104-571: The Islamic Republic of Iran Army Ground Forces ( Persian : نیروی زمینی ارتش جمهوری اسلامی ایران , Niru-yē Zamini-yē Artēš-ē Žomhūri-yē Ēslâmi-yē Irân ), acronymed NEZAJA ( Persian : نزاجا , NEZEJA) are the ground forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army . In Iran, it is also called Artesh, ( ارتش ) which is Persian for "army." In 2007, the regular Iranian Army was estimated to have 357,000 personnel (167,000 conscripts and 190,000 professionals) plus around 350,000 reservists for
208-572: A "coastal force." The war finally ended in 1988. A new cadre of commanders, shaped by their experiences in the war, drastically reduced reliance on foreign supplied equipment and training. Following the war the military pursued a dramatic restructuring, much of it under total secrecy. While still only a mere shadow of its pre-revolutionary self, the Artesh rapidly re-asserted its abilities and started to grow again. The IISS determined that at some point between 1992 and 1995 an additional army headquarters
312-655: 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
416-627: A brigade of the army's 6th Division. In August 1941 the Soviets and British launched the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran , which began on 25 August and lasted until 17 September. London and Moscow had insisted that the Shah expel Iran's large German population and allow shipments of war supplies to cross the country en route to the Soviet Union. Both of these proved unacceptable to Reza Shah; he
520-418: 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
624-400: A division-centered model towards a brigade-centered model, a re-positioning of Army bases, the adding of new units and an increase in mobility of existing army units. To that effect, it has sheered off some brigades from existing divisions as well as establishing new brigades alongside of them. By March 2012 31 new independent brigades have been established throughout the army. The commander of
728-505: 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
832-417: 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
936-549: A military mission to advise in the reorganisation effort. With American advice, emphasis was placed on quality rather than quantity. The small but more confident army that resulted from American training was capable enough to participate in the 1946 campaign in Azarbaijan to put down a Soviet-inspired, separatist rebellion. During the three years of occupation, Stalin had expanded Soviet political influence in Azerbaijan and
1040-536: 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
1144-599: 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
SECTION 10
#17327657627601248-548: A strong army. Many members of the parliament feared that the army would once again be used as a source of political power. To curtail the shah's potential domination of the country, they limited his military budgets. From the 1966-67 edition to the 1969-70 edition, the IISS Military Balance listed the Iranian Army with one armoured division, seven infantry divisions, and one independent armoured brigade. By
1352-650: A total of 700,000 soldiers according to the CSIS . It is the 9th largest ground force in the world, the 9th largest armoured force globally and possesses the biggest Army Aviation fleet in the Middle East . Conscripts serve for 21 months and have professional military training. Iran has two parallel land forces with some integration at the command level: the regular Artesh (Army), and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps , also known as
1456-615: 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
1560-664: 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
1664-628: 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
1768-850: 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
1872-675: 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
1976-425: 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
2080-432: Is in the public domain . Country Studies . Federal Research Division . [REDACTED] Ground Force [REDACTED] Air Defense Force [REDACTED] Air Force [REDACTED] Navy Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ),
2184-460: 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
SECTION 20
#17327657627602288-475: 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 ),
2392-585: 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
2496-424: Is outdated or obsolete. They primarily use outdated Western-style equipment or newer, locally produced equipment, which is lower quality. Commanders generally appoint men to high level positions based on loyalty, rather than military skills. Since 2010 Iranian Army has undergone a reorganization process called Thamen alaeme general structure plan (طرح جامع ساختاری ثامن الائمه), this plan includes transformation from
2600-495: 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
2704-491: 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
2808-506: 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
2912-605: The Sepâh (IRGC). A national army of sorts has existed in Iran since the establishment of the Persian Empire . National armies usually appeared throughout the country's points of strength, while in times of weakness mercenaries and conscript armies were recruited temporarily from fiefdoms. The original core of full-time troops and imperial body guards were called the Immortals , these were established in 580 BC by Cyrus
3016-469: The 23rd Special Forces Division , established in 1993–94, and the 55th Paratroop Division . Jane's Sentinel Security Assessments reports that the 23rd Special Forces Division is amongst the most professional formations in the Iranian Army, with at least 6,000 personnel, all of whom are believed to be regulars. The regular armoured divisions, including the 92nd Armored Division , are sub-divided into three brigades. Globalsecurity.org says on its page on
3120-739: The 77th Infantry Division at Mashad ; two infantry brigades (the 64th at Mahabad and the 84th at Khorramabad), the 55th Airborne Brigade at Shiraz and the Special Forces Brigade HQ in Tehran. Immediately after the 1979 revolution a series of purges gutted the core of the army's Western trained senior commanders. These included numerous executions ordered by Sadegh Khalkhali , the new Revolutionary Court judge. Between February and September 1979, Iran's government executed 85 senior generals and forced all major-generals and most brigadier-generals into early retirement. By September 1980,
3224-668: 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
Islamic Republic of Iran Army Ground Forces - Misplaced Pages Continue
3328-651: The Panha 2091 , which is an unlicensed, locally-made upgrade of the AH-1J. The main transport helicopter of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army is the CH-47C Chinook . The number of CH-47Cs in service was estimated as 20 though 57 were delivered before the 1979 Iranian Revolution . Islamic Republic of Iran Army lost one of them in 2011. [REDACTED] This article incorporates text from this source, which
3432-674: 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
3536-713: 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
3640-491: 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
3744-597: 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 ,
3848-486: The 'army's sixteen divisions were spread across the country in their home garrisons, and only some of the western divisions had received any significant reinforcements of infantry and artillery. Maj. Gen. Hassan Mogaddam, the 5th Division commander, was put in charge of all western forces." The defence of the Khorramshahr-Ahvaz area was put under the navy's Rear Admiral Gholamali Bayandor , with his sailors plus
3952-744: The 1970s ..the Imperial Iranian Ground Forces was undergoing a rapid increase in strength; that year [sic] it was a largely mechanized and armoured force of about 220,000. In late 1977 its former organization into three army corps, with headquarters in Kermanshah , Tehran , and Shiraz , was dropped; divisional commanders subsequently reported directly to the army commander. The army contained three armoured divisions, each with six tank battalions and five mechanised infantry battalions; four infantry divisions; four independent brigades (two infantry, one airborne and 1 special force); and
4056-539: The 1970s the Imperial Iranian Ground Forces, as they were then known, underwent a rapid transformation and increase in strength. During this period, Iran established the " Imperial Iranian Army Aviation " (IIAA). It was mainly equipped with American aircraft types. In the early 1970s the Sultan of Oman was fighting the Dhofar Rebellion with British support. As a result of Sultan Qaboos's diplomatic initiatives,
4160-437: The 1971-72 edition, two armoured divisions, five infantry divisions, the independent armoured brigade, and other independent brigades were listed. Within two years after that, the listing quickly changed to three armoured divisions and three infantry divisions. Dramatic reforms brought in a host of western advisors and over the course of more than three decades the army was to become the world's fifth strongest by 1979. Throughout
4264-662: The 24,400 troops in these four, separate, military units made up one of the weakest forces in Iranian history." After the First World War, the army had shrunk, but not much on paper, ostentiably numbering 25,000 in total. By 1920 it consisted of the Persian Cossacks; the Gendarmerie, expanded from two regiments that had stayed loyal; and the South Persia Rifles and the regular army, reduced to
Islamic Republic of Iran Army Ground Forces - Misplaced Pages Continue
4368-598: The Army Aviation Command (one infantry division and one independent infantry brigade formed the Imperial Guard). These combat units.. were said to be 85 per cent operational, though some outside observers doubted this claim. During the mid-1970s, fully 80 per cent of Iran's ground forces were deployed along the Iraqi border, though official sources maintained that a large portion could be sent anywhere in
4472-681: 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
4576-526: The British began to withdraw, but Moscow refused, "citing threats to Soviet security," sparking the Iran crisis of 1946 . Soviet troops did not withdraw from Iran proper until May 1946, following Iran's official complaint to the newly formed United Nations Security Council and intense pressure from the United States. Unlike its 1925 counterpart, the 1946 Majlis was suspicious of the shah's plans for
4680-574: The Central Brigade in Tehran, with a theoretical strength of 2,200. Following the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925, the new Imperial Iranian Army became a priority. By 1941, it stood at 125,000 troops—five times its original size—and was considered well trained and well equipped. However, the army was focused on internal security operations, rather than, Farrokh says 'fighting well-led and equipped Soviet and Western armies.' Ward writes that
4784-774: The Great. These were replaced by the Junishapur Shâhanshâh ( King of Kings ) in the Sassanid Dynasty after a period of disunity and chaos in the country. Following the Islamic invasion of Iran and eventual resurgence of Iranian dynasties a new full-time army was formed by the name of Qezelbash in the Safavid dynasty . The Qajar period saw several attempts to re-model the traditional Iranian military based on western models. These were met with limited success at
4888-554: The IISS started attributing an estimated three army headquarters to the Iranian Army where previously no headquarters above division level has been identified. These were identified by other sources later as the 1st Army (HQ Kermanshah), 2nd Army (HQ Tehran) and 3rd Army (HQ Shiraz). In 1987, and on the verge of the end of the Iran–Iraq War, the Artesh was organised as follows: and some independent armoured brigades including infantry and
4992-472: The Iranian Army's Ground Forces is Brigadier General Kioumars Heydari . Iran's main battle tanks include an estimated ~1500 or possibly more, indigenous Zulfiqar MBTs , 480 T-72S , 150 M-60A1s, 75 T-62s, 100 Chieftain Mk 3/Mk 5 MBTs, 540 T-54/T-55/Type 59s, and 150 M-47/M-48s. Separately reported are Karrar tanks. The Zulfiqar is the defence industry of Iran 's most recent main battle tank , named after
5096-425: The Iranian Army: Many of these assessments appear to be copyright violations from research conducted by the Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies , Washington DC, for example, an updated military balance report dated 2012.(see also CSIS Iran and Gulf Military Balance, 11 July 2012, p51 Most soldiers of the Iranian Army are well trained and determined, but their equipment
5200-414: The Kurdish area in northwestern Iran. On 12 December 1945, after weeks of violent clashes, a Soviet-backed separatist People's Republic of Azerbaijan was founded. The Kurdish People's Republic was also established in late 1945. Iranian troops sent to re-establish control were blocked by Soviet Red Army units. When the deadline for withdrawal arrived on 2 March 1946, six months after the end of hostilities,
5304-500: 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
SECTION 50
#17327657627605408-429: 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
5512-459: 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
5616-425: 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
5720-401: 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
5824-487: 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,
5928-428: 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
6032-427: 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)
6136-407: 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
6240-428: The Shah sent a brigade of troops numbering 1,200 and with its own helicopters to assist the Sultan's Armed Forces in 1973. The Iranian brigade first secured the Salalah-Thumrait road. In 1974, the Iranian contribution was expanded into the Imperial Iranian Task Force, numbering 4,000. They attempted to establish another interdiction line, codenamed the "Damavand Line", running from Manston , a few miles east of Sarfait, to
6344-521: The Soviets invaded from the north. Three armies, the 44th , 47th and 53rd Armies of the Transcaucasian Front under General Dmitry Timofeyevich Kozlov , occupied Iran's northern provinces. Against the Allied forces, the army was overwhelmed in three days, while the fledgling Imperial Iranian Air Force and Imperial Iranian Navy suffered heavy damage. Conscripts deserted by the thousands. His institutional power base ruined, Reza Shah abdicated in favour of his young son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. In
SECTION 60
#17327657627606448-405: The absence of a broad political power base and with a shattered army, Mohammad Reza Shah faced an almost impossible task of rebuilding. There was no popular sympathy for the army in view of the widespread and largely accurate perception that it was a brutal tool used to uphold a dictatorial regime. The young shah, distancing Tehran from the European military, in 1942, invited the United States to send
6552-441: 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
6656-464: The armed forces in the February revolution. Ground forces capabilities remain limited despite some improvement in discipline and operational readiness in recent months.' Iraq invaded Iran, beginning the Iran–Iraq War , on 22 September 1980. Throughout the war, Iran never managed to fully recover from the post-revolutionary flight of military personnel. Continuous sanctions prevented Iran from acquiring many heavy weapons, such as tanks and aircraft. When
6760-492: The coast near the border with South Yemen (the PDRY). Heavy rebel opposition, which included artillery fire from within South Yemen , thwarted this aim for several months. Eventually, the town of Rahkyut , which the PFLO had long maintained as the capital of their liberated territory, fell to the Iranian task force. The IITF remained in Oman in December 1975, then at a strength of 3,000. The Library of Congress Country Studies volume for Iran issued in 1978 wrote that: "During
6864-457: 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
6968-512: 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
7072-539: The country.. by means of air force transports. Troop deployment was expected to shift south in the late 1970s with the opening of the Chah Bahar facility." "The rapidly growing Army Aviation Command , whose major operational facilities were located at Isfahan , was largely equipped with American aircraft, though some helicopters were of Italian manufacture. In 1977 army aviation operated some sixty light fixed-wing aircraft, though its strength lay in its fleet of some 700 combat helicopters." Two years later, Gabriel listed
7176-430: 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
7280-477: The following phylogenetic classification: Gholamali Bayandor Gholamali Bayandor ( Persian : غلامعلی بایندر ; December 13, 1898 – August 25, 1941) was an Iranian naval officer and the Commander of the Imperial Iranian Navy from 1931 to August 25, 1941, and was killed in action during the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran . He was born in Tehran to ancestors from Bayandur tribe . He personally led his men in defending Iranian coasts at Khorramshahr and
7384-444: 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
7488-476: 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
7592-400: The government had purged 12,000 army officers. These purges resulted in a drastic decline in the Iranian military's operational capacities. Their regular army (which, in 1978, was considered the world's fifth most powerful) had been badly weakened. A shortage of spare parts for Iran's U.S.-made and British-made equipment began to cripple Iran's military forces. The desertion rate reached 60%, and
7696-470: The invasion occurred, many pilots and officers were released from prison, or had their executions commuted to combat the Iraqis. In addition, many junior officers were promoted to generals, resulting in the army being more integrated as a part of the regime by the war's end, as it is today. Iran still had at least 1,000 operational tanks, and could cannibalize equipment to procure spare parts. From July 1985,
7800-466: 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
7904-490: The major formations of the Imperial Iranian Ground Forces in the final year of the Shah, 1979, as including the 16th ( Hamadan ), 81st, 88th ( Zahedan / Chah Bahar ), and 92nd Armored Divisions . Other data suggests one division was being organised in Sistan Baluchestan , presumably the 88th Armoured Division. He also listed three infantry divisions, the 2nd in Tehran, the 28th Infantry Division at Sanandaj , and
8008-432: 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
8112-461: The most effective government unit was the 8,000-man Persian Cossack Brigade . It was created in 1879 and commanded by Russian Imperial Army officers until the 1917 Russian Revolution . After that date its command passed into Iranian hands, and the brigade represented the core of the new, Iranian armed forces. Swedish officers commanded the 8,400-man Gendarmerie, organised in 1911 as the first, internal security force. The 6,000-man South Persia Rifles
8216-536: 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
8320-411: 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
8424-448: 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
8528-414: 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
8632-732: 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
8736-555: The officer corps was devastated. The most highly skilled soldiers and aviators were exiled, imprisoned, or executed. The last general to head the Imperial Iranian Army was General Gholam Ali Oveissi , who was assassinated in Paris along with his brother in 1984. He was replaced by General Abbas Gharebaghi , as armed forces chief of staff, who allied with the Islamic Republic and dismantled the Imperial Iranian Army, which
8840-542: 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
8944-694: 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
9048-647: 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
9152-602: 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
9256-668: 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
9360-573: 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
9464-777: 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,
9568-499: The tank were tested in 1993. Six semi-industrial prototypes were produced and tested in 1997. The IISS estimates that around 150 Zulfiqar 1's are now in service. The main attack helicopter of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army is the AH-1J Sea Cobra . The number of AH-1Js in service was estimated by the IISS in 2009 as 50, though 202 were delivered before the 1979 Iranian Revolution . Iran also operates an unknown number of
9672-577: The time. "In 1918 the Qajar armed forces consisted of four, separate, foreign-commanded military units. Several provincial and tribal forces could also be called on during an emergency, but their reliability was highly questionable. More often than not, provincial and tribal forces opposed the government's centralisation efforts, particularly because Tehran was perceived to be under the dictate of foreign powers. Having foreign officers in commanding positions over Iranian troops added to these tribal and religious concerns." "Loyal, disciplined, and well trained,
9776-555: The twin-pointed legendary sword of Ali. Born as the brainchild of Brigadier General Mir-Younes Masoumzadeh, deputy ground force commander for research and self-sufficiency of the armed forces, the vehicle has been developed from major components of the American M-60 tank. One of the features which has drawn the attention of the Defense Ministry is that indigenously-made parts have been used in it. The prototypes of
9880-485: 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
9984-513: Was killed in action fighting against Allied forces, dying a "gallant death". Commodore Cosmo Graham, who served as the Royal Navy 's Senior Naval Officer, Persian Gulf , wrote that Bayandor's "death was regretted by all who knew him. He was intelligent, able, and faithful to Persia." Iranian corvette Bayandor , which was commissioned into service in 1964 and is still active, is named after him. This biographical article related to
10088-597: 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
10192-531: Was financed by Britain and commanded by British officers from its inception in 1916. Its primary task was to combat tribal forces allegedly stirred up by German agents during the First World War . The Qajar palace guard, the Nizam, commanded by a Swedish officer, was a force originally consisting of 2,000 men, although it deteriorated rapidly in numbers because of rivalries. Thus, during the First World War ,
10296-597: 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
10400-936: Was raised (making a total of four). Later, some time between mid-1997 and mid-1999, the listing changed to that of four corps. The Jaffee Center's Middle East Military Balance 99-00 also lists the four corps the IISS had attributed. Jane's reported in 2006 that the Army was commanded via three army level headquarters with 15 divisions. The IISS reported in the Military Balance 2008 that there 12 Corps level regional headquarters, five armoured divisions with some independent brigades, seven infantry divisions with some independent brigades, one special forces brigade, two commando divisions with some independent brigades, plus an airborne brigade. There were also six artillery groups, and aviation forces. The number of divisions reported has not changed for some years. Often reported formations include
10504-461: Was renamed the Islamic Republic of Iran Army. The two Iranian Imperial Guard divisions were combined into the 21st Infantry Division . The purges left the Army poorly prepared when Iraq invaded Iran at the beginning of the Iran–Iraq War . A Central Intelligence Agency assessment of 7 November 1979 said that Iranian military capabilities '..had not recovered significantly since the collapse of
10608-633: Was sympathetic to Germany, and Iran had declared its neutrality in the Second World War . Iran's location was so strategically important to the Allied war effort, however, that London and Moscow chose to violate Tehran's neutrality. From the south came the British Paiforce , under the command of Lieutenant-General Edward Quinan . Paiforce was made up of the 8th and 10th Indian Infantry Divisions, plus three other brigades. Meanwhile,
10712-613: 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
10816-492: 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
#759240