128-401: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī ( Persian : عبدالرحمن الصوفی ; 7 December 903 – 25 May 986) was a Persian Muslim astronomer . His work Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib (" The Book of Fixed Stars "), written in 964, included both textual descriptions and illustrations. The Persian polymath Al-Biruni wrote that al-Ṣūfī's work on the ecliptic was carried out in Shiraz . Al-Ṣūfī lived at
256-401: A water clock , gnomon , shadows, and intercalations . The Babylonian GU text arranges stars in 'strings' that lie along declination circles and thus measure right-ascensions or time-intervals, and also employs the stars of the zenith, which are also separated by given right-ascensional differences. A significant increase in the quality and frequency of Babylonian observations appeared during
384-655: 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
512-614: A computational system based on a planetary model in which the Earth was taken to be spinning on its axis and the periods of the planets were given with respect to the Sun. He accurately calculated many astronomical constants, such as the periods of the planets, times of the solar and lunar eclipses , and the instantaneous motion of the Moon. Early followers of Aryabhata's model included Varāhamihira , Brahmagupta , and Bhāskara II . Astronomy
640-442: A detailed description of the temporary star. In the late 10th century, a huge observatory was built near Tehran , Iran , by the astronomer Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi who observed a series of meridian transits of the Sun, which allowed him to calculate the tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the Sun. He noted that measurements by earlier (Indian, then Greek) astronomers had found higher values for this angle, possible evidence that
768-418: 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
896-505: 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
1024-551: A lasting effect on astronomy up to the Renaissance . In his Planetary Hypotheses , Ptolemy ventured into the realm of cosmology, developing a physical model of his geometric system, in a universe many times smaller than the more realistic conception of Aristarchus of Samos four centuries earlier. The precise orientation of the Egyptian pyramids affords a lasting demonstration of the high degree of technical skill in watching
1152-696: A latitude of 32.7N° in Isfahan. It has been claimed that he identified the Large Magellanic Cloud , but this seems to be a misunderstanding of a reference to some stars south of Canopus which he admits he has not seen. He also made the earliest recorded observation of the Andromeda Galaxy in 964, describing it as a "small cloud". This was the first galaxy other than the Milky Way to be mentioned in writing. Al-Ṣūfī also wrote about
1280-417: 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
1408-458: A method by which monks could determine the time of prayer at night by watching the stars. In the 7th century the English monk Bede of Jarrow published an influential text, On the Reckoning of Time , providing churchmen with the practical astronomical knowledge needed to compute the proper date of Easter using a procedure called the computus . This text remained an important element of
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#17327907827451536-536: 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
1664-489: A precise description of the eclipses as depicted in the Dresden Codex , as well as the ecliptic or zodiac, and the Milky Way was crucial in their Cosmology. A number of important Maya structures are believed to have been oriented toward the extreme risings and settings of Venus. To the ancient Maya, Venus was the patron of war and many recorded battles are believed to have been timed to the motions of this planet. Mars
1792-520: A sophisticated knowledge of mathematics and astronomy. Among the discoveries are: The origins of astronomy can be found in Mesopotamia , the "land between the rivers" Tigris and Euphrates , where the ancient kingdoms of Sumer , Assyria , and Babylonia were located. A form of writing known as cuneiform emerged among the Sumerians around 3500–3000 BC. Our knowledge of Sumerian astronomy
1920-599: 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
2048-542: Is Tablet 63 of the Enūma Anu Enlil , the Venus tablet of Ammi-saduqa , which lists the first and last visible risings of Venus over a period of about 21 years and is the earliest evidence that the phenomena of a planet were recognized as periodic. The MUL.APIN , contains catalogues of stars and constellations as well as schemes for predicting heliacal risings and the settings of the planets, lengths of daylight measured by
2176-615: 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
2304-664: 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
2432-628: 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
2560-578: Is also mentioned in preserved astronomical codices and early mythology . Although the Maya calendar was not tied to the Sun, John Teeple has proposed that the Maya calculated the solar year to somewhat greater accuracy than the Gregorian calendar . Both astronomy and an intricate numerological scheme for the measurement of time were vitally important components of Maya religion . The Maya believed that
2688-850: 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
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#17327907827452816-675: 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
2944-674: Is available in two recensions, one belonging to the Rig Veda, and the other to the Yajur Veda. According to the Vedanga Jyotisha, in a yuga or "era", there are 5 solar years, 67 lunar sidereal cycles, 1,830 days, 1,835 sidereal days and 62 synodic months. During the 6th century, astronomy was influenced by the Greek and Byzantine astronomical traditions. Aryabhata (476–550), in his magnum opus Aryabhatiya (499), propounded
3072-425: 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
3200-403: Is generally believed that the first astronomers were priests , and that they understood celestial objects and events to be manifestations of the divine , hence early astronomy's connection to what is now called astrology . A 32,500-year-old carved ivory mammoth tusk could contain the oldest known star chart (resembling the constellation Orion ). It has also been suggested that drawings on
3328-654: Is indirect, via the earliest Babylonian star catalogues dating from about 1200 BC. The fact that many star names appear in Sumerian suggests a continuity reaching into the Early Bronze Age. Astral theology , which gave planetary gods an important role in Mesopotamian mythology and religion , began with the Sumerians . They also used a sexagesimal (base 60) place-value number system, which simplified
3456-460: 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
3584-475: 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 ),
3712-585: 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
3840-495: 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
3968-491: 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
Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi - Misplaced Pages Continue
4096-506: 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
4224-458: The Andromeda Galaxy . He mentions it as lying before the mouth of a Big Fish, an Arabic constellation . This "cloud" was apparently commonly known to the Isfahan astronomers, very probably before 905 AD. The first recorded mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud was also given by al-Sufi. In 1006, Ali ibn Ridwan observed SN 1006 , the brightest supernova in recorded history, and left
4352-469: The Babylonians around 1000 BCE. There is also astronomical evidence of interest from early Chinese, Central American and North European cultures. Astronomy was used by early cultures for a variety of reasons. These include timekeeping, navigation , spiritual and religious practices, and agricultural planning. Ancient astronomers used their observations to chart the skies in an effort to learn about
4480-529: The Berlin Museum ; a short handle from which a plumb line was hung, and a palm branch with a sight-slit in the broader end. The latter was held close to the eye, the former in the other hand, perhaps at arm's length. The "Hermetic" books which Clement refers to are the Egyptian theological texts, which probably have nothing to do with Hellenistic Hermetism . From the tables of stars on the ceiling of
4608-668: 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
4736-705: The Buyid court in Isfahan . ʿAbd al-Rahmān al-Ṣūfī (full name: Abū’l-Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUmar ibn Sahl al-Ṣūfī al-Rāzī) was one of the nine famous Muslim astronomers. He lived at the court of Emir 'Adud al-Dawla in Isfahan , and worked on translating and expanding ancient Greek astronomical works , especially the Almagest of Ptolemy . He made corrections to Ptolemy's star list, and his estimations of star brightness and magnitude deviated from those by Ptolemy; just over half of al-Ṣūfī's magnitudes being identical to Ptolemy's. A Persian, al-Ṣūfī wrote in Arabic ,
4864-496: The Hermetic astrological books, which are four in number. Of these, one is about the arrangement of the fixed stars that are visible; one on the positions of the Sun and Moon and five planets; one on the conjunctions and phases of the Sun and Moon; and one concerns their risings. The Astrologer's instruments ( horologium and palm ) are a plumb line and sighting instrument . They have been identified with two inscribed objects in
4992-567: The National Archaeological Museum of Athens , accompanied by a replica. Depending on the historian's viewpoint, the acme or corruption of Classical physical astronomy is seen with Ptolemy , a Greco-Roman astronomer from Alexandria of Egypt, who wrote the classic comprehensive presentation of geocentric astronomy, the Megale Syntaxis (Great Synthesis), better known by its Arabic title Almagest , which had
5120-674: 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
5248-713: 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
Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi - Misplaced Pages Continue
5376-431: The astrolabe , finding numerous additional uses for it: According to American Near Eastern scholar Adam L. Bean, Al-Ṣūfī's work reportedly described over 1000 different uses in areas as diverse as astronomy , astrology, horoscopes , navigation , surveying , timekeeping , Qibla and Salat prayer. Al-Ṣūfī published Kitāb ṣuwar al-kawākib (" The Book of Fixed Stars ") in 964, and dedicated it to Adud al-Dawla,
5504-525: The ecliptic . Scribal errors within the 35 surviving copies of The Book of Fixed Stars have caused the value of the magnitude for a particular star to vary from manuscript to manuscript. Al-Ṣūfī organized the stars in each of his drawings into two groups: those that form the image depicted, and others that are in close proximity to the image. He identified and described stars not included by Ptolemy, but he did not include them in his own star charts. Stating that his charts were modelled after Ptolemy, he left
5632-491: 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
5760-651: The fixed stars . They were the first to record a supernova, in the Astrological Annals of the Houhanshu in 185 AD. Also, the supernova that created the Crab Nebula in 1054 is an example of a "guest star" observed by Chinese astronomers, although it was not recorded by their European contemporaries. Ancient astronomical records of phenomena like supernovae and comets are sometimes used in modern astronomical studies. The world's first star catalogue
5888-595: The lingua franca of the scientific Muslim world. Al-Ṣūfī was a major contributor to the translation into Arabic of the Hellenistic astronomy that had been centered in Alexandria , Egypt . His was the first to attempt to relate the Greek with the traditional Arabic star names and constellations , which were completely unrelated and overlapped in complicated ways. Al-Ṣūfī made his astronomical observations at
6016-597: 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 ,
6144-439: The 10th century, Albumasar's "Introduction" was one of the most important sources for the recovery of Aristotle for medieval European scholars. Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (Azophi) carried out observations on the stars and described their positions, magnitudes , brightness, and colour and drawings for each constellation in his Book of Fixed Stars . He also gave the first descriptions and pictures of "A Little Cloud" now known as
6272-578: The 16th century. Nilakantha Somayaji, in his Aryabhatiyabhasya , a commentary on Aryabhata's Aryabhatiya , developed his own computational system for a partially heliocentric planetary model, in which Mercury, Venus, Mars , Jupiter and Saturn orbit the Sun , which in turn orbits the Earth , similar to the Tychonic system later proposed by Tycho Brahe in the late 16th century. Nilakantha's system, however,
6400-681: 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
6528-571: The Earth was the center of all things, and that the stars, moons, and planets were gods. They believed that their movements were the gods traveling between the Earth and other celestial destinations. Many key events in Maya culture were timed around celestial events, in the belief that certain gods would be present. The Arabic and the Persian world under Islam had become highly cultured, and many important works of knowledge from Greek astronomy and Indian astronomy and Persian astronomy were translated into Arabic, used and stored in libraries throughout
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#17327907827456656-415: The Earth. This basic cosmological model prevailed, in various forms, until the 16th century. In the 3rd century BC Aristarchus of Samos was the first to suggest a heliocentric system, although only fragmentary descriptions of his idea survive. Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the Earth with great accuracy (see also: history of geodesy ). Greek geometrical astronomy developed away from
6784-565: 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
6912-543: 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
7040-459: 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
7168-425: 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
7296-401: 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
7424-487: 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,
7552-414: The Roman era through the 12th century. This lack of progress has led some astronomers to assert that nothing happened in Western European astronomy during the Middle Ages. Recent investigations, however, have revealed a more complex picture of the study and teaching of astronomy in the period from the 4th to the 16th centuries. Western Europe entered the Middle Ages with great difficulties that affected
7680-428: 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
7808-427: 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)
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#17327907827457936-407: 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
8064-413: The Sun and Moon (marking the day , month and year ), and were important to agricultural societies, in which the harvest depended on planting at the correct time of year, and for which the nearly full moon was the only lighting for night-time travel into city markets. The common modern calendar is based on the Roman calendar . Although originally a lunar calendar , it broke the traditional link of
8192-523: The apparent motion of the planets were developed in the 4th century BC by Eudoxus of Cnidus and Callippus of Cyzicus . Their models were based on nested homocentric spheres centered upon the Earth. Their younger contemporary Heraclides Ponticus proposed that the Earth rotates around its axis. A different approach to celestial phenomena was taken by natural philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle . They were less concerned with developing mathematical predictive models than with developing an explanation of
8320-419: The application of mathematics to their prediction is Babylonian. Tablets dating back to the Old Babylonian period document the application of mathematics to the variation in the length of daylight over a solar year. Centuries of Babylonian observations of celestial phenomena are recorded in the series of cuneiform tablets known as the Enūma Anu Enlil . The oldest significant astronomical text that we possess
8448-441: 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
8576-566: The area. An important contribution by Islamic astronomers was their emphasis on observational astronomy . This led to the emergence of the first astronomical observatories in the Muslim world by the early 9th century. Zij star catalogues were produced at these observatories. In the 9th century, Persian astrologer Albumasar was thought to be one of the greatest astrologer at that time. His practical manuals for training astrologers profoundly influenced Muslim intellectual history and, through translations, that of western Europe and Byzantium In
8704-406: The axial tilt is not constant but was in fact decreasing. In 11th-century Persia, Omar Khayyám compiled many tables and performed a reformation of the calendar that was more accurate than the Julian and came close to the Gregorian . Other Muslim advances in astronomy included the collection and correction of previous astronomical data, resolving significant problems in the Ptolemaic model ,
8832-413: The beginning of the inundation was a particularly important point to fix in the yearly calendar. Writing in the Roman era , Clement of Alexandria gives some idea of the importance of astronomical observations to the sacred rites: And after the Singer advances the Astrologer (ὡροσκόπος), with a horologium (ὡρολόγιον) in his hand, and a palm (φοίνιξ), the symbols of astrology . He must know by heart
8960-457: 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
9088-512: 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
9216-620: The continent's intellectual production. The advanced astronomical treatises of classical antiquity were written in Greek , and with the decline of knowledge of that language, only simplified summaries and practical texts were available for study. The most influential writers to pass on this ancient tradition in Latin were Macrobius , Pliny , Martianus Capella , and Calcidius . In the 6th century Bishop Gregory of Tours noted that he had learned his astronomy from reading Martianus Capella, and went on to employ this rudimentary astronomy to describe
9344-605: The development of Babylonian astronomy took place during the time of the Seleucid Empire (323–60 BC). In the 3rd century BC, astronomers began to use "goal-year texts" to predict the motions of the planets. These texts compiled records of past observations to find repeating occurrences of ominous phenomena for each planet. About the same time, or shortly afterwards, astronomers created mathematical models that allowed them to predict these phenomena directly, without consulting records. A notable Babylonian astronomer from this time
9472-499: The development of the universal latitude-independent astrolabe by Arzachel , the invention of numerous other astronomical instruments, Ja'far Muhammad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir 's belief that the heavenly bodies and celestial spheres were subject to the same physical laws as Earth , and the introduction of empirical testing by Ibn al-Shatir , who produced the first model of lunar motion which matched physical observations. Natural philosophy (particularly Aristotelian physics )
9600-461: The education of clergy from the 7th century until well after the rise of the Universities in the 12th century . The range of surviving ancient Roman writings on astronomy and the teachings of Bede and his followers began to be studied in earnest during the revival of learning sponsored by the emperor Charlemagne . By the 9th century rudimentary techniques for calculating the position of
9728-652: 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
9856-399: The first measurement of precession and the compilation of the first star catalog in which he proposed our modern system of apparent magnitudes . The Antikythera mechanism , an ancient Greek astronomical observational device for calculating the movements of the Sun and the Moon, possibly the planets, dates from about 150–100 BC, and was the first ancestor of an astronomical computer . It
9984-455: The flooding of the Nile. It is also the origin of the phrase 'dog days of summer'. Astronomy played a considerable part in religious matters for fixing the dates of festivals and determining the hours of the night . The titles of several temple books are preserved recording the movements and phases of the Sun , Moon and stars . The rising of Sirius ( Egyptian : Sopdet, Greek : Sothis) at
10112-545: The following phylogenetic classification: History of astronomy The history of astronomy focuses on the contributions civilizations have made to further their understanding of the universe beyond earth's atmosphere. Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences , achieving a high level of success in the second half of the first millennium. Astronomy has origins in the religious , mythological , cosmological , calendrical, and astrological beliefs and practices of prehistory. Early astronomical records date back to
10240-577: 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
10368-476: 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
10496-531: The heavens attained in the 3rd millennium BC. It has been shown the Pyramids were aligned towards the pole star , which, because of the precession of the equinoxes , was at that time Thuban , a faint star in the constellation of Draco . Evaluation of the site of the temple of Amun-Re at Karnak , taking into account the change over time of the obliquity of the ecliptic , has shown that the Great Temple
10624-466: 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
10752-432: 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
10880-404: The model of concentric spheres to employ more complex models in which an eccentric circle would carry around a smaller circle, called an epicycle which in turn carried around a planet. The first such model is attributed to Apollonius of Perga and further developments in it were carried out in the 2nd century BC by Hipparchus of Nicea . Hipparchus made a number of other contributions, including
11008-598: The month to the phases of the Moon and divided the year into twelve almost-equal months, that mostly alternated between thirty and thirty-one days. Julius Caesar instigated calendar reform in 46 BC and introduced what is now called the Julian calendar , based upon the 365 + 1 ⁄ 4 day year length originally proposed by the 4th century BC Greek astronomer Callippus . Ancient astronomical artifacts have been found throughout Europe . The artifacts demonstrate that Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans had
11136-536: 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
11264-466: 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
11392-499: 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
11520-414: 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
11648-732: 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
11776-542: 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
11904-430: The perspective of looking at the sky while standing on the Earth. He separated them into three groups; 21 seen from the north, 15 seen from the south, and the 12 zodiac constellations. He included a complete set of star charts , that included the names and numbers of the individual stars in each of the 48 constellations, and each star's longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates , magnitude , and location north or south of
12032-459: The planets). He also calculated the time taken for the Earth to orbit the Sun to 9 decimal places. The Buddhist University of Nalanda at the time offered formal courses in astronomical studies. Other important astronomers from India include Madhava of Sangamagrama , Nilakantha Somayaji and Jyeshtadeva , who were members of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics from the 14th century to
12160-437: The precision of his measurements. His methodology for determining these magnitude measurements cannot be found in any of his extant texts. Despite the importance of The Book of Fixed Stars in the history of astronomy , it took more than 1000 years until the first partial English translation of the book was published in 2010. Al-Ṣūfī's astronomical work was subsequently used by many other astronomers, including Ulugh Beg who
12288-694: 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
12416-467: The reasons for the motions of the Cosmos. In his Timaeus , Plato described the universe as a spherical body divided into circles carrying the planets and governed according to harmonic intervals by a world soul . Aristotle, drawing on the mathematical model of Eudoxus, proposed that the universe was made of a complex system of concentric spheres , whose circular motions combined to carry the planets around
12544-647: 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
12672-477: The reign of Nabonassar (747–733 BC). The systematic records of ominous phenomena in Babylonian astronomical diaries that began at this time allowed for the discovery of a repeating 18-year cycle of lunar eclipses , for example. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy later used Nabonassar's reign to fix the beginning of an era, since he felt that the earliest usable observations began at this time. The last stages in
12800-602: 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
12928-463: The ruler of Buwayhid at the time. This book describes 48 constellations and the stars within them. Al-Ṣūfī compared Greek constellations and stars as described in Ptolemy ’s Almagest with Arabic ones, linking those that were the same. He included two illustrations of each constellation, one showing the orientation of the stars from the perspective outside the celestial globe , and the other from
13056-613: 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
13184-573: 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
13312-777: 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,
13440-552: The stars excluded in Ptolemy's catalogue out of his charts as well. To allow for the longitudinal placement of the stars within constellations having changed over the eight centuries since the Almagest was written, Al-Ṣūfī added 12° 42' to all the longitudes values provided by Ptolemy. Al-Ṣūfī differed from Ptolemy by having a three level scale to measure the magnitude of stars instead of a two level scale. This extra level increased
13568-528: The task of recording very large and very small numbers. The modern practice of dividing a circle into 360 degrees , or an hour into 60 minutes, began with the Sumerians. For more information, see the articles on Babylonian numerals and mathematics . Classical sources frequently use the term Chaldeans for the astronomers of Mesopotamia, who were, in reality, priest-scribes specializing in astrology and other forms of divination . The first evidence of recognition that astronomical phenomena are periodic and of
13696-465: The time is given in the tables as in the centre, on the left eye, on the right shoulder, etc. According to the texts, in founding or rebuilding temples the north axis was determined by the same apparatus, and we may conclude that it was the usual one for astronomical observations. In careful hands it might give results of a high degree of accuracy. The astronomy of East Asia began in China . Solar term
13824-463: The tombs of Rameses VI and Rameses IX it seems that for fixing the hours of the night a man seated on the ground faced the Astrologer in such a position that the line of observation of the pole star passed over the middle of his head. On the different days of the year each hour was determined by a fixed star culminating or nearly culminating in it, and the position of these stars at
13952-485: 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
14080-693: The wall of the Lascaux caves in France dating from 33,000 to 10,000 years ago could be a graphical representation of the Pleiades , the Summer Triangle , and the Northern Crown . Ancient structures with possibly astronomical alignments (such as Stonehenge ) probably fulfilled astronomical, religious , and social functions . Calendars of the world have often been set by observations of
14208-568: The workings of the universe. During the Renaissance Period, revolutionary ideas emerged about astronomy. One such idea was contributed in 1593 by Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus , who developed a heliocentric model that depicted the planets orbiting the sun. This was the start of the Copernican Revolution . The success of astronomy, compared to other sciences, was achieved because of several reasons. Astronomy
14336-738: Was Seleucus of Seleucia , who was a supporter of the heliocentric model . Babylonian astronomy was the basis for much of what was done in Greek and Hellenistic astronomy , in classical Indian astronomy , in Sassanian Iran, in Byzantium, in Syria, in Islamic astronomy , in Central Asia, and in Western Europe. Astronomy in the Indian subcontinent dates back to the period of Indus Valley Civilisation during 3rd millennium BC, when it
14464-511: Was advanced during the Shunga Empire and many star catalogues were produced during this time. The Shunga period is known as the "Golden age of astronomy in India". It saw the development of calculations for the motions and places of various planets, their rising and setting, conjunctions , and the calculation of eclipses. Indian astronomers by the 6th century believed that comets were celestial bodies that re-appeared periodically. This
14592-428: Was aligned on the rising of the midwinter Sun. The length of the corridor down which sunlight would travel would have limited illumination at other times of the year. The Egyptians also found the position of Sirius (the dog star) who they believed was Anubis, their Jackal headed god, moving through the heavens. Its position was critical to their civilisation as when it rose heliacal in the east before sunrise it foretold
14720-597: 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
14848-871: Was both a prince and astronomer. The lunar crater Azophi and the minor planet 12621 Alsufi are named after Al-Ṣūfī. The Astronomy Society of Iran – Amateur Committee has held international Sufi Observing Competitions in memory of the astronomer. The first competition was held in 2006 in the north of Semnan Province, and the second was held in the summer of 2008 in Ladiz near the Zahedan . More than 100 attendees from Iran and Iraq participated in these events. Google Doodle commemorated Al-Ṣūfī's 1113th birthday on 7 December, 2016. Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ),
14976-528: Was completed in Warring States period . The knowledge of Chinese astronomy was introduced into East Asia. Astronomy in China has a long history. Detailed records of astronomical observations were kept from about the 6th century BC, until the introduction of Western astronomy and the telescope in the 17th century. Chinese astronomers were able to precisely predict eclipses. Much of early Chinese astronomy
15104-452: Was discovered in an ancient shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera , between Kythera and Crete . The device became famous for its use of a differential gear , previously believed to have been invented in the 16th century, and the miniaturization and complexity of its parts, comparable to a clock made in the 18th century. The original mechanism is displayed in the Bronze collection of
15232-445: Was for the purpose of timekeeping. The Chinese used a lunisolar calendar, but because the cycles of the Sun and the Moon are different, astronomers often prepared new calendars and made observations for that purpose. Astrological divination was also an important part of astronomy. Astronomers took careful note of "guest stars" ( Chinese : 客星 ; pinyin : kèxīng ; lit. 'guest star') which suddenly appeared among
15360-486: Was made by Gan De , a Chinese astronomer , in the 4th century BC. Maya astronomical codices include detailed tables for calculating phases of the Moon , the recurrence of eclipses, and the appearance and disappearance of Venus as morning and evening star . The Maya based their calendrics in the carefully calculated cycles of the Pleiades , the Sun , the Moon , Venus , Jupiter , Saturn , Mars , and also they had
15488-491: Was mathematically more efficient than the Tychonic system, due to correctly taking into account the equation of the centre and latitudinal motion of Mercury and Venus. Most astronomers of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics who followed him accepted his planetary model. After the significant contributions of Greek scholars to the development of astronomy, it entered a relatively static era in Western Europe from
15616-597: 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
15744-474: Was separated from astronomy by Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) in the 11th century, by Ibn al-Shatir in the 14th century, and Qushji in the 15th century. Bhāskara II (1114–1185) was the head of the astronomical observatory at Ujjain, continuing the mathematical tradition of Brahmagupta. He wrote the Siddhantasiromani which consists of two parts: Goladhyaya (sphere) and Grahaganita (mathematics of
15872-613: 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
16000-560: Was the first science to have a mathematical foundation and have sophisticated procedures such as using armillary spheres and quadrants. This provided a solid base for collecting and verifying data. Throughout the years, astronomy has broadened into multiple subfields such as astrophysics , observational astronomy , theoretical astronomy , and astrobiology . Early cultures identified celestial objects with gods and spirits. They related these objects (and their movements) to phenomena such as rain , drought , seasons , and tides . It
16128-474: Was the view expressed in the 6th century by the astronomers Varahamihira and Bhadrabahu, and the 10th-century astronomer Bhattotpala listed the names and estimated periods of certain comets, but it is unfortunately not known how these figures were calculated or how accurate they were. The Ancient Greeks developed astronomy, which they treated as a branch of mathematics, to a highly sophisticated level. The first geometrical, three-dimensional models to explain
16256-492: 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
16384-586: Was used to create calendars. As the Indus Valley civilization did not leave behind written documents, the oldest extant Indian astronomical text is the Vedanga Jyotisha , dating from the Vedic period . The Vedanga Jyotisha is attributed to Lagadha and has an internal date of approximately 1350 BC, and describes rules for tracking the motions of the Sun and the Moon for the purposes of ritual. It
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