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119-591: Nowruz ( Persian : نوروز [noːˈɾuːz] ) is the Iranian New Year or Persian New Year . Historically, it has been observed by Persians and other Iranian peoples , but is now celebrated by many ethnicities worldwide. It is a festival based on the Northern Hemisphere spring equinox , which marks the first day of a new year on the Solar Hijri calendar ; it usually coincides with

238-655: 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

357-445: A character with his face and hands covered in soot, clad in bright red clothes and a felt hat, is the companion of Amu Nowruz. He dances through the streets while singing and playing the tambourine. In the traditional songs, he introduces himself as a serf trying to cheer people whom he refers to as his lords. In the folklore of Afghanistan, Kampirak and his retinue pass village by village, distributing gathered charities among people. He

476-752: A date between 19 March and 22 March on the Gregorian calendar . The roots of Nowruz lie in Zoroastrianism , and it has been celebrated by many peoples across West Asia , Central Asia , the Caucasus and the Black Sea Basin , the Balkans , and South Asia for over 3,000 years. In the modern era, while it is observed as a secular holiday by most celebrants, Nowruz remains a holy day for Zoroastrians, Baháʼís , and Ismaʿili Shia Muslims . For

595-418: 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

714-506: A former lack of software supporting the Persian alphabet, and/or due to a lack of knowledge about the software that was available. Although Persian writing is supported in recent operating systems , there are still many cases where the Persian alphabet is unavailable and there is a need for an alternative way to write Persian with the basic Latin alphabet . This way of writing is sometimes called Fingilish or Pingilish (a portmanteau of Farsi or Persian and English ). In most cases this

833-727: A garden one day, don't be sad Baháʼís use a system standardized by Shoghi Effendi , which he initiated in a general letter on March 12, 1923. The Baháʼí transliteration scheme was based on a standard adopted by the Tenth International Congress of Orientalists which took place in Geneva in September 1894. Shoghi Effendi changed some details of the Congress's system, most notably in the use of digraphs in certain cases (e.g. s͟h instead of š ), and in incorporating

952-628: A great festive occasion. Later Turkic and Mongol invaders did not attempt to abolish Nowruz. In 1079 CE during the Seljuq dynasty era, a group of eight scholars led by astronomer and polymath Omar Khayyam calculated and established the Jalali calendar , computing the year starting from Nowruz. The festival along with Mehregan was widely celebrated in Al-Andalus , as the Andalusians from

1071-505: 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

1190-417: 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

1309-536: 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

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1428-475: A simplification of one of the strict transliteration schemes (typically omitting diacritical marks ) and/or unsystematic choices of spellings meant to guide English speakers using English spelling rules towards an approximation of the Persian sounds. Transcriptions of Persian attempt to straightforwardly represent Persian phonology in the Latin script , without requiring a close or reversible correspondence with

1547-599: 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

1666-511: A throne studded with gems. He had demons raise him above the earth into the heavens; there he sat, shining like the Sun. The world's creatures gathered and scattered jewels around him and proclaimed that this was the New Day ( Now Ruz ). This was the first day of Farvardin , which is the first month of the Iranian calendar . Although it is not clear whether Proto-Indo-Iranians celebrated a feast as

1785-422: A wish to find a partner. Another custom associated with Sizdah Bedar is the playing of jokes and pranks, similar to April Fools' Day . There exist various foundation myths for Nowruz in Iranian mythology . The Shahnameh credits the foundation of Nowruz to the mythical Iranian King Jamshid , who saves mankind from a winter destined to kill every living creature. To defeat the killer winter, Jamshid constructed

1904-664: 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

2023-628: 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

2142-850: 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

2261-501: Is an ad hoc simplification of the scientific systems listed above (such as ALA-LC or BGN/PCGN), but ignoring any special letters or diacritical signs. ع may be written using the numeral "3", as in the Arabic chat alphabet (though this is rarely done). The details of the spelling also depend on the contact language of the speaker; for example, the vowel [u] is often spelt "oo" after English, but Persian speakers from Germany and some other European countries are more likely to use "u". In

2380-477: Is an old, bearded man wearing colorful clothes with a long hat and rosary who symbolizes beneficence and the power of nature yielding the forces of winter. The tradition is observed in central provinces, specially Bamyan and Daykundi . In Kazakhstan, Kazakhs start the new year by cooking nauryz kozhe , a traditional drink. The festival of Nowruz is celebrated by many groups of people in the Black Sea basin,

2499-675: 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

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2618-651: Is common in every region where Nowruz is celebrated, and each area has its food and sweets. Typically, before the arrival of Nowruz, family members gather around the Haft-sin table and await the exact moment of the March equinox to celebrate the New Year. The number 7 and the letter S are related to the seven Ameshasepantas as mentioned in the Zend-Avesta. They relate to the four elements of Fire, Earth, Air, Water, and

2737-504: Is commonly done before the arrival of Nowruz. People start preparing for Nowruz with a major spring cleaning of their homes and by buying new clothes to wear for the New Year, as well as the purchase of flowers. The hyacinth and the tulip are popular and conspicuous. During the Nowruz holidays, people are expected to make short visits to the homes of family, friends and neighbors. Typically, young people will visit their elders first, and

2856-425: 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

2975-462: Is cooked. In some countries, cooking this food is associated with certain rituals. Women and girls in different parts of Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan cook Samanu in groups and sometimes during the night, and when cooking it, they sing memorable songs. Cooking other foods is also common on Nowruz. For example, sabzi polo with fish is eaten on Eid night, as are sweets such as Nan-e Nokhodchi . In general, cooking Nowruz food

3094-460: 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

3213-475: 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 ),

3332-585: 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

3451-457: Is probable that they traditionally held festivals in both autumn and spring, to mark the major turning points of the natural year." Nowruz is partly rooted in the tradition of Iranian religions , such as Mithraism and Zoroastrianism . In Mithraism, festivals had a deep linkage with the Sun's light. The Iranian festivals such as Mehregan ( autumnal equinox ), Tirgan , and the eve of Chelle ye Zemestan ( winter solstice ) also had an origin in

3570-495: 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

3689-405: Is the day of the new year in the Solar Hijri algorithmic calendar , which is based on precise astronomical observations, and moreover use of sophisticated intercalation system, which makes it more accurate than its European counterpart, the Gregorian calendar . Each 2820-year great grand cycle contains 2,137 normal years of 365 days and 683 leap years of 366 days, with the average year length over

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3808-478: Is the traditional display of Novruz in the Republic of Azerbaijan. It consists of a big silver or copper tray, with a tray of green, sprouting wheat ( samani ) in the middle and a dyed egg for each member of the family arranged around it. The table should be with at least seven dishes. In Iran, the traditional heralds of the festival of Nowruz are Amu Nowruz and Haji Firuz , who appear in the streets to celebrate

3927-496: The Šāhnāme of Ferdowsi , or the divān of Hafez may also be included. Haft-sin's origins are not clear. The practice is believed to have been popularized over the past 100 years. In Afghanistan, people prepare Haft Mēwa ( Dari : هفت میوه , English: seven fruits ) for Nauruz, a mixture of seven different dried fruits and nuts (such as raisins , silver berry , pistachios , hazelnuts , prunes , walnut , and almonds ) served in syrup. Khoncha ( Azerbaijani : Xonça )

4046-491: 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

4165-506: 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

4284-486: The Balkans , the South Caucasus , Western Asia , central and southern Asia, and by Iranian peoples worldwide. Places where Nowruz is a public holiday include: Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -⁠shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to

4403-668: 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

4522-577: The Czech one). Besides being one of the simplest variations proposed for the Latinization of the Persian alphabet, this variation is based on the Alphabetic principle . Based on this principle, each individual speech sound is represented by a single letter and there is a one-to-one correspondence between sounds and the letters that represent them. This principle, besides increasing the clarity of

4641-570: 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

4760-555: The King of Kings . The significance of the ceremony was such that King Cambyses II 's appointment as the king of Babylon was legitimized only after his participation in the referred annual Achaemenid festival. It has been suggested that the famous Persepolis complex, or at least the palace of Apadana and the Hundred Columns Hall, were built for the specific purpose of celebrating a feast related to Nowruz. In 539 BC,

4879-414: The Northern Hemisphere , Nowruz marks the beginning of spring . Customs for the festival include various fire and water rituals, celebratory dances, gift exchanges, and poetry recitations, among others; these observances differ between the cultures of the diverse communities that celebrate it. The first day of the Iranian calendar falls on the March equinox , the first day of spring, around 21 March. In

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4998-608: The Persian alphabet that are pronounced identically in Persian. Therefore, transliterations of Persian are often based on transliterations of Arabic . The representation of the vowels of the Perso-Arabic alphabet is also complex, and transliterations are based on the written form. Transliterations commonly used in the English-speaking world include BGN/PCGN romanization and ALA-LC Romanization . Non-academic English-language quotation of Persian words usually uses

5117-511: The Perso-Arabic script is an abjad writing system (with a consonant -heavy inventory of letters), many distinct words in standard Persian can have identical spellings, with widely varying pronunciations that differ in their (unwritten) vowel sounds. Thus a romanization paradigm can follow either transliteration (which mirrors spelling and orthography ) or transcription (which mirrors pronunciation and phonology ). Transliteration (in

5236-674: 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

5355-713: 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

5474-491: 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

5593-555: The solar letters when writing the definite article al- (Arabic: ال) according to pronunciation (e.g. ar-Rahim , as-Saddiq , instead of al-Rahim , al-Saddiq ). A detailed introduction to the Baháʼí Persian romanization can usually be found at the back of a Baháʼí scripture. It is common to write Persian language with only the Latin alphabet (as opposed to the Persian alphabet ) especially in online chat , social networks , emails and SMS . It has developed and spread due to

5712-414: The spring equinox . According to Mary Boyce , "It seems a reasonable surmise that Nowruz, the holiest of them all, with deep doctrinal significance, was founded by Zoroaster himself"; although there is no clear date of origin. Between sunset on the day of the sixth Gahambar and sunrise of Nowruz, Hamaspathmaedaya (later known, in its extended form, as Frawardinegan ; and today is known as Farvardigan )

5831-597: 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 ,

5950-410: The 11th century AD the Iranian calendar was reformed by Omar Khayyam in order to fix the beginning of the calendar year, i.e. Nowruz, at the vernal equinox. Accordingly, the definition of Nowruz given by the Iranian astronomer Tusi was the following: "the first day of the official New Year [Nowruz] was always the day on which the sun entered Aries before noon." Nowruz is the first day of Farvardin ,

6069-537: The 9th century onwards strongly identified with many Iranian traditions despite the opposition from the Maliki jurists . Also, from the 10th century onwards the nobility, emirs and governors sponsored the celebrations and festivals. However, the jurists beginning from the 12th century started encouraging the Andalusians to celebrate Mawlid instead. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union , Iran and Afghanistan were

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6188-681: 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

6307-615: The Iranian calendar, he mentions Nowruz, Sadeh , Tirgan, Mehrgan, the six Gahambars, Farvardigan, Bahmanja, Esfand Armaz and several other festivals. According to him, "It is the belief of the Iranians that Nowruz marks the first day when the universe started its motion." The Persian historian Gardizi , in his work titled Zayn al-Akhbār , under the section of the Zoroastrians festivals, mentions Nowruz (among other festivals) and specifically points out that Zoroaster highly emphasized

6426-590: The Iranians to develop their own spring festival into an established New Year feast, with the name Navasarda "New Year" (a name which, though first attested through Middle Persian derivatives, is attributed to the Achaemenian period)." Akitu was the Babylonian festivity held during the spring month of Nisan in which Nowruz falls. Since the communal observations of the ancient Iranians appear in general to have been seasonal ones and related to agriculture, "it

6545-611: The Jews came under Iranian rule, thus exposing both groups to each other's customs. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica , the story of Purim as told in the Book of Esther is adapted from an Iranian novella about the shrewdness of harem queens, suggesting that Purim may be an adoption of Iranian New Year. A specific novella is not identified and Encyclopedia Britannica itself notes that "no Jewish texts of this genre from

6664-565: 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

6783-402: The Middle East occurs on 1 Nisan , the new moon of the first month of spring, which usually falls within a few weeks of Nowruz. In his Shahnameh , the tenth-century poet Ferdowsi narrates a fictional account of Darius III 's death, where an injured Darius, with his head cradled on Alexander the Great ’s thigh, asks Alexander to wed Roxana , so their children might uphold Nowruz and keep

6902-413: The New Year. Amu Nowruz brings children gifts, much like his counterpart Santa Claus . He is the husband of Nane Sarma , with whom he shares a traditional love story in which they can meet each other only once a year. He is depicted as an elderly silver-haired man with a long beard carrying a walking stick, wearing a felt hat, a long cloak of blue canvas, a sash, giveh , and linen trousers. Haji Firuz,

7021-410: The Nowruz holidays last thirteen days. On the thirteenth day of the New Year, Iranians leave their houses to enjoy nature and picnic outdoors, as part of the Sizdah Bedar ceremony. The greenery grown for the Haft-sin setting is thrown away, usually into running water. It is also customary for young single people, especially young girls, to tie the leaves of the greenery before discarding it, expressing

7140-429: 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

7259-459: 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

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7378-425: 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

7497-401: 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

7616-437: The Persian period are extant, so these new elements can be recognized only inferentially." Purim is celebrated the 14 of Adar , usually within a month before Nowruz (as the date of Purim is set according to the Jewish calendar , which is lunisolar ), while Nowruz occurs at the spring equinox. It is possible that the Jews and Iranians of the time may have shared or adopted similar customs for these holidays. The Lunar new year of

7735-710: The Perso-Arabic script, and also without requiring a close correspondence to English phonetic values of Roman letters. or G as in genre Notes : In the pre-Islamic period Old and Middle Persian employed various scripts including Old Persian cuneiform , Pahlavi and Avestan scripts. For each period there are established transcriptions and transliterations by prominent linguists. Notes : A sample romanization (a poem by Hafez): gomgaşte báz áyad be Kanân qam maħor kolbeye ahzán şavad ruzi golestán qam maħor یوسف گم گشته باز آید به کنعان غم مخور کلبه‌ی احزان شود روزی گلستان غم مخور The lost Joseph will get back to Canaan, don't be sad The hut of madness will become

7854-487: 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,

7973-428: 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

8092-427: 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)

8211-407: 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

8330-431: The Sun god ( Mithra ). Among other ideas, Zoroastrianism is the first monotheistic religion that emphasizes broad concepts such as the corresponding work of good and evil in the world, and the connection of humans to nature. Zoroastrian practices were dominant for much of the history of ancient Iran. In Zoroastrianism, the seven most important Zoroastrian festivals are the six Gahambar festivals and Nowruz, which occurs at

8449-410: The USSR from 1931 to 1938, the Persian alphabet based on Latin was used . It was used for teaching in schools, the Bejraqe Sorx (Red Banner) newspaper was published in Ashgabat , as well as textbooks and other literature. The Tajik language or Tajik Persian is a variety of the Persian language. It was written in the Tajik SSR in a standardized Latin script from 1926 until the late 1930s, when

8568-498: 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

8687-448: The caliphate. The Iranian Buyid ruler 'Adud al-Dawla (r. 949–983) customarily welcomed Nowruz in a majestic hall, decked with gold and silver plates and vases full of fruit and colorful flowers. The King would sit on the royal throne, and the court astronomer would come forward, kiss the ground, and congratulate him on the arrival of the New Year. The king would then summon musicians and singers, and invited his friends to gather and enjoy

8806-586: The celebration of Nowruz and Mehrgan. Although the word Nowruz is not recorded in Achaemenid inscriptions, there is a detailed account by Xenophon of a Nowruz celebration taking place in Persepolis and the continuity of this festival in the Achaemenid tradition. Nowruz was an important day during the Achaemenid Empire ( c. 550–330 BC ). Kings of the different Achaemenid nations would bring gifts to

8925-457: 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

9044-512: 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

9163-566: The course of a cycle. As the source explains, the 2820-year cycle is erroneous and has never been used in practice. Chaharshanbe Suri ( Persian : چهارشنبه‌سوری , romanized :  čahâr-šanbeh suri (lit. "Festive Wednesday") is a prelude to the New Year . In Iran, it is celebrated on the eve of the last Wednesday before Nowruz. It is usually celebrated in the evening by performing rituals such as jumping over bonfires and lighting off firecrackers and fireworks . In Azerbaijan, where

9282-457: The elders return their visit later. Visitors are offered tea and pastries, cookies, fresh and dried fruits and mixed nuts or other snacks. Many Iranians throw large Nowruz parties as a way of dealing with the long distances between groups of friends and family. One of the most common foods cooked on the occasion of Nowruz is Samanu (Samanak, Somank, Somalek). This food is prepared using wheat germ. In most countries that celebrate Nowruz, this food

9401-652: 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

9520-615: The fire during the festival, asking the fire to take away ill-health and problems and replace them with warmth, health, and energy. Trail mix and berries are also served during the celebration. Spoon banging ( قاشق زنی , qāšoq zani ) is a tradition observed on the eve of Charshanbe Suri, similar to the Halloween custom of trick-or-treating . In Iran, people wear disguises and go door-to-door banging spoons against plates or bowls and receive packaged snacks. In Azerbaijan, children slip around to their neighbors' homes and apartments on

9639-457: The first day of the calendar, there are indications that Iranians may have observed the beginning of both autumn and spring, respectively related to the harvest and the sowing of seeds, for the celebration of the New Year. Mary Boyce and Frantz Grenet explain the traditions for seasonal festivals and comment: "It is possible that the splendor of the Babylonian festivities at this season, led

9758-702: The first month of the Iranian solar calendar , which is the official calendar in use in Iran , and formerly in Afghanistan . The United Nations officially recognized the "International Day of Nowruz" with the adoption of Resolution 64/253 by the United Nations General Assembly in February 2010. The word Nowruz is a combination of the Persian words نو ( now , meaning 'new') and روز ( ruz , 'day'). Pronunciation varies among Persian dialects, with Eastern dialects using

9877-459: The first of Farvardin began at the autumn equinox. During the reign of the Parthian dynasty, the spring festival was Mehregan , a Zoroastrian and Iranian festival celebrated in honor of Mithra . Extensive records on the celebration of Nowruz appear following the accession of Ardashir I , the founder of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 AD). Under the Sassanid emperors, Nowruz was celebrated as

9996-438: The flame of Zoroaster burning: Her mother named her Roxana the fair; The world found joy and solace in her care. ... From her, perhaps, a glorious one shall rise; Who shall renew the name of bold Esfandiyār , wise. This sacred flame of Zoroaster, he shall adorn; The Zend and Avesta scriptures, in his hands be borne. The feast of Sadeh , this auspicious rite he'll keep; The splendor of Nowruz and fire temples deep. Nowruz

10115-449: The following phylogenetic classification: Romanization of Persian Also in Iran being named = " Finglish" Being a combination of Farsi and English . Romanization is familiar to many Persian speakers. Many use an ad hoc romanization for text messaging and email ; road signs in Iran commonly include both Persian and English (in order to make them accessible to foreigners); and websites use romanized domain names . Because

10234-577: 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

10353-476: 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

10472-400: The great grand cycle 365.24219852. This average is just 0.00000026 (2.6×10) of a day—slightly more than 1/50 of a second—shorter than Newcomb 's value for the mean tropical year of 365.24219878 days, but differs considerably more from the current average vernal equinox year of 365.242362 days, which means that the new year, intended to fall on the vernal equinox, would drift by half a day over

10591-466: 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

10710-618: The last Tuesday prior to Novruz, knock at the doors, and leave their caps or little basket on the thresholds, hiding nearby to wait for candies, pastries and nuts. The ritual of jumping over fire has continued in Armenia in the feast of Trndez , which is a feast of purification in the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Armenian Catholic Church , celebrated forty days after Jesus 's birth. In Iran,

10829-670: The main royal holiday during the Abbasid period. Much like their predecessors in the Sasanian period, Dehqans would offer gifts to the caliphs and local rulers at the Nowruz and Mehragan festivals. Following the demise of the caliphate and the subsequent re-emergence of Iranian dynasties such as the Samanids and Buyids , Nowruz became an even more important event. The Buyids revived the ancient traditions of Sassanian times and restored many smaller celebrations that had been eliminated by

10948-432: 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

11067-537: The most important day of the year. Most royal traditions of Nowruz, such as royal audiences with the public, cash gifts, and the pardoning of prisoners, were established during the Sassanid era and persisted unchanged until modern times. Nowruz, along with the mid-winter celebration Sadeh , survived the Muslim conquest of Persia of 650 CE. Other celebrations such as the Gahambars and Mehrgan were eventually side-lined or only observed by Zoroastrians . Nowruz became

11186-536: 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

11305-466: 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

11424-499: 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

11543-414: 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

11662-732: 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

11781-483: 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

11900-664: The only countries that officially observed the ceremonies of Nowruz. When the Caucasian and Central Asian countries gained independence from the Soviets, they also declared Nowruz as a national holiday. Nowruz was added to the UNESCO List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010. House cleaning, or shaking the house ( Persian : خانه تکانی , romanized :  xāne tekāni )

12019-549: The preparation for Novruz usually begins a month earlier, the festival is held every Tuesday during four weeks before the holiday of Novruz. Each Tuesday, people celebrate the day of one of the four elements—water, fire, earth and wind. On the holiday eve, the graves of relatives are visited and tended. Iranians sing the poetic line "my yellow is yours, your red is mine", which means "my weakness to you and your strength to me" ( Persian : سرخی تو از من، زردی من از تو , romanized :  sorkhi-ye to az man, zardi-ye man az to ) to

12138-638: 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

12257-525: The pronunciation [nawˈɾoːz] (as in Dari and Classical Persian, however in Tajik, it is navrūz , written наврӯз ), western dialects [nowˈɾuːz] , and Tehranis [noːˈɾuːz] . A variety of spelling variations for the word nowruz exist in English-language usage, including norooz , novruz , nowruz , navruz , nauruz and newroz . Nowruz's timing is based on the vernal equinox . In Iran, it

12376-647: 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

12495-602: 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

12614-720: The script was officially changed to Cyrillic . However, Tajik phonology differs slightly from that of Persian in Iran. As a result of these two factors romanization schemes of the Tajik Cyrillic script follow rather different principles. Even though it is largely unused, Google Translate implements the alphabet as the Latin transliteration for Tajik. A variation (that is sometimes called "Pârstin") proposed by linguist Mir Shamsuddin Adib-Soltani in 1976 has seen some use by other linguists, such as David Neil MacKenzie for

12733-668: 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

12852-513: 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

12971-777: 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,

13090-519: The strict sense) attempts to be a complete representation of the original writing, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words. Transliterations of Persian are used to represent individual Persian words or short quotations, in scholarly texts in English or other languages that do not use the Arabic alphabet. A transliteration will still have separate representations for different consonants of

13209-465: The three life forms of Humans, Animals and Plants. In modern times, the explanation was simplified to mean that the Haft-sin ( Persian : هفت‌سین , seven things beginning with the letter sin (س)) are: The Haft-sin table may also include a mirror, candles, painted eggs , a bowl of water, goldfish , coins, hyacinth , and traditional confectioneries. A "book of wisdom" such as the Quran , Bible , Avesta ,

13328-468: The transliteration of the Perso-Arabic scripture. The letters of this variation of the Latin alphabet are the basic Latin letters: Aa , Bb , Cc , Dd , Ee , Ff , Gg , Hh , Ii , Jj , Kk , Ll , Mm , Nn , Oo , Pp , Qq , Rr , Ss , Tt , Uu , Vv , Xx , Yy , Zz , plus the additional letters to support the native sounds: Ââ , Čč , Šš , Žž (the latter three from Slavic alphabets, like

13447-485: 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

13566-597: 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

13685-515: Was celebrated. This and the Gahambars are the only festivals named in the surviving text of the Avesta . The 10th-century scholar Biruni , in his work Kitab al-Tafhim li Awa'il Sina'at al-Tanjim , provides a description of the calendars of various nations. Besides the Iranian calendar, various festivals of Greeks, Jews, Arabs, Sabians, and other nations are mentioned in the book. In the section on

13804-597: 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

13923-613: 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

14042-577: Was the holiday of Parthian dynastic empires who ruled Iran (248 BC–224 AD) and the other areas ruled by the Arsacid dynasties outside of Parthia (such as the Arsacid dynasties of Armenia and Iberia ). There are specific references to the celebration of Nowruz during the reign of Vologases I (51–78 AD), but these include no details. Before Sassanians established their power in Western Asia around 300 AD, Parthians celebrated Nowruz in autumn, and

14161-492: 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

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