99-494: Ahvaz ( Persian : اهواز ; [ʔæhˈvɒːz] ) is a city in the Central District of Ahvaz County , Khuzestan province, Iran. It serves as capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is home to Persians , Arabs , Bakhtiaris , Dezfulis, Shushtaris, and others. Languages spoken in the area include Persian , Arabic , Luri and dialects such as Bakhtiari , Dezfuli and Shushtari . Ahvaz
198-655: A Dari dialect. In the 19th century, under the Qajar dynasty , the dialect that is spoken in Tehran rose to prominence. There was still substantial Arabic vocabulary, but many of these words have been integrated into Persian phonology and grammar. In addition, under the Qajar rule, numerous Russian , French , and English terms entered the Persian language, especially vocabulary related to technology. The first official attentions to
297-418: A dictionary called Words of Scientific Association ( لغت انجمن علمی ), which was completed in the future and renamed Katouzian Dictionary ( فرهنگ کاتوزیان ). The first academy for the Persian language was founded on 20 May 1935, under the name Academy of Iran . It was established by the initiative of Reza Shah Pahlavi , and mainly by Hekmat e Shirazi and Mohammad Ali Foroughi , all prominent names in
396-505: A language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Farsi , which is the Persian word for the Persian language, has also been used widely in English in recent decades, more often to refer to Iran's standard Persian. However, the name Persian is still more widely used. The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has maintained that the endonym Farsi is to be avoided in foreign languages, and that Persian
495-417: A literary language considerably different from the spoken Persian of the time. This became the basis of what is now known as "Contemporary Standard Persian". There are three standard varieties of modern Persian: All these three varieties are based on the classic Persian literature and its literary tradition. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from
594-492: A major impact on the Allied victory. White Bridge is an arch bridge completed on 21 September 1936 and inaugurated on 6 November 1936. The bridge remains a symbol of the city still today. The other 7 bridges are third bridge, Naderi bridge, Fifth bridge, Sixth bridge, Seventh bridge (also named Dialogue among civilizations bridge ), Cable bridge, and Ninth bridge. Ahvaz is located 100 km north-east of Abadan and
693-538: A matter of fact, it's not quite clear if this change was by the King Ardashir I , in 230 (cf. Encyclopædia Iranica , al-Muqaddasi , et al.) or by his grandson Hormizd I (according to the Middle Persian Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr ( shahrestān hā-ye Irānshahr ) . The city had two sections; the nobles of the city lived in one part while the other was inhabited by merchants. In the 19th century, "Ahvaz
792-606: A new privately owned stadium is currently under construction by Foolad F.C. in Ahvaz. Football is a major part of the city's culture. The abundant enthusiasm has made Ahvaz home to three Iranian major Football clubs: Foolad , Esteghlal Khuzestan are currently playing in the Persian Gulf Pro League , and Esteghlal Ahvaz is playing in Azadegan League . Foolad have won the league on two occasions,
891-536: A period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed toward a fully accepted language of literature, and which was even able to lexically satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation. However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%. In the Ottoman Empire, Persian was used at the royal court, for diplomacy, poetry, historiographical works, literary works, and
990-599: A speaker of Persian. Persian is a member of the Western Iranian group of the Iranian languages , which make up a branch of the Indo-European languages in their Indo-Iranian subdivision . The Western Iranian languages themselves are divided into two subgroups: Southwestern Iranian languages, of which Persian is the most widely spoken, and Northwestern Iranian languages, of which Kurdish and Balochi are
1089-615: Is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages . Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran , Afghanistan , and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties , respectively Iranian Persian (officially known as Persian ), Dari Persian (officially known as Dari since 1964), and Tajiki Persian (officially known as Tajik since 1999). It
SECTION 10
#17327661572391188-664: Is a continuation of Middle Persian , an official language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of Old Persian , which was used in the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE). It originated in the region of Fars ( Persia ) in southwestern Iran. Its grammar is similar to that of many European languages. Throughout history, Persian was considered prestigious by various empires centered in West Asia , Central Asia , and South Asia . Old Persian
1287-564: Is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian. Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of Modern Persian. Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian." The known history of
1386-737: Is accessible via following routes in addition of a single runway airport: Ahvaz, being the largest city in the province, consists of two distinctive districts: the newer part of Ahvaz which is the administrative and industrial center, which is built on the right bank of the Karun river while residential areas are found in the old section of the city, on the left bank. Ahvaz has a subtropical hot desert climate ( Köppen climate classification BWh ) with long, extremely hot summers and cool, short winters. Summer temperatures are regularly at least 45 °C (113 °F), sometimes exceeding 50 °C (122 °F), with many sandstorms and duststorms common during
1485-454: Is also known for its universities as well as its role in commerce and industry. Ahvaz institutes of higher learning include: [REDACTED] Ahvaz travel guide from Wikivoyage [REDACTED] Media related to Ahvaz at Wikimedia Commons Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ),
1584-727: Is also spoken among the Mandaeans of Ahvaz. It is a descendant of the Classical Mandaic language that has been partially influenced by Khuzestani Persian. In 2011, the World Health Organization ranked Ahvaz as the world's most air-polluted city. The reason Ahvaz is so polluted is because of its oil industry. The pollution can be very dangerous, causing different types of diseases, and can be harmful to plants. Ahvaz International Airport ( IATA : AWZ , ICAO : OIAW ) ( Persian : فرودگاه بینالمللی اهواز)
1683-850: Is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan , as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran . It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet , a derivative of the Arabic script , and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet , a derivative of the Cyrillic script . Modern Persian
1782-459: Is an airport serving the city of Ahvaz, Iran . Ahvaz railway station ( Persian : ايستگاه راه آهن اهواز, Istgah-e Rah Ahan-e Ahvaz ) is located in Ahvaz, Khuzestan Province . Traditionally, Khuzestan province has been a major soccer hub in Iran. The city has two existing sport complexes: Takhti Stadium and the newly constructed Ghadir Stadium . There are several other smaller complexes for martial arts, swimming pools and gymnasiums. Also,
1881-675: Is attested in Old Persian cuneiform on inscriptions from between the 6th and 4th century BC. Middle Persian is attested in Aramaic -derived scripts ( Pahlavi and Manichaean ) on inscriptions and in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the third to the tenth centuries (see Middle Persian literature ). New Persian literature was first recorded in the ninth century, after the Muslim conquest of Persia , since then adopting
1980-536: Is believed by some to be a Roman built arch bridge [since Roman captured soldiers were used in its construction], and the first in the country to combine it with a dam . When the Sassanian Shah Shapur ;I defeated the Roman emperor Valerian , he is said to have ordered the captive Roman soldiers to build a large bridge and dam stretching over 500 metres. Lying deep in Persian territory,
2079-425: Is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian remains largely intelligible to speakers of Contemporary Persian, as the morphology and, to a lesser extent, the lexicon of the language have remained relatively stable. New Persian texts written in the Arabic script first appear in the 9th-century. The language is a direct descendant of Middle Persian, the official, religious, and literary language of
SECTION 20
#17327661572392178-510: Is deep and over it, leading to the travelers' gate, there is a bridge upon boats." The ancient fortress walls were destroyed at the end of the Safavid era. In 1831, a cholera epidemic ravaged Shushtar, killing about half of the city's inhabitants. The Mandaean community was hit particularly hard during the Plague of Shushtar, as all of their priests had died in the plague. Yahya Bihram ,
2277-474: Is home to over 1.2 million people within its metropolitan area, including Sheybani . Census results suggest a steady increase in population. At the time of the National Census of 2006, the city had 969,843 inhabitants in 212,097 households; 1,112,021 people in 288,271 households in 2011; and in 2016 the census counted 1,184,788 people in 331,556 households. The river Karun flows through the middle of
2376-460: Is not actually attested until 600 years later when it appears in the Sassanid era (224–651 AD) inscriptions, so any form of the language before this date cannot be described with any degree of certainty. Moreover, as a literary language, Middle Persian is not attested until much later, in the 6th or 7th century. From the 8th century onward, Middle Persian gradually began yielding to New Persian, with
2475-475: Is one of Afghanistan's two official languages, together with Pashto . The term Dari , meaning "of the court", originally referred to the variety of Persian used in the court of the Sasanian Empire in capital Ctesiphon , which was spread to the northeast of the empire and gradually replaced the former Iranian dialects of Parthia ( Parthian ). Tajik Persian ( форси́и тоҷикӣ́ , forsi-i tojikī ),
2574-585: Is one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by a tribe called Parsuwash , who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province. Their language, Old Persian, became
2673-495: Is the appropriate designation of the language in English, 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. Iranian historian and linguist Ehsan Yarshater , founder of the Encyclopædia Iranica and Columbia University 's Center for Iranian Studies, mentions the same concern in an academic journal on Iranology , rejecting
2772-491: The Encyclopædia Iranica notes that the Iranian, Afghan, and Tajiki varieties comprise distinct branches of the Persian language, and within each branch a wide variety of local dialects exist. The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects: More distantly related branches of the Iranian language family include Kurdish and Balochi . The Glottolog database proposes
2871-506: The Kalila wa Dimna . The language spread geographically from the 11th century on and was the medium through which, among others, Central Asian Turks became familiar with Islam and urban culture. New Persian was widely used as a trans-regional lingua franca , a task aided due to its relatively simple morphology, and this situation persisted until at least the 19th century. In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on
2970-668: The British colonization , Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent . It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts on the subcontinent and became the sole "official language" under the Mughal emperors . The Bengal Sultanate witnessed an influx of Persian scholars, lawyers, teachers, and clerics. Thousands of Persian books and manuscripts were published in Bengal. The period of
3069-510: The Isfahan region held an important place in retail trade, owners of cafes and hotels and as craftsmen. Iraq attempted to annex Khūzestān and Ahvaz in 1980, resulting in the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988). Ahvaz was close to the front lines and suffered badly during the war. Iraq had pressed its claims to Khūzestān. Iraq had hoped to exacerbate ethnic tensions and win over popular support for
Ahvaz - Misplaced Pages Continue
3168-649: The Islamic period , the dam bridge fell out of use in the late 19th century, leading to the degeneration of the complex system of irrigation. Ancient works of Shushtar, which were registered at the annual meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee on 26 June 2009, under the title of Shushtar Historical Water System, as the tenth work of Iran in the UNESCO World Heritage List with number 1315. Historically,
3267-578: The Pahlavi period, it resumed its old name, Ahvaz . The government of the Khūzestān Province was transferred there from Shûshtar in 1926. The Trans-Iranian Railway reached Ahvaz in 1929 and by World War II , Ahvaz had become the principal built-up area of the interior of Khūzestān. Professional segregation remained well marked between various groups in that period still feebly integrated: Persians , sub-groupings of Persians and Arabs . Natives of
3366-676: The Suez Canal further stimulated trade. A port city was built near the old village of Ahvaz, and named Bandar-e-Naseri in honor of Nassereddin Shah Qajar . Oil was found near Ahvaz in the early 20th century, and the city once again grew and prospered as a result of this newfound wealth. From 1897 to 1925, the city of Ahvaz was in the hands of heshmatoddoleh Ghajar, who acted as governor and Sarhang Reza Gholi Khane Arghoon commander of Ghajari's army based in Khuzestan. Sheikh Khaz'al
3465-674: The Sultanate of Rum , Turkmen beyliks of Anatolia , Delhi Sultanate , the Shirvanshahs , Safavids , Afsharids , Zands , Qajars , Khanate of Bukhara , Khanate of Kokand , Emirate of Bukhara , Khanate of Khiva , Ottomans , and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad . 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. A branch of
3564-713: The Turkic , Armenian , Georgian , & Indo-Aryan languages . It also exerted some influence on Arabic, while borrowing a lot of vocabulary from it in the Middle Ages. Some of the world's most famous pieces of literature from the Middle Ages, such as the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi , the works of Rumi , the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi , The Divān of Hafez , The Conference of
3663-491: The ezāfe construction, expressed through ī (modern e/ye ), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system. Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian
3762-641: The irrigation system which centered on the Band-e Kaisar , the first dam bridge in Iran. The whole water system in Shushtar consists of 13 sites called Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System which is registered as a Unesco World Heritage Site . In the Elamite times Shushtar was known as Adamdun . In the Achaemenian times its name was Šurkutir . According to tradition, Shushtar was founded by
3861-597: The " Persianized " Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian during this time served as lingua franca of Greater Persia and of much of the Indian subcontinent . It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids, Buyids , Tahirids , Ziyarids , the Mughal Empire , Timurids , Ghaznavids , Karakhanids , Seljuqs , Khwarazmians ,
3960-570: The "Sostra" mentioned by Pliny the Elder . It is also known in Syriac literature as a Nestorian bishopric. During the Sassanian era, it was an island city on the Karun river and selected to become the summer capital . The river was channeled to form a moat around the city, while bridges and main gates into Shushtar were built to the east, west, and south. Several rivers nearby are conducive to
4059-529: The 2013–2014 season and the 2004–2005 season. Esteghlal Ahvaz finished runners–up in the league in the 2006–2007 season. In 2016, Esteghlal Khuzestan won the league for the first time. A number of other teams such as Foolad B the second team of Foolad and Karun Khuzestan play in the 2nd Division . Ahvaz has also two teams in the Iranian Futsal Super League , which are Sherkat Melli Haffari Iran FSC and Gaz Khozestan FSC . Ahvaz
Ahvaz - Misplaced Pages Continue
4158-516: The 2016 census, the city had an estimated population of 1,184,788 people. Based on a survey taken by the Iranian ministry of culture in 2010, the most common languages in Ahvaz are Persian (44.8%), Arabic (35.7%), and Bakhtiari (15.8%). Many Ahvazis are bilingual , speaking both Persian and one of the following languages/Dialects. The Arabic spoken in Ahvaz is a variety of Khuzestani Arabic . Another part of Ahvazis speak Bakhtiari dialect of Luri language . Modern Mandaic (or Mandae ) language
4257-681: The Birds by Attar of Nishapur , and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi , are written in Persian. Some of the prominent modern Persian poets were Nima Yooshij , Ahmad Shamlou , Simin Behbahani , Sohrab Sepehri , Rahi Mo'ayyeri , Mehdi Akhavan-Sales , and Forugh Farrokhzad . There are approximately 130 million Persian speakers worldwide, including Persians , Lurs , Tajiks , Hazaras , Iranian Azeris , Iranian Kurds , Balochs , Tats , Afghan Pashtuns , and Aimaqs . The term Persophone might also be used to refer to
4356-612: The Karun, Iran's most effluent river, was the core structure of the Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System , a large irrigation complex from which Shushtar derived its agricultural productivity, and which has been designated World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 2009. The arched superstructure carried across the important road between Pasargadae and the Sassanid capital Ctesiphon . Many times repaired in
4455-542: The Liberation of Ahvaz claimed credit for several of the bombings, including four bombs on 12 June 2005, that killed 8 people. Gunmen killed at least 29 people in an attack on a crowd watching a military parade on 22 September 2018. In order to connect more between east and west Ahvaz, several big bridges have been built on the Karun river , for this reason, Ahvaz has become known as the City of bridges , although since
4554-565: The Middle Ages, and is because of the lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The standard Persian of Iran has been called, apart from Persian and Farsi , by names such as Iranian Persian and Western Persian , exclusively. Officially, the official language of Iran is designated simply as Persian ( فارسی , fārsi ). The standard Persian of Afghanistan has been officially named Dari ( دری , dari ) since 1958. Also referred to as Afghan Persian in English, it
4653-543: The Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as Sultan Selim I , despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam . It was a major literary language in the empire. Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi 's Hasht Bihisht , which began in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah , a glorification of Selim I. After
4752-530: The Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods: 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 , dating to the time of King Darius I (reigned 522–486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey, and Egypt . Old Persian
4851-425: The Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in present-day Afghanistan. The first significant Persian poet was Rudaki . He flourished in the 10th century, when the Samanids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works are versified fables collected in
4950-401: The Persian model: Ottoman Turkish , Chagatai Turkic , Dobhashi Bengali , and Urdu, which are regarded as "structural daughter languages" of Persian. "Classical Persian" loosely refers to the standardized language of medieval Persia used in literature and poetry . This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language and lingua franca under
5049-886: The Perso-Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in Anatolia , the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages,
SECTION 50
#17327661572395148-428: The Sasanian Empire (224–651). However, it is not descended from the literary form of Middle Persian (known as pārsīk , commonly called Pahlavi), which was spoken by the people of Fars and used in Zoroastrian religious writings. Instead, it is descended from the dialect spoken by the court of the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and the northeastern Iranian region of Khorasan , known as Dari. The region, which comprised
5247-427: The Sassanids (who were Persians, i.e. from the southwest) from the preceding Arsacids (who were Parthians, i.e. from the northeast). While Ibn al-Muqaffa' (eighth century) still distinguished between Pahlavi (i.e. Parthian) and Persian (in Arabic text: al-Farisiyah) (i.e. Middle Persian), this distinction is not evident in Arab commentaries written after that date. "New Persian" (also referred to as Modern Persian)
5346-407: The Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum , took Persian language, art, and letters to Anatolia. They adopted the Persian language as the official language of the empire. The Ottomans , who can roughly be seen as their eventual successors, inherited this tradition. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire. The educated and noble class of
5445-437: The Subbi Kush neighborhood of Shushtar was home to a Mandaean community for centuries, although Mandaeans no longer lived there by the 21st century due to emigration. One of Shushtar's best-known Mandaean priests was Ram Zihrun . At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 94,124 in 21,511 households. The following census in 2011 counted 106,815 people in 26,639 households. The 2016 census measured
5544-441: The area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III . The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from the older word * pārćwa . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median , according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before
5643-400: The beginning of the 20th century, this city has always been known as the Oil Capital of Iran, along with other cities of Khuzestan province! There are 9 bridges over the Karun river. The Black Bridge, also known as the Victory Bridge, was the first modern bridge over the Karun River. The bridge was built during World War II and used to supply the Allies in the Soviet Union and had
5742-492: The city. It is one of the two navigable rivers in Iran, alongside the Arvand Rud . Ahvaz has a long history, dating back to the Achaemenid period . In ancient times, the city was one of the main centers of the Academy of Gondishapur . The original inhabitants of the Khuzestan province , the Khuzi, are the source of the name "Ahvaz". Later the name was changed to Hormazd-Ardašēr (Persian: هرمزداردشیر Hormozd ardeshir ) and it became abbreviated to Daravashir later, but as
5841-457: The code fas for the dialects spoken across Iran and Afghanistan. This consists of the individual languages Dari ( prs ) and Iranian Persian ( pes ). It uses tgk for Tajik, separately. In general, the Iranian languages are known from three periods: namely Old, Middle, and New (Modern). These correspond to three historical eras of Iranian history ; Old era being sometime around the Achaemenid Empire (i.e., 400–300 BC), Middle era being
5940-512: The collapse of the Sassanid state, Parsik came to be applied exclusively to (either Middle or New) Persian that was written in the Arabic script . From about the 9th century onward, as Middle Persian was on the threshold of becoming New Persian, the older form of the language came to be erroneously called Pahlavi , which was actually but one of the writing systems used to render both Middle Persian as well as various other Middle Iranian languages. That writing system had previously been adopted by
6039-437: The crypts of some houses. Under the caliphate, Shushtar was the capital of one of the seven kuwar (sub-provinces) that made up Khuzestan. Its kurah likely encompassed the eastern edge of the northern Khuzestan plain. Today, this area is inhabited by semi-nomadic people, and only lightly - which possibly explains why al-Maqdisi wrote that he "[knew] no towns" that were dependencies of Shushtar. Historically, Shushtar
SECTION 60
#17327661572396138-559: The early 20th century, the city suffered from unrest between its Haydari and Ne'mati factions. The typical Haydari-Ne'mati rivalry also took on a political dimension in Shushtar, since the Haydaris were pro-Arab and pro-monarchy while the Ne'matis were pro-Bakhtiyari and pro-constitutionalist. With the completion of the Trans-Persian Railway , Shushtar began to decline. The railway bypassed Shushtar in favor of Ahvaz, which took over Shushtar's commercial importance, and Shushtar's population decreased. The Band-e Kaisar (" Caesar's dam")
6237-411: The extension of agriculture; the cultivation of sugar cane, the main crop, dates back to 226. A system of subterranean channels called Ghanats , which connected the river to the private reservoirs of houses and buildings, supplied water for domestic use and irrigation, as well as to store and supply water during times of war when the main gates were closed. Traces of these ghanats can still be found in
6336-430: The extent of its influence on certain languages of the Indian subcontinent. Words borrowed from Persian are still quite commonly used in certain Indo-Aryan languages, especially Hindi - Urdu (also historically known as Hindustani ), Punjabi , Kashmiri , and Sindhi . There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious execution in Qajar Iran and speak
6435-423: The following phylogenetic classification: Shushtar Shushtar ( Persian : شوشتر ) is a city in the Central District of Shushtar County , Khuzestan province, Iran , serving as capital of both the county and the district. Shushtar is an ancient fortress city , approximately 92 kilometres (57 mi) from Ahvaz , the centre of the province. Much of its past agricultural productivity derives from
6534-444: The formation of many modern languages in West Asia, Europe, Central Asia , and South Asia . Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia , Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. For five centuries prior to
6633-421: The formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Xenophon , a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BCE, which is when Old Persian was still spoken and extensively used. He relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like
6732-423: The invaders. Most accounts say that the Iranian Arab inhabitants resisted the Iraqis rather than welcome them as liberators. However, some Iranian Arabs claim that as a minority they face discrimination from the central government ; they agitate for the right to preserve their cultural and linguistic distinction and more provincial autonomy. See Politics of Khūzestān . In 1989, the Foolad Ahvaz steel facility
6831-410: The language of the Persians. Related to Old Persian, but from a different branch of the Iranian language family, was Avestan , the language of the Zoroastrian liturgical texts. The complex grammatical conjugation and declension of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian developed
6930-421: The legendary king Hushang after he built Susa (aka Shush), and the name "Shushtar" was a comparative form meaning "more beautiful than Shush". Josef Marquart also interpreted the name Shushtar as being derived from Shush, but with a slightly different meaning, with the suffix "-tar" indicating a direction. The Arabic name of the city, Tustar , is an adaptation of the Persian form Shushtar. Shushtar may be
7029-432: The middle-period form only continuing in the texts of Zoroastrianism . Middle Persian is considered to be a later form of the same dialect as Old Persian. The native name of Middle Persian was Parsig or Parsik , after the name of the ethnic group of the southwest, that is, "of Pars ", Old Persian Parsa , New Persian Fars . This is the origin of the name Farsi as it is today used to signify New Persian. Following
7128-536: The most widely spoken. The term Persian is an English derivation of Latin Persiānus , the adjectival form of Persia , itself deriving from Greek Persís ( Περσίς ), a Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa ( 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 ), which means " Persia " (a region in southwestern Iran, corresponding to modern-day Fars ). According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the term Persian as
7227-466: The nationalist movement of the time. The academy was a key institution in the struggle to re-build Iran as a nation-state after the collapse of the Qajar dynasty. During the 1930s and 1940s, the academy led massive campaigns to replace the many Arabic , Russian , French , and Greek loanwords whose widespread use in Persian during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty had created
7326-499: The necessity of protecting the Persian language against foreign words, and to the standardization of Persian orthography , were under the reign of Naser ed Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty in 1871. After Naser ed Din Shah, Mozaffar ed Din Shah ordered the establishment of the first Persian association in 1903. This association officially declared that it used Persian and Arabic as acceptable sources for coining words. The ultimate goal
7425-414: The next period most officially around the Sasanian Empire , and New era being the period afterward down to present day. According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language" for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent one and the same language of Persian; that is, New Persian
7524-732: The northern part of Greece). Vardar Yenicesi differed from other localities in the Balkans insofar as that it was a town where Persian was also widely spoken. However, the Persian of Vardar Yenicesi and throughout the rest of the Ottoman-held Balkans was different from formal Persian both in accent and vocabulary. The difference was apparent to such a degree that the Ottomans referred to it as "Rumelian Persian" ( Rumili Farsisi ). As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became
7623-542: The official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give a good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash (along with Matai , presumably Medians) are first mentioned in
7722-625: The population of the city as 101,878 people in 28,373 households. The devoutness of Shushtar's people has led to it being nicknamed "Dar al-Mu'minin". Local tradition attributes certain customs to ancient Roman colonists, as well as the construction of the Band-e Kaisar and the introduction of brocade manufacturing technique. Shushtar has a hot semi-arid climate ( Köppen climate classification BSh ) with extremely hot summers and mild winters. Frost does occasionally occur at night during winter, but winters in Shushtar have no snow. Rainfall
7821-694: The present territories of northwestern Afghanistan as well as parts of Central Asia, played a leading role in the rise of New Persian. Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplanted Parthian language , which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use. New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including from eastern northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian
7920-399: The raised water table , in others to avoid taking cultivable land out of production." In the case of Shushtar, the highest ground would have been in the middle of the city, on top of the settlement mound formed by Parthian and Sasanian occupation. Al-Maqdisi also describes that Shushtar's mosque was located "in the middle of the markets in the cloth merchants' area." A second cloth market
8019-588: The region during the following centuries. Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in Punjab through the early 19th century serving finally as the official state language of the Sikh Empire , preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent. Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in
8118-602: The reign of Sultan Ghiyathuddin Azam Shah is described as the "golden age of Persian literature in Bengal". Its stature was illustrated by the Sultan's own correspondence and collaboration with the Persian poet Hafez ; a poem which can be found in the Divan of Hafez today. A Bengali dialect emerged among the common Bengali Muslim folk, based on a Persian model and known as Dobhashi ; meaning mixed language . Dobhashi Bengali
8217-613: The site of a flourishing Persianate linguistic and literary culture. The 16th-century Ottoman Aşık Çelebi (died 1572), who hailed from Prizren in modern-day Kosovo , was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian". Many Ottoman Persianists who established a career in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) pursued early Persian training in Saraybosna, amongst them Ahmed Sudi . The Persian language influenced
8316-573: The standard Persian of Tajikistan, has been officially designated as Tajik ( тоҷикӣ , tojikī ) since the time of the Soviet Union . It is the name given to the varieties of Persian spoken in Central Asia in general. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa for the Persian language, as its coding system is mostly based on the native-language designations. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses
8415-717: The standard Persian. The Hazaragi dialect (in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan), Herati (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Basseri (in Southern Iran), and the Tehrani accent (in Iran, the basis of standard Iranian Persian) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility . Nevertheless,
8514-461: The structure which exhibits typical Roman building techniques became the most eastern Roman bridge and Roman dam . Its dual-purpose design exerted a profound influence on Iranian civil engineering and was instrumental in developing Sassanid water management techniques. While the traditional account is disputable, it's not implausible that Roman prisoners of war were involved in its construction. The approximately 500 m long overflow dam over
8613-564: The summer period. However, in winters, the minimum temperature can fall to around 5 °C (41 °F). Winters in Ahvaz have no snow. The average annual rainfall is around 230 mm. On June 29, 2017, the temperature reached 54 °C (129 °F). Furthermore, the dew point peaked at 23 °C (73 °F) which is unusually humid for the usual dry heat. Despite the fact that it has never snowed in Ahvaz, it has fallen down to −7.0 °C (19.4 °F) before. (precipitation), (humidity), (days with precipitation), (sunshine) According to
8712-460: The surviving son of a deceased priest, went on to revive the Mandaean priesthood in Shushtar. Shushtar benefited from the Karun steamship service established in 1887. It was the farthest point upstream that the boats went, and goods had to be unloaded here and sent overland by caravan. It developed into the main commercial center in southwestern Iran, and by 1938 it had 28,000 residents. During
8811-485: The use of Farsi in foreign languages. Etymologically, the Persian term Farsi derives from its earlier form Pārsi ( Pārsik in Middle Persian ), which in turn comes from the same root as the English term Persian . In the same process, the Middle Persian toponym Pārs ("Persia") evolved into the modern name Fars. The phonemic shift from /p/ to /f/ is due to the influence of Arabic in
8910-597: Was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the Tahirid dynasty (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (860–903), and Samanid Empire (874–999). Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the New Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time. The first poems of
9009-513: Was always one of the most important textile-producing cities in Khuzestan. Authors throughout the Middle Ages consistently listed a diverse array of textile products manufactured at Shushtar. For example, al-Istakhri (writing c. 933) listed dibaj ( brocade ) and tiraz ; al-Maqdisi (writing c. 1000) listed dibaj , anmat (carpets), cotton, and Merv -style clothes; and Hafiz-i Abru (writing c. 1430) recorded dibaj , tiraz , and harir ( silk ). Shushtar's commercial importance
9108-472: Was built close to the town. This company is best known for its company-sponsored football club, Foolad F.C. , which was the champion of Iran's Premier Football League in 2005. In 2005 the city witnessed a series of bomb explosions . Many government sources relate these events to developments in Iraq, accusing foreign governments of organizing and funding Arab separatist groups. The Arab Struggle Movement for
9207-409: Was located by the city gate. The cloth fullers ' area was located by the bridge, which was nearby. Al-Maqdisi described Shushtar as being surrounded by orchards including date palms , grapes, and citrons . An alternate manuscript also lists "fine pomegranates" and "superior pears". Ibn Battuta visited, noting "On both banks of the river, there are orchards and water-wheels, the river itself
9306-459: Was no more than a small borough inhabited mainly by Sabeans (1,500 to 2,000 inhabitants according to Ainsworth in 1835; 700 according to Curzon in 1890)." In the 1880s, under Qajar rule, the Karun River was dredged and re-opened to commerce. A newly built railway crossed the Karun at Ahvaz. The city again became a commercial crossroads, linking river and rail traffic. The construction of
9405-597: Was patronised and given official status under the Sultans of Bengal , and was a popular literary form used by Bengalis during the pre-colonial period, irrespective of their religion. Following the defeat of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under Ghaznavid rule over the northwestern frontier of the subcontinent . Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in
9504-506: Was recognized by Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar as hereditary ruler of Mohammerah , Sardar Asad Bakhtiari as the most powerful leader of Khuzestan's Bakhtiaries . He had power and authority over most regions of Khuzestan, such as Dezful, Shushtar, Izeh, even Ahvaz and Amir mojahede bakhtiari in Ramhormoz and Behbahan. At this time, the newly founded Ahvaz was named Nâseri in honour to its founder Nassereddin Shah Qajar. Afterwards, during
9603-525: Was recognized by its being chosen to produce the Kiswah (the embroidered covering for the Kaaba ) in 933 — a major honor with political importance. According to al-Maqdisi's account, there was a cemetery right in the middle of Shushtar. Nanette Marie Pyne says that this is "not as unusual a phenomenon as it sounds: cemeteries in this part of Iran are often placed on the highest ground, in some places to avoid
9702-613: Was taught in state schools, and was also offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas . Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held Balkans ( Rumelia ), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mostar (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now Giannitsa , in
9801-492: Was to prevent books from being printed with wrong use of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully printed books. Words coined by this association, such as rāh-āhan ( راهآهن ) for "railway", were printed in Soltani Newspaper ; but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in
#238761