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Persian (also known as Farsi or Parsi) is a language spoken in Iran, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Georgia, part of India and part of Pakistan. It has over 46 million native speakers. It belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is of the Subject Object Verb type.
Persian is a member of the Indo-European family of languages, and within that family, it belongs to the Indo-Iranian (Aryan) branch, within which, the Iranian sub-branch consists of the following chronological linguistic path: Avestan/Old Persian -> Middle Persian (Pahlavi) -> Modern Persian.
The language itself has greatly developed during the centuries. Due to technological developments new words and idioms are created and enter into Farsi like any other language. In Iran the Academy of Persian Language and Literature is a center that evaluates the new words in order to initiate and advise its Persian equivalent.
Although it uses the same Alphabet as the Arabic language (Persian adds four letters, and changes the shape of another two), the Persian is a language completly different, with a different Phonology and Grammar. Unfortunately, lately some people use refer to Persian language as "Farsi" when writing or speaking English. Using "Farsi" in English language is absolutely wrong because this is the name of the lagnuage used by Iranian themselves when speaking Persian but it would be meaningless if used in English. The best example of this is like using 'Deutsch' in place of 'German' in English; or native term of Greek Language is "Ellinika" and always in English is said 'Greek' language, not 'Ellinika' language.
Persian, the more widely recognized name in English, is the Hellenized form of the native term Parsi. Farsi is the Arabicized form and its use in the English language is very recent. Native Iranians typically call it Farsi in modern usage.
- Judeo-Persian was a language spoken by the Jews living in Persia.
- Dari is a dialect of Persian, one of the two official languages of Afghanistan.
- Tajik is considered as dialect of Persian by some linguists.
Persian phonology -- adapted from this Structural Sketch of Persian.
| front | back | |
| high | i: | u: |
| mid-high | E | o |
| low | ae | A: |
| labial | dentals |
palatals | velars |
|
| voiceless stops | p | t | tS | k |
| voiced stops | b | d | dZ | g |
| voiceless fricatives | f | s | S | x |
| voiced fricatives | v | z | Z | Y |
| nasals | m | n | ||
| liquids | l, r | |||
| glides | y | h |
The functional contrast for vowels appears to be between long {/i:/, /u:/, /A:/} and short {/E/, /O/, /a/}. Therefore, it seems possible to represent the phonology as {/i:/, /u:/, /a:/} and {/i/, /u/, /a/}. Also note that /tS/ and /dZ/ are affricates, not stops.
Persian syntax
Normal sentences are structured: (S) (PP) (O) V
If the object is definite, then the order is (S) (O + "rA:") (PP) V