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Easy Parsi (Farsi) for beginners

BACKGROUND HISTORY OF PARSI LANGUAGE

 

Parsi or Persian was the language of the Parsa people who ruled Iran between 550 – 330 BCE. It became the language of the Persian Empire and was widely spoken in the ancient days ranging from the borders of India in the east, Russian in the north, the southern shores of the Persian Gulf to Egypt and the Mediterranean in the west.

Over the centuries Parsi has changed to its modern form and today Persian is spoken primarily in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan.

Although the name of the language has been maintained as Persian or Parsi or its Arabic form Farsi (because in Arabic they do not have the letter P) the language has undergone great changes and can be categorized into the following groups.

  1. Old Persian
  2. Middle Persian
  3. Classical Persian
  4. Modern Persian

Old Persian is what the original Parsa tribe of the Hakhamaneshinian (Achaemenid) era spoke and they have left for us samples carved on stone in cuneiform script.

Middle Persian is the language spoken during the Sasanian era also known as Pahlavi.

Classical Persian the origin of this language is not very clear. Words have their roots in different languages spoken in various parts of the country but the majority of the words have their roots in Old Persian, Pahlavi and Avesta. Every countries that Arab conquered they totally lost its civilization, culture and language and adopted the Arabic language and the way of life.

Later on Moguls invaded Iran and they made people as their ambassadors of Iranian language, culture and art. And Moguls made Parsi as their court language in India.

Modern Persian language or Farsi (Arabic pronunciation of Parsi) as spoken today consists of a lot of words of non-Iranian origin. Some modern technical terms, understandably, have been incorporated from English, French and German and are recognizable, but Arabic has corrupted a major part of the language by replacing original Parsi words.

Parsi-e Tajik & Parsi-e Dari

The people of Tajikistan and Afghanistan have maintained a somewhat purer form of the Parsi language and call it Parsi-e Tajik in Tajikistan and Parsi-e Dari in Afghanistan.

Dari
The Dari language spoken by the Zarathushties of Yazd and Kerman has nothing in common with the Dari of Afghanistan. In fact the Zarathushti Dari is not understood by Farsi speaking people and is a language that has no script and has not been written.

 

 

Introduction to Persian Language, Start from the very beginning!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

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