111-525: Nishapur or Neyshabur ( Persian : نیشاپور , also نیشابور ) is a city in the Central District of Nishapur County , Razavi Khorasan province, Iran , serving as capital of both the county and the district. Nishapur is the second-largest city of the province in the northeast of Iran, situated in a fertile plain at the foot of Binalud Mountain Range . It has been the historic capital of
222-655: 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
333-418: 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
444-505: 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
555-417: 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
666-533: A major national expressway that connects the two major cities of Tehran and Mashhad , is connected to the city of Nishapur and it passes through it. Nishapur is connected to the Trans-Iranian Railway System which is a UNESCO world heritage . The Nishapur train station became operational during the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and it is located on the southern part of the city. On 18 February 2004, runaway train wagons crashed into
777-536: 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
888-599: 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
999-427: A warm and semi-dry climate called '' central Iranian plateau climate''. Precipitation mostly happens in spring and winter. Nishapur is situated on a relatively higher elevation (1250 meters) than its neighboring cities such Sabzevar and Mashhad hence the weather is milder and better than these cities. Nishapur has a cold semi-arid climate (BSk). The city of Nishapur lies on a Holocene alluvial plain on top of
1110-664: 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
1221-628: 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
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#17327650446181332-850: 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
1443-675: 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
1554-535: Is believed to have destroyed the city several times. Unlike its near neighbor Merv , Nishapur managed to recover from these cataclysmic events, and survive until the present day as an active modern city and county in tourism , agriculture , health care , industrial production and commerce in Razavi Khorasan Province of Iran ; however, many of its older and historical archeological remains are left to be uncovered. The modern city of Nishapur
1665-478: Is composed of three main administrative areas/districts ( Persian : منطقه های شهر نیشابور) and is surrounded by many villages which are joining in to the urban area and structure of the city. The Area/district 1 of the city comprises the newer urban developments (initiated mostly in the 1980s and the 1990s) made to the north of the Road 44 and is home to most of the main higher educational institutions of Nishapur such as
1776-425: 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
1887-410: Is diverse and it is based on several industries like Agriculture, Industrial parks, mining, tourism, health-care, retailing, banking etc. Many agricultural products such as saffron , cereals , cotton , herbs , plums , walnut , wheat , corn , apples , cherries and pistachio are exported from the county of Nishapur . The city is also a dairy and sugar exporter. Most of the water supply of
1998-658: Is home to the city council of the city and the Nishapur branch of the CIDCA . This garden and the brick made monuments built in its northern entrance of this garden are part of the national heritage list of Iran with the registration number of 13364. The history of this garden probably dates back to the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran. The brick made monuments were made by Mohammad Hossein Akhavian [ fa ] ,
2109-460: 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
2220-465: Is nowadays in that area. This palace was perhaps completely ruined in the 13th century. Most people speak Persian and are monolingual , however, there are several private foreign language-teaching institutions in the city that teach English and other languages. At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 205,972 in 56,652 households. The following census in 2011 counted 239,185 people in 71,263 households. The 2016 census measured
2331-475: 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 ),
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#17327650446182442-585: 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
2553-495: 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
2664-491: 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
2775-506: 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
2886-668: 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
2997-722: The Bulghars and Khazars on the Caspian Sea . Nishapur occupies an important strategic position astride the old Silk Road that linked Anatolia and the Mediterranean Sea with China. On the Silk Road, Nishapur has often defined the flexible frontier between the Iranian plateau and Central Asia. The town derived its name from its reputed founder, the Sassanian king Shapur I , who is said to have established it in
3108-570: 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
3219-550: The Khayyam Industrial Park and the Attar Industrial Park are near the city of Nishapur. Many industrial products such as sugar, cooking oils and gas heaters are exported from the city and its county. Several hotels, ecolodges , resorts, parks, tourist hot-spots, restaurants, museums, a planetarium , cultural centers, mausoleums, religious pilgrimage sites and historic mosques are in and near
3330-635: The Mongol invasion of Khwarezmia and Eastern Iran , the city evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center within the Islamic world . Nishapur, along with Merv , Herat and Balkh , was one of the four great cities of Greater Khorasan and one of the greatest cities of the Old World in the Islamic Golden Age with strategic importance, a seat of governmental power in
3441-542: The Pleistocene sediments in the southwestern part of the Binalud Mountains . The Binalud Range, running northwest–southeast, is made predominantly of Triassic and Jurassic rocks. On the southern side of the northwestern part of the range there is a section of Eocene rocks that are volcanic in origin. The well-known Nishabur turquoise comes from the weathered and broken trachytes and andesites of
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3552-614: The Ramadan of October 1612. Saadat Ali Khan I Nishapuri , Nawab of Awadh (the ruler who governed the state of Awadh of India), was also born in this period in an influential family in Nishapur. After the death of Nader Shah Afshar in 1747, the area became an independent khanate under the reign of the Bayat chieftains. In 1754 Ahmad Shah Durrani captured Nishapur with the support of heavy artillery and imposed Shahrokh Shah as
3663-674: 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
3774-713: 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
3885-744: The University of Neyshabur and the IAUN . The Area/district 2 of the city comprises the downtown of the city and the older and more historic urban structures situated on the south of the Road 44. It is home to some of the main tourists attractions of the city such as the National Garden of Nishapur and the Khanate Mansion of Amin Islami . The Area/district 3 of the city is home to the ruins and
3996-491: 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
4107-597: 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 ,
4218-681: 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
4329-568: The Eocene volcanic rocks of this part of the mountain range. The main turquoise mines are situated about 50 kilometers northwest of the city of Nishapur in the foothills of the Binalud Range. Nishapur is located in a region with a rather high risk of earthquakes . Many earthquakes have seriously harmed the city; among the important ones are the historical earthquakes that ruined the city in the 12th and 13th centuries. The economy of Nishapur
4440-782: The Great . In 1581, the castle of Nishapur went under siege. This siege became one of the events that helped the Abbas the Great to become the Ruler of Greater Khorasan and later the Shah of Persia in the Safavid Empire . In 1592 Abbas the Great took back the control of Nishapur from the Shaybanids . Shah Abbasi Caravanseri of Nishapur was also built during his reign and later on, he left his two epigraphs on Jame Mosque of Nishapur on
4551-565: 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
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4662-469: The Muslims conquered other cities around Nishapur, including Pusht, Ashband, Rukh, Zar, Khaf, Osparain and Arghian. Abu Muslim became the governor of Khorasan , and chose Nishapur as his capital. He seems to have initiated a huge building program in which he stimulated the growth of the city. Nishapur increased in importance, and two of the ‘Abbasids were governors of this city before becoming caliphs. It
4773-543: The Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as Sultan Selim I , despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam . It was a major literary language in the empire. Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi 's Hasht Bihisht , which began in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah , a glorification of Selim I. After
4884-530: The Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods: As a written language , Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription , dating to the time of King Darius I (reigned 522–486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey, and Egypt . Old Persian
4995-425: 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
5106-401: 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
5217-886: The Perso-Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in Anatolia , the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages,
5328-539: The Saffarids and was made governor of Nishapur. The Samanids had been placed in power in Transoxiana by Caliph Al-Ma'mun , and ruled first from Samarqand and then moved to Bukhara . After defeating the Saffarids , their "empire", with nominal sanction from the Abbasids , extended from India to Iraq , making Nishapur a provincial capital. Khurasan was thus an international entrepôt, with merchants coming not only from Iraq, India and Egypt, but also from Russia; additionally, Vikings came from Scandinavia to trade with
5439-428: 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
5550-427: 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)
5661-407: 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
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#17327650446185772-411: The Western Quarter of Greater Khorasan , the historic capital of the 9th-century Tahirid dynasty , the initial capital of the 11th-century Seljuk Empire , and is currently the capital city of Nishapur County and a historic Silk Road city of cultural and economic importance in Iran and the region of Greater Khorasan . Nearby are turquoise mines that have supplied the world with turquoise of
5883-441: 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
5994-449: The beheaded. After the massacre a much smaller settlement was established just north of the ancient town, and the once bustling metropolis lay underground—until a team of excavators from the Metropolitan Museum of Art arrived in the mid-20th century. They worked at Nishapur between 1935 and 1940, returning for a final season in the winter of 1947–48. What remains of old Nishapur is a 3500-hectare "Kohandejh ( Persian : کهن دژ)" area, south of
6105-406: The borders of India . Tahirid influence extended to Baghdad when the Abbasids granted them the military affairs in Mesopotamia . In 873, the Tahirids were replaced by the Saffarids . Saffarids expanded their sphere of influence through the north of Khurasan and also in south towards Sistan . They also made Nishapur their capital and rebuilt the Tahirid palace. In 900, Ismail Samani defeated
6216-419: The buildings built during this era in Nishapur. Many poets, scholars and renowned historical figures of the city and the wider region of Abarshahr (one of the main four regions of Greater Khorasan with the city capitals of Nishapur, Merv , Herat and Balkh ) were also born in this period. Due to a conflict between the supporters of the Mohammad Khodabanda , the Safavid Shah of Persia , and his son Abbas
6327-418: The cities of Mashhad and Tehran . The city also has local routes and highways to the cities of Kashmar and Quchan . Throughout the Middle Ages, Nishapur had been praised by many due to its many gardens and its healthy climate in Khorasan . Ibn Hawqal has commented the following about the weather and the climate of this city at that time: Throughout all of Khorasan , no such companion as enriched with
6438-408: The city and one of the known works of the modern Persian architecture . The influence of the architectural design of this mausoleum is visible on the coat of arms of the University of Neyshabur , Neyshabur University of Medical Sciences (NUMS) and other public, civil and private organizations of the city. The construction of the new mausoleum was completed in the year 1963. The Tomb of Kamal-ol Molk
6549-417: The city for some days. In the meantime, the Persian chiefs quarreled among themselves. One of the chiefs entered into negotiations with the Muslims. He offered to open one of the gates for the Muslim army to enter, provided he was granted immunity. The Muslims accepted the offer. The Persians were taken by surprise, and the Muslims became the new rulers of Nishapur. After consolidating their position at Nishapur,
6660-493: The city is provided from the Binalud Mountain Range 's mostly seasonal rivers , qanats , dams and modern wells . Natural recourses such as turquoise and salt are mined from around the city. The electrical power supply of the city is provided from Neyshabur Combined Cycle Power Plant and Binalood Wind Farm . The excessive electrical energy of the city is mostly exported from the city's public power grid . Khorasan Steel Complex and two main industrial parks called
6771-399: The city of Nishapur in the Year 1339 or 1340. During this era, the ambassador of Henry III of Castile , Ruy González de Clavijo reached Nishapur and according to him, Nishapur had become a highly productive agricultural center with 40 non-stop working mills along the ''Abe Bostan'' (Mir Ab River of Nishapur). The current position of the city was formed during this era and on the North West of
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#17327650446186882-499: The city. The tourism industry of the city has a lot of protentional but it needs further development. There are two active hospitals (Hakim Hospital and 22 Bahman Hospital) in the city of Nishapur and a third one is also currently under construction. Nearly all of reputable public and private Iranain banks have branches in the city. Major Iranian companies such as Refah Chain Stores Co. , Iran Hyper Star , Ofoqh Kourosh and other companies have active branches in Nishapur. Road 44 ,
6993-457: 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
7104-512: 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
7215-401: The current city of Nishapur. After the fall of Nishapur in 1221 by the Mongols, the structures of the city were weakened and the agricultural output of the city was reduced. Mahmud Ghazan and Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan tried to make the city flourish again and the city's population grew once more and some of the villages around the city were improved and rebuilt. Hamdallah Mustawfi had visited
7326-427: The eastern section of caliphates , a dwelling place for diverse ethnic and religious groups and a trading stop on commercial routes from Transoxiana , China, Iraq and Egypt. Nishapur reached the height of its prosperity under the Samanids in the 10th century but was destroyed and most of its population was slaughtered by the Mongols in 1221 . This massacre, combined with subsequent earthquakes and other invasions,
7437-461: The entire city of Nishapur was destroyed by the Mongols over the course of 10 days. Genghis Khan's daughter requested the death of every resident of the city as vengeance for her husband's death. In order to become sure that no wounded would survive the massacre, Khan's troops killed and beheaded most of the population of the city and their skulls were reputedly piled in pyramids by the Mongols . Women, Infants, children, and even cats and dogs were among
7548-430: 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
7659-402: The finest and the highest quality for at least two millennia . The city was founded in the 3rd century by Shapur I as a capital city of Sasanian satrapy known as Abarshahr or Nishapur. Nishapur later became the capital of Tahirid dynasty and was reformed by Abdullah Tahir in 830, and was later selected as the capital of Seljuk dynasty by Tughril in 1037. From the Abbasid era to
7770-531: The fire and rail services. This disaster has become known as one of the worst railway industry disasters of the world. Little archaeology has been done on this vast and complicated site. George Curzon remarked that Nishapur had been destroyed and rebuilt more times than any other city in history, an evocative statement whether or not it is statistically true. The Metropolitan Museum of Art undertook excavations from 1935 that were interrupted in 1940. Searching largely for museum-worthy trophies that they shared with
7881-399: The first ruler of the Seljuk dynasty, made Nishapur his residence in 1038 and proclaimed himself sultan there, but it declined thereafter, as Seljuk fortunes were concentrated in the west. Nishapur was sacked by the Oghuz Turks in 1154, and suffered several earthquakes in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In 1221, after the death of Tuqachar , the husband of Genghis Khan's daughter,
7992-401: The following phylogenetic classification: National Garden of Nishapur The National Garden of Nishapur (or also: Baghmeli of Nishapur , also Romanized as Bagh-e Meli of Nishapur ; Persian : باغ ملی نیشابور lit. ' The national garden of Nishapur ' ) is a historic and a touristic Persian style garden and urban park close to the downtown of Nishapur . This garden
8103-577: 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
8214-476: 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
8325-539: The government of the Shah , the Metropolitan's publications were limited to its own Nishapur ceramics. The site of Nishapur has been ransacked for half a century since World War II , to feed the international market demand for early Islamic works of art. Shadiyakh ("Palace of Happiness") was one of the main palaces of old Nishapur up to the 9th century AD, which became more important and populated after that. Some notable people like Attar lived there. Attar's tomb
8436-428: The health of the air, quantity and the vastness of its mansions can be found. In the same cited work, Hakim Nishapuri praises Nishapur with many favourable nicknames such as " Persian : نیشابورست، هوای او صافی به صحت آبدان وافی، خالی از خطایا و عاری از وبا و اکثر بلایا… عروس بلدان، خزانه خراسان، دار امارت، لطیف عمارت، موطن ادیبان… " and compares and claims that the weather and climate (or air Persian: هوا) of Nishapur
8547-466: 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
8658-464: The main route via Rayy and the other via Nishapur. The people of Nishapur chose not to fight and surrendered on the condition of paying a tribute. Having conquered the region around Nishapur, the Muslim force advanced to Nishapur itself. The city was divided into four sectors, with each sector under a Persian chief. These chiefs shut themselves in the city and closed the gates. The Muslims laid siege to
8769-432: 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
8880-536: 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
8991-608: The museums of the city of Nishapur. The city of Nishapur is also a member of international organizations such as the LHC and the ICCN UNESCO . Abarshahr was a satrapy (province) of the Sassanid Empire . Cities in the region were Candac, Artacauan, Apameia, and Pushang (founded by Shapur I). Nishapur was the capital. Abarshar was the name used for Nishapur during the Sassanid Empire and Rashidun Caliphate . The capital
9102-466: 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
9213-499: 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
9324-414: 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
9435-732: 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
9546-542: 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
9657-518: The older position of the city which is now home to the Mausoleum of Attar of Nishapur and Shadiyakh Archeological Site and other remains of the old position of the city (the old position of the city is also now a protected archeological site by law though it is endangered). Mausoleum of Attar of Nishapur and the Jame mosque of Nishapur ( congregational mosque of the city) are among the examples of
9768-468: The population of the city as 264,375 people in 83,143 households. It is the third most-populous city in the eastern provinces of Iran after Mashhad and Zahedan . Nishapur is located at an elevation of 1250 meters on a wide fertile plain at the southwestern foot of the Binalud Mountain range in northcentral Razavi Khorasan Province. The city is connected by both railways and highways to
9879-694: 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
9990-588: The region during the following centuries. Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in Punjab through the early 19th century serving finally as the official state language of the Sikh Empire , preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent. Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in
10101-602: 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
10212-421: The remains of the ancient city of Nishapur destroyed by Mongols in the Middle Ages and is located on the south and the southeast of the city. The third district of the city is a national and registered protected archeological area by law and any unauthorized archeological excavation is considered illegal. This district is also home to the burial and historical monuments (some are shown on the city infobox) of most of
10323-778: The renowned persons of the city throughout history such as the Mausoleum of Omar Khayyám and the Mausoleum of Attar of Nishapur . The third district is also used as one of the main touristic hotspots of the city. Many of this city's archeological discoveries are held and shown to the public in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City , the British Museum in London , the National Museum of Iran in Tehran , other international museums and
10434-699: The ruler ( Shah ) of the western part of Greater Khorasan as a protectorate of the Durrani Empire . The city was conquered in 1800 by the Qajars . In 1828, the city came under the influence of the Zafaranlu Confederacy but was given back to the Qajars in 1829. During the Revolt of Hasan Khan Salar , the city was an isolated outpost of Qajar rule led by Imamverdi Khan Bayat when most of Khorasan
10545-613: The site of a flourishing Persianate linguistic and literary culture. The 16th-century Ottoman Aşık Çelebi (died 1572), who hailed from Prizren in modern-day Kosovo , was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian". Many Ottoman Persianists who established a career in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) pursued early Persian training in Saraybosna, amongst them Ahmed Sudi . The Persian language influenced
10656-573: 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
10767-717: The standard Persian. The Hazaragi dialect (in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan), Herati (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Basseri (in Southern Iran), and the Tehrani accent (in Iran, the basis of standard Iranian Persian) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility . Nevertheless,
10878-573: The third century CE. Nearby are the turquoise mines that supplied the world with turquoise for at least two millennia. It became an important town in the Greater Khorasan region but subsequently declined in significance until a revival in its fortunes in the 9th century under the Tahirid dynasty , when the glazed ceramics of Nishapur formed an important item of trade to the west. For a time Nishapur rivaled Baghdad or Cairo : Toghrül ,
10989-485: 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
11100-425: The village of Khayyam near Nishapur. This accident caused several major explosions and it kill over 300. The entire village of Khayyam was destroyed due to the explosions. 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
11211-622: Was a vital center of administration and of communications between Bactria, India, and Sagistan. The region was involved in the Indian and Chinese trade. Its governor bore the title of kanarang . Nishapur was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate , without struggle, during the caliphate of Umar . The Caliph appointed Ahnaf Ibn Qais as the chief command of the Rashidun army out of Isfahan . From Isfahan, two routes led to Khorasan :
11322-543: 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
11433-472: Was also built in Nishapur and designed by Seyhoun . The Wooden Mosque of Neyshabur was also built in the year 2000. The Second Asia-Pacific Jamboree was held at Baghrud Scots Park of Nishapur in preparation for The 15th World Scout Jamboree which was scheduled to be held 15–23 July 1979 in Nishapur but due to the political uncertainty of the Iranian Revolution in the country , the event
11544-510: Was better and more healthier (according to him, cholera and other such diseases and disasters could not be found in Nishapur) than many neighboring regions such as Sistan (due to its winds), Indus valley (or سند in Persian) and Hindustan (due to their severe hotness), Khwarazm and Turkestan (due to their coldness) and Merv (due to presence of many insects). Nishapur generally has
11655-403: Was cancelled. On February 18, 2004, in the Nishapur train disaster , a train carrying flammable goods derailed and caught fire near the town. Five hours later, during fire fighting and rescue work, a massive explosion destroyed the train and many nearby buildings. Around 300 people were said to have been killed, mainly fire and rescue workers but also the local governor and mayor and the heads of
11766-673: Was originally Merv , but Nishapur became their capital from 828 to 845. Although nominally subject to the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad , the Tahirid rulers were effectively independent. The dynasty was founded by Tahir ibn Husayn , a leading general in the service of the Abbasid caliph Al-Ma'mun . Tahir's military victories were rewarded with the gift of lands in the east of Persia, which were subsequently extended by his successors as far as
11877-597: 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
11988-613: 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
12099-555: Was the governor of Khurasan (‘ Ali ibn Isa ibn Mahan ) who presented the large gift of Chinese imperial porcelains to Harun al-Rashid (see Abbasid Ceramics Section), demonstrating the strategic importance of the province on trade routes. The Tahirid dynasty was a dynasty of Persian dehqan origin that ruled from 820 to 872 in Khorasan , northeastern Greater Iran , a region now split between Iran , Afghanistan , Tajikistan , Turkmenistan , and Uzbekistan . The Tahirid capital
12210-492: 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
12321-416: Was under the wrath of Hasan Khan Salar. On March 21, 1849, Qajar forces entered Nishapur. The reconstruction of the Mausoleum of Omar Khayyam in Nishapur was commissioned by Reza Shah . Omar's previous tomb was separated from his tomb, and a white marble monument ( Current Mausoleum ), designed by the Iranian architect Hooshang Seyhoun , was erected over it. This mausoleum became one of the main symbols of
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