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103-712: The Iskăr Gorge is a 70 km (43 mi) gorge passing through the Balkan Mountains (Stara Planina) in Bulgaria . It is the chief pass through the Balkans, which otherwise cross northern Bulgaria in a solid line. The pass connects the capital of Sofia with other major cities in the country, such as Mezdra . There is a road and a railway through the pass, following the course of the Iskar River . The canyon walls are made of limestone and sandstone , which

206-655: 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

309-418: 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

412-505: 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

515-417: 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

618-639: A locally endemic winged bellflower ( Campanula calyciliata ) and Pančić's frog grass ( Senecio pancicii ), which can be found only on the mountain. There are also communities of mountainous sphagnum bogs on the localities of Jabučko Ravnište, Babin Zub and Arbinje. Some 350 herb species are considered medicinal or aromatic . In 2022, several independent surveys from various universities and institutes were conducted, in order to list all of them, to enhance their protection, and to check possibilities for potential plantation production. Vast areas south and southeast from

721-453: A much smaller scale. The 500 metres (1,600 ft) long gorge is a remnant of the former cave which eroded in time. Underground waters on the mountain reach the surface in the forms of common springs, well-springs ( vrelo ) and diffused springs ( pištevina ). There are some 500 springs with the flow of over 0.1 L/s (1.3 imp gal/min). The strongest spring is the intermittent Jelovičko vrelo , known for its fluctuations, characterized by

824-536: 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

927-783: A rather young and recently formed part of the Alp-Himalayan chain which stretches across most of Eurasia . The Balkan Mountains can be divided into two parts—the main Balkan Chain and the Pre-Balkans (Fore-Balkan) to the north, which extend slightly onto the Danubian Plain . To the south, the mountains border the Sub-Balkan valleys , a row of 11 valleys running from the Bulgarian-Serbian border east to

1030-599: 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

1133-468: A young brown bear was filmed on camera. There are 203 species of birds, of which 154 are nesting in the park, 10 are wintering, 30 are passing and 13 are wandering. Important species include golden eagle , Ural owl and hawk . As the park is the most important habitat in Serbia for long-legged buzzard , Eurasian woodcock and an endemic Balkan horned lark , an area of 440 km (170 sq mi)

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1236-613: Is a salmonid region, inhabited by the riverine brown trout . Another 25 species of fish live in the rivers and streams, so as the fire salamander and newts . Over 30 mammalian species are found in the park, including lesser mole-rat , hazel dormouse and the Tertiary relict, European snow vole . Brown bear became extinct in Serbian part, but evidence showing the presence of the bears were found in 2014. The bears have been photographed in 2015, before disappearing again until 2019 when

1339-664: 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

1442-628: 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

1545-515: Is also its southernmost locality worldwide. There have been successful efforts in the reintroduction of two vulture species that went extinct from the mountain range in the past several decades. In 2021 the first cinereous vulture in Bulgaria in nearly 30 years hatched in Kotel mountains in the eastern section of the mountain range, thus establishing the second breeding colony in the Balkans, after

1648-850: 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

1751-675: 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

1854-425: 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

1957-548: Is conventionally taken to begin at the peak of Vrashka Chuka on the border between Bulgaria and Serbia . It then runs for about 560 kilometres (350 mi), first in a south-easterly direction along the border, then eastward across Bulgaria, forming a natural barrier between the northern and southern halves of the country, before finally reaching the Black Sea at Cape Emine . The mountains reach their highest point with Botev Peak at 2,376 metres (7,795 ft). In much of

2060-491: Is key for the protection of the eastern imperial eagle , saker falcon , Eurasian eagle-owl , Eurasian pygmy owl , Ural owl , boreal owl , white-backed woodpecker , semicollared flycatcher and the corn crake . The park's herpetofauna includes 15 reptile and nine amphibian species. It hosts vital populations of common European adder ( Vipera berus ), European toad , grass snake ( Natrix natrix ), legless lizard , tessellated water snake , viviparous lizard and

2163-460: 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

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2266-475: 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 ),

2369-585: 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

2472-760: Is only found within the park's boundaries, Аlchemilla аchtarowii , Alchemilla jumrukczalica , Betonica bulgarica , Centaurea davidovii , as well as another 75 Balkan endemics. The vertebrate fauna of Central Balkan National Park consists of over 300 species. The number of mammal species is around 60, including animals of high conservation concern, such as the: Balkan chamois ( R. rupicapra balcanica ), Eurasian brown bear , Eurasian otter , Eurasian wolf , European ground squirrel , European snow vole , European wild boar , European wildcat , Lesser mole-rat , Marbled polecat , Pine marten , Red deer , Red fox , Western roe deer . The avifauna includes some 220 species, of which 123 are resident/nesting. The park

2575-495: 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

2678-491: 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

2781-506: 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

2884-806: The Aegean Sea in the south. However, they are crossed by Bulgaria's longest river, the Iskar , which forms the Iskar Gorge . Rivers that take their source from the Balkan Mountains and flow northwards to the Danube include the Timok , Archar , Lom , Tsibritsa , Ogosta , Skat , Vit , Osam , Yantra , and Rusenski Lom . The mountains are also the source of the Kamchiya , which flows directly into

2987-588: The Belogradchik Rocks in the west. There are several important protected areas: Central Balkan National Park , Vrachanski Balkan , Bulgarka and Sinite Kamani , as well as a number of nature reserves . The Balkan Mountains are remarkable for their flora and fauna. Edelweiss grows there in the region of Kozyata stena . Some of the most striking landscapes are included in the Central Balkan National Park with steep cliffs,

3090-474: The Black Sea , separating the Balkan Mountains from a chain of other ranges known as Srednogorie (which includes Vitosha and Sredna Gora ). The Balkan Mountains consist of around 30 distinct peaks; within Bulgaria, the range can be divided into three sections: In their central and eastern sections, the mountains form a water divide between the rivers flowing to the Danube in the north and those flowing to

3193-668: 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

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3296-653: The Haemus Mons . Scholars consider that the name Haemus (Αἷμος) is derived from a Thracian word *saimon , 'mountain ridge'. The name of the place where the range meets the Black Sea, Cape Emine , is derived from Aemon . A folk etymology holds that 'Haemus' derives from the Greek word "haima" ( αἵμα ) meaning 'blood', and is based on Greek mythology. During a fight between Zeus and the monster/titan Typhon , Zeus injured Typhon with thunder; and Typhon's blood fell on

3399-628: The Ottoman rule , many haiduks found refuge in the Balkan Mountains. Close to the highest summit, Botev Peak , is Kalofer , the birthplace of Hristo Botev , a Bulgarian poet and national hero who died in the western Balkan Mountains near Vratsa in 1876 in the struggle against the Ottoman Empire . Also close to Botev is Shipka Pass , the scene of the four battles in the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78 , which ended Turkish rule in

3502-643: The Paleozoic to the Cenozoic eras. Limestone terrain is known for the short losing streams and tufaceous waterfalls. There are canyons and gorges, like those of the Toplodolska reka and Rosomačka reka rivers. The Rosomača canyon ( Rosomački lonci or Slavinjsko grlo ), with its 60 metres (200 ft) tall, cascade limestone walls, is known for its resemblance of the Colorado's Grand Canyon, but on

3605-495: The Roman period and late mediaeval monastic complexes. Some of those older monuments are fragmentary and relocated from their original locations. There are numerous examples of the ethnic edifices characteristic for the architecture of the region in the late 19th and early 20th century (houses, barns, etc.) Serbian section of the mountain is seen as a location for dozens of micro hydros , mini power plants which caused problem with

3708-674: 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

3811-713: 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

3914-444: The common frog . Due to the park's high altitude, the ichthyofauna consists of six fish species, with brown trout being the dominant one. Vrachanski Balkan Nature Park is situated in the western section of the mountain range and spans an area of 301.29 km . Its territory includes some of the most extensive karst areas in Bulgaria with over 600 caves, such as Ledenika , the gorge Vratsata whose 400 m vertical cliffs are

4017-491: 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

4120-415: The golden eagle , long-legged buzzard , peregrine falcon , Eurasian eagle-owl, Alpine chough , Alpine swift , Eurasian crag martin , red-rumped swallow , wallcreeper , etc. There are 15 reptile and 11 amphibian species; of them important populations exist of the meadow lizard , European copper skink , Balkan crested newt , as well as the only habitat in Bulgaria of the northern crested newt , which

4223-597: 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 ,

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4326-430: The 1940s, in a number of localities along the Balkan Mountains. First group of trees was protected in 1966, followed by the creation of 7 special nature reserves and 3 natural monuments in the 1980s. Nature park Stara Planina was established in 1997 and since 2009 is in its present borders, covering an area of 1,143.22 km (441.40 sq mi). The protected area was expanded in 2020. The sediments extend from

4429-483: The Balkan Mountains at the following passes (listed from west to east): The Balkan Mountains have had a significant and special place in the history of Bulgaria since its founding in 681. It was a natural fortress of the Bulgarian Empire for centuries and formed an effective barrier to Moesia where most of the medieval capitals were located. The Balkan mountains were the site of numerous battles between

4532-604: The Balkans), as well as Borov Kamak , Babsko Praskalo , Etropole Waterfall , Karlovsko Praskalo , and Skaklya, among others. The area of the Stara Planina has always been sparsely populated and inaccessible because of the rugged and forested terrain, but also as a location of the Serbian-Bulgarian border. As armies relinquished the borders, giving control to the border police, civilians were allowed to explore

4635-465: The Balkans. Significant areas of the Balkan mountains are under protection by Bulgarian law, including one national park — Central Balkan National Park ; three nature parks — Vrachanski Balkan Nature Park , Bulgarka Nature Park and Sinite Kamani Nature Park, over 20 nature reserves, as well as numerous natural landmarks. Central Balkan National Park is among the largest and most valuable of

4738-547: The Biosphere Programme and for the world list of geoparks , while over tens of thousands of citizens signed petitions against the micro hydros and numerous protests have been organized by the local population. This prompted similar protests in other parts of Serbia and the association "Defend the rivers of Stara Planina" was founded, which expanded its base of operations outside of the Stara Planina region. The activism resulted in various physical altercation between

4841-681: 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

4944-442: The Black Sea. Although not so abundant in mineral waters as other parts of Bulgaria, there are several spas such as Varshets , Shipkovo and Voneshta Voda. Developments in modern times have completely changed the geography of Serbia, especially when it comes to waterfalls. Still, there are a number of waterfalls to be seen, especially in the western and central parts of the range, such as Raysko Praskalo (the highest waterfall in

5047-734: The Bulgarian and Byzantine Empires including the Battle of the Rishki Pass (759), Battle of the Varbitsa Pass (811), the Battle of Tryavna (1190) and the Battle of Devina (1279). In the battle of the Varbitsa Pass, Khan Krum decisively defeated an enormous Byzantine army, killing Emperor Nikephoros I . For many centuries, the Byzantines feared these mountains, their armies reportedly retreating upon approaching them. During

5150-500: 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

5253-429: 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

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5356-459: 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

5459-425: 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

5562-401: 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

5665-487: 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,

5768-428: 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

5871-427: 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)

5974-407: 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

6077-423: The archaic word balkan (балкан) was borrowed from Turkic and means "mountain". It may have ultimately derived from the Persian bālkāneh or bālākhāna , meaning "high, above, or proud house." The name is still preserved in Central Asia with the Balkan Daglary (Balkan Mountains) and the Balkan Province of Turkmenistan . In Antiquity and the Middle Ages the mountains were known by their Thracian name:

6180-441: 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

6283-429: The area. As a result, higher and higher waterfalls have been discovered on the Serbian side of the Stara Planina in the years since, including Čungulj (1996) at 43 m (141 ft); Pilj (2002) at 64 m (210 ft); Kopren (2011) at 103.5 m (340 ft); and Kaluđerski Skokovi (2012) at 232 m (761 ft). The mountains are crossed by 20 passes and two gorges. There are paved roads crossing

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6386-654: The bubbling and foaming. Montane ecosystems are diverse and include several plant communities: forests, shrubs, meadows, pastures and peatlands . There are six different vegetation zone in the park. Oak , beech , spruce , subalpine zone of the shrub vegetation of common horsetail , blueberry , subalpine spruce and mugo pine . Other plants include shrub alder , steppe pedunculate oak , but also rare and endangered species like European pasqueflower , yellow pheasant's eye , Kosovo peony , common sundew , Heldreich's maple , martagon lily , pygmy iris and marsh orchid . In total, there are 1,190 plant species, including

6489-511: The central and eastern sections, the summit forms the watershed between the drainage basins of the Black Sea and the Aegean . A prominent gap in the mountains is formed by the predominantly narrow Iskar Gorge , a few miles north of the Bulgarian capital, Sofia . The karst relief determines the large number of caves, including Magura , featuring the most important and extended European post-Palaeolithic cave painting, Ledenika , Saeva dupka , Bacho Kiro , etc. The most notable rock formation are

6592-423: The cinereous vultures were seen flying over the Serbian side, while the population decline of Egyptian vultures was slowed down. Neither griffon nor cinereous vultures are still nesting on Serbian side. The latter has not been nesting since the 1960s, when they were eradicated through the state operated campaign of poisoning wolves. Human heritage spans from the prehistoric remains, Classical antiquity including

6695-457: 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

6798-512: 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

6901-403: The environmentalists and local population. Even the Ministry for environmental protection halted some of the projects and litigated with the investors. They also announced the change of the Nature protection law, which will permanently forbid the construction of plants in protected areas. In order to prevent further degradation, the Nature Park Stara Planina was nominated for the UNESCO 's Man and

7004-430: 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

7107-444: 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

7210-421: The formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Xenophon , a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BCE, which is when Old Persian was still spoken and extensively used. He relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like

7313-414: The future, too. By the 2020s, Stara Planina became a popular filmmaking locality. With Serbian productions, the foreign movies were also filmed here, including the 2019 Indian action movie Uri: The Surgical Strike . Its director, Aditya Dhar , expressed surprise with "unremarkable similarity between Stara Planina and Kashmir ". The 2022 Australian Oscar entry You Won't Be Alone was also filmed on

7416-648: The highest waterfall in the Balkans Raysko Praskalo (124.5 m). The rugged and diverse relief determines the presence of numerous gorges , cliffs , water features and caves, including Raychova Dupka, the second-deepest cave discovered in Bulgaria and in the mountain range, reaching depth of -377 m. The flora of Central Balkan National Park is diverse and consists of 1689 species of vascular plants , 45 species of algae and 238 species of mosses . These include 23 Bulgarian endemic species, such as leafy primrose ( Primula frondosa ), which

7519-752: The highest in the Balkans, and numerous waterfalls, such as Skaklia (141 m drop but unlike Raysko Praskalo it is seasonal) and Borov Kamak (63 m drop). The flora includes 1082 species of vascular plants and 186 species of mosses. The endemism is lowers when compared to the Central Balkan National Park ;— 6 Bulgarian and another 36 Balkan endemic species. The vertebrate fauna encompasses 276 species. The recorded mammal species are 58 and include gray wolf, golden jackal , wildcat, marbled polecat, European polecat , European pine marten and 22 bat species. The birds are 181 species, including 124 nesting ones. Typical species are

7622-410: The highest waterfalls in the Balkans and lush vegetation. There are a number of important nature reserves such as Chuprene, Kozyata stena and others. Most of Europe 's large mammals inhabit the area including the brown bear , wolf , boar , chamois and deer . The mountains are the source of the name of the Balkans (sometimes considered as a distinct peninsula or region). In Bulgarian and Serbian

7725-466: 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

7828-451: The local citizens on one, and contractors and their security guards on the other side, amidst the police interventions. In October 2018, Minister of Environmental Protection Goran Trivan , said that the current law allows for the micro hydros to be built in the protected areas. The government allowed the construction of 800 micro hydros, which has been described as "megalomaniacal" by the ecologists, as they would produce less than 1% of

7931-432: 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

8034-536: 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

8137-417: The mountain are already transformed into the aromatic herbs plantations, especially the entire slopes of the nearby mountains being planted with lavender . In the 1980s, fossils of Thecodontosaurus were discovered on the mountain. It is one of the oldest recorded species of dinosaurs, and the remains are estimated to be some 250 million years old. Some 190 species of butterflies are recorded. The area

8240-840: The mountain. 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 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

8343-474: The mountains are also known as Стара планина Stara planina (pronounced in Bulgarian as [ˈstarɐ pɫɐniˈna] and in Serbian as [stâːraː planǐna] ), a term whose literal meaning is 'old mountain'. It is believed the name was brought to the region in the 7th century by Bulgars who applied it to the area, as a part of the First Bulgarian Empire . In Bulgarian ,

8446-543: The mountains, which were then named for this battle. Other names used to refer to the mountains in different time periods include Aemon , Haemimons , Hem , Emus , the Slavonic Matorni gori and the Turkish Kocabalkan . The Balkan Mountains are, technically, a chain of fold mountains —mountains formed by the compression and breaking of layers of rock. On a geological time scale , they are

8549-466: 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

8652-499: 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

8755-414: 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

8858-677: 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

8961-542: 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

9064-590: The one in north-eastern Greece. In recent years, several breeding pairs of griffon vulture have established themselves in the Vratsa Balkan to the west, as well as in the eastern sections of the Balkan Mountains. The eastern Balkan Mountains are among the priority areas in the reintroduction programme for the bearded vulture . Since the early XXI century there have been several records of the Eurasian lynx , which has been considered extincts in Bulgaria since

9167-694: 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

9270-617: The protected areas in Europe. Since 2017, its ancient beech forests have been included in the Primeval Beech Forests UNESCO World Heritage Site . It is the third largest protected territory in Bulgaria, spanning an area of 716.69 km with total length of 85 km from the west to the east and an average width of 10 km. Within its territory are located the highest summit of the mountain range, Botev Peak (2376 m), as well as

9373-647: 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

9476-602: 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

9579-668: 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

9682-573: 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

9785-777: 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,

9888-469: The total electricity. Environmentalists also accused the government of destroying the plant and animal life using the pretext of renewable energy . In September 2019, Pirot city administration announced it is removing from the spatial plan all 43 existing locations for the micro hydros on the protected area of Stara Planina. There are 15 locations remaining in the unprotected sector of the mountain, but city officials announced abolishing of these locations in

9991-485: 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

10094-597: 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

10197-582: Was carved down by the Iskar over thousands of years, resulting in rugged crags and towers throughout. At one point, the walls are nearly 300 metres (980 ft) tall. This Bulgaria location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Balkan Mountains The Balkan mountain range is located in the eastern part of the Balkans in Southeastern Europe . The range

10300-423: Was declared a European Important Bird Area . The griffon vulture disappeared from the region in the late 1940s. In 2017 a program for their reintroduction began within the scope of a wider European program. Among other things, the feeders will be placed along the vultures' migratory route. By 2023, there were regular sightings of griffon vultures, and, thanks to the efforts of Bulgarian and Spanish ornithologists,

10403-597: 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

10506-613: 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

10609-492: 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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