavi scriptsManichaean alphabetAvestan alphabet

Modern Persian (from 800)

Persian alphabetTajiki Cyrillic alphabet


According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language"[11] for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent[11][39] one and the same language of Persian; that is, New Persian is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian.[39]


Old Persian[edit]

Main articles: Old Persian and Persian verbs

As a written language, Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription.[40] Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now present-day Iran, Romania (Gherla),[41][42][43] Armenia, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt.[44][45] Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages which is attested in original texts.[46]

Xenophon, a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BC, which is at a time when Old Persian was the only form of Persian used. He relates that the Armenians spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians.[47]

Middle Persian[edit]

Main article: Middle Persian




Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language[48] but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of Modern Persian.[49][50] Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian."[51]

New Persian[edit]


Early New Persian[edit]

New Persian developed from the eighth century on as an independent literary language.[53] Upon the decline of the Abbasid Caliphate at Baghdad in the ninth century began the reestablishment of Persian national life and Persians laid the foundations for a renaissance in the realm of letters. New Persian was born in Bactria through the adaptation of the spoken form of Sassanian Middle Persian court language called Dari. The cradle of the Persian literary renaissance lay in the east of Greater Iran in Greater Khorasan and Transoxiana close to the Amu Darya.[54]





Classical Persian[edit]

Kalilah va Dimna, an influential work in Persian literature.

The Muslim conquest of Persia marks the beginning of the new history of Persian language and literature. This period produced world class Persian language poets and the language served, for a long span of time, as the lingua franca of major parts of the Muslim world and South Asia. It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids, Buyids, Tahirids, Ziyarids, the Mughal Empire, Timurids, Ghaznavids, Seljuqs, Khwarazmians, the Sultanate of Rum, the Shirvanshahs, Safavids, Afsharids, Zands, Qajars, Ottomans and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad. For example, Persian was the only non-European language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China.[57] The heavy influence of Persian on other languages can still be witnessed across the Islamic world, especially, and it is still appreciated as a literary and prestigious language among the educated elite[citation needed], especially in fields of music (for example, qawwalis) and art (Persian literature). After the Arab invasion of Persia, Persian began to adopt many words from Arabic and as time went by, a few words were even taken from Turco-Mongol languages under the Mongol Empire and Turko-Persian tradition.

Use in Asia Minor[edit]

Persian on an Ottoman miniature.

Despite Anatolia having been ruled at various times prior to the Middle Ages by various Persian-speaking dynasties originating in Iran, the language lost its traditional foothold there with the demise of the Sasanian Empire. Centuries later however, the practise and usage of Persian in the region would be strongly revived. A branch of the Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum, took Persian language, art and letters to Anatolia.[58] They adopted Persian language as the official language of the empire.[59] The Ottomans, which can roughly be seen as their eventual successors, took this tradition over. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire.[60] The educated and noble class of the Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as sultan Selim I, despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam.[61] It was a major literary language in the empire.[62] Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi's Hasht Bihisht, which begun in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah, a glorification of Selim I.[61] After a period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed towards a fully accepted language of literature, which was even able to satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation.[63] However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%.[63]

Use in South Asia[edit]

Persian poem, Agra Fort, India, 18th century


Contemporary Persian[edit]




There are three modern varieties of standard Persian:




Main article: Persian phonology

Iranian Persian has six vowels and twenty-three consonants.


The vowel phonemes of modern Tehran Persian

Historically, Persian has distinguished length. Early New Persian had a series of five long vowels (//, //, /ɒː/, // and //) along with three short vowels /æ/, /i/ and /u/. At some point prior to the 16th century in the general area now modern Iran, /eː/ and /iː/ merged into /iː/, and /oː/ and /uː/ merged into /uː/. Thus, older contrasts such as شیر shēr "lion" vs. شیر shīr "milk", and رود rūd "river" vs رود rōd "bow-string" were lost. However, there are exceptions to this rule, and in some words, "ē" and "ō" are preserved[citation needed] or merged into the diphthongs [eɪ] and [oʊ] (which are descendants of the diphthongs [æɪ] and [æʊ] in Early New Persian), instead of merging into /iː/ and /uː/. Examples of this exception can be found in words such as روشن [roʊʃæn] (bright).


According to most studies on the subject (e.g. Samareh 1977, Pisowicz 1985, Najafi 2001), the three vowels traditionally considered long (/i/, /u/, /ɒ/) are currently distinguished from their short counterparts (/e/, /o/, /æ/) by position of articulation rather than by length. However, there are studies (e.g. Hayes 1979, Windfuhr 1979) that consider vowel length to be the active feature of the system, and /ɒ/, /i/, and /u/ are phonologically long or bimorai, and /æ/, /e/, and /o/ are phonologically short or monomoraic.

There are also some studies which consider quality and quantity to be both active in the Iranian system (e.g. Toosarvandani 2004). That offers a synthetic analysis including both quality and quantity, often suggesting that modern Persian vowels are in a transition state between the quantitative system of classical Persian and a hypothetical future Persian that will eliminate all traces of quantity and retain quality as the only active feature.

The length distinction is nevertheless strictly observed by careful reciters of classic-style poetry for all varieties (including the Tajik).


Labial Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Nasal m n (ŋ)
Plosive p b t d k ɡ ɢ
Fricative f v s z ʃ ʒ χ h
Trill r
Approximant l j


Main article: Persian grammar



Normal declarative sentences are structured as "(S) (PP) (O) V": sentences have optional subjects, prepositional phrases, and objects followed by a compulsory verb. If the object is specific, the object is followed by the word and precedes prepositional phrases: "(S) (O + ) (PP) V".[74]


Main article: Persian vocabulary

Native word formation[edit]



While having a lesser influence on Arabic[20] and other languages of Mesopotamia and its core vocabulary being of Middle Persian origin,[14] New Persian contains a considerable amount of Arabic lexical items,[11][19][21] which were Persianized[22] and often took a different meaning and usage than the Arabic original. Persian loanwords of Arabic origin especially include Islamic terms. The Arabic vocabulary in other Iranian, Turkic and Indic languages is generally understood to have been copied from New Persian, not from Arabic itself.[75]

John R. Perry, in his article Lexical Areas and Semantic Fields of Arabic, estimates that about 24 percent of an everyday vocabulary of 20,000 words in current Persian, and more than 25 percent of the vocabulary of classical and modern Persian literature, are of Arabic origin. The text frequency of these loan words is generally lower and varies by style and topic area. It may approach 25 percent of a text in literature.[76] Among the Arabic loan words, relatively few (14 percent) are from the semantic domain of material culture, while a larger number are from domains of intellectual and spiritual life.[77] Most of the Arabic words used in Persian are either synonyms of native terms or could be glossed in Persian.[78]

The inclusion of Mongolian and Turkic elements in the Persian language should also be mentioned,[79] not only because of the political role a succession of Turkic dynasties played in Iranian history, but also because of the immense prestige Persian language and literature enjoyed in the wider (non-Arab) Islamic world, which was often ruled by sultans and emirs with a Turkic background. The Turkish and Mongolian vocabulary in Persian is minor in comparison to that of Arabic and these words were mainly confined to military, pastoral terms and political sector (titles, administration, etc.).[80] New military and political titles were coined based partially on Middle Persian (e.g. ارتش arteš for "army", instead of the Uzbek قؤشین qoʻshin; سرلشکر sarlaškar; دریابان daryābān; etc.) in the 20th century. Persian has likewise influenced the vocabularies of other languages, especially other Indo-European languages such as Armenian,[81] Urdu, and (to a lesser extent) Hindi; the latter two through conquests of Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan invaders;[82] Turkic languages such as Ottoman Turkish, Chagatai, Tatar, Turkish,[83] Turkmen, Azeri,[84] Uzbek, and Karachay-Balkar;[85] Caucasian languages such as Georgian,[86] and to a lesser extent, Avar and Lezgin;[87] Afro-Asiatic languages like Assyrian (List of loanwords in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic) and Arabic;[88] and even Dravidian languages indirectly especially Telugu and Brahui; as well as Austronesian languages such as Indonesian and Malay. Persian has also had a significant lexical influence, via Turkish, on Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbo-Croatian, particularly as spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina.



Example showing Nastaʿlīq's (Persian) proportion rules.[ 1 ]
The word Persian in Pahlavi scripts

The vast majority of modern Iranian Persian and Dari text is written with the Arabic script. Tajiki, which is considered by some linguists to be a Persian dialect influenced by Russian and the Turkic languages of Central Asia,[89][90] is written with the Cyrillic script in Tajikistan (see Tajik alphabet).

Persian alphabet[edit]

Main article: Persian alphabet





The Persian alphabet adds four letters to the Arabic alphabet:

Sound Isolated form Name
/p/ پ pe
/tʃ/ چ če (che)
/ʒ/ ژ že (zhe or jhe)
/ɡ/ گ ge (gāf)



The letters different in shape are:

Arabic Style letter Persian Style letter name
ك ک ke (kāf)
ي ی ye

Latin alphabet[edit]

The International Organization for Standardization has published a standard for simplified transliteration of Persian into Latin, ISO 233-3, titled "Information and documentation – Transliteration of Arabic characters into Latin characters – Part 3: Persian language – Simplified transliteration"[91] but the transliteration scheme is not in widespread use.



Tajik alphabet[edit]

Tajiki advertisement for an academy.
Main article: Tajik alphabet




Western Persian Western Persian IPA Tajiki Interlinear gloss
همهٔ افراد بشر آزاد به دنیا می‌آیند و حیثیت و حقوق شان با هم برابر است، همه اندیشه و وجدان دارند و باید در برابر یکدیگر با روح برادری رفتار کنند. [hæmeje æfrɒde bæʃær ɒzɒd be donjɒ miɒjænd o hejsijæt o hoɢuɢe ʃɒn bɒ hæm bærɒbær æst hæme ʃɒn ændiʃe o vedʒdɒn dɒrænd o bɒjæd dær bærɒbære jekdiɡær bɒ ruhe bærɒdæri ræftɒr konænd] Ҳамаи афроди башар озод ба дунё меоянд ва ҳайсияту ҳуқуқашон бо ҳам баробар аст, ҳамаашон андешаву виҷдон доранд ва бояд дар баробари якдигар бо рӯҳи бародарӣ рафтор кунанд. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

See also[edit]


  2. ^ "IRAQ". Retrieved 7 November 2014. 
  3. ^ Pilkington, Hilary; Yemelianova, Galina (2004). Islam in Post-Soviet Russia. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-203-21769-6. , p. 27]: "Among other indigenous peoples of Iranian origin were the Tats, the Talishes and the Kurds"
  5. ^ a b c d e f Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian Languages, Routledge 2009, p. 418.
  7. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Farsic – Caucasian Tat". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. 
  8. ^ Baker, Mona (1997). Persian or Farsi?. ,
  15. ^ "Persian or Farsi?". Retrieved 2016-02-27. 
  17. ^ a b c Encyclopædia Britannica: Persian literature, retrieved September 2011.
  24. ^ See Dari – Geographical distribution
  26. ^ Harper, Douglas. "Persia". Online Etymology Dictionary. 
  28. ^ a b OED online, s.v. "Pārsi".
  33. ^ "Pronouncement of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature". 19 November 2005. Retrieved 13 July 2010. 
  34. ^ "Persian or Farsi?". 16 November 1997. Retrieved 23 September 2010. 
  38. ^ (Skjaervo 2006) vi(2). Documentation.
  40. ^ (Schmitt 2008, pp. 80–1)
  41. ^ Kuhrt 2013, p. 197.
  42. ^ Frye 1984, p. 103.
  43. ^ Schmitt 2000, p. 53.
  44. ^ Roland G. Kent, Old Persian, 1953
  47. ^ Xenophon. Anabasis. pp. IV.v.2–9. 
  55. ^ Jackson, A. V. Williams.pp.17–19.
  77. ^ Perry 2005, p.99.
  78. ^ Perry 2005, p. 99.
  83. ^ Andreas Tietze, Persian loanwords in Anatolian Turkish, Oriens, 20 (1967) pp- 125–168. (PDF) Retrieved 20 August 2016.  Missing or empty |title= (help)[dead link]
  85. ^ George L. Campbell and Gareth King (2013). Compendium of the World Languages. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-1362-5846-6. Retrieved 23 May 2014. 
  87. ^ "DAGESTAN". Retrieved 2 January 2014. 
  88. ^ Pasad. "". Retrieved 13 July 2010. 
  92. ^



Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]