98-662: Rostam or Rustam ( Persian : رستم [rosˈtæm] ) is a legendary hero in Persian mythology , the son of Zāl and Rudaba , whose life and work was immortalized by the 10th-century Persian poet Ferdowsi in the Shahnameh , or Epic of Kings , which contains pre-Islamic Iranian folklore and history. However, the roots of the narrative date much earlier. In the Shahnameh , Rostam and his predecessors are Marzbans of Sistan (present-day Iran and Afghanistan ). Rostam
196-655: 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
294-418: 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
392-456: A heroic journey to save his sovereign, the over-confident Kay Kāvus who is captured by the Divs of Mazandaran. This journey is called "Rostam's Seven Quests". There are some similarities between the legends of Rostam and those pertaining to the great Irish hero Cú Chulainn . They both defeat a ferocious beast as a young man, slay their sons in combat (" Rostam and Sohrab ", a motif also found in
490-505: 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
588-417: 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
686-536: 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
784-533: A popular name in Persianate cultures from Turkey to India. In Afghanistan, there is a Dari proverb , "“Rostam’s name is better than Rostam.” Edward Zellem explained, “This proverb is used when a person’s name or reputation is better than his actual abilities”. Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ),
882-487: A raptor, likely an eagle , falcon , or sparrowhawk , as can be deduced from the etymological cognate Sanskrit śyenaḥ (श्येनः) "raptor, eagle, bird of prey ", which also appears as a divine figure. Saēna is also a personal name. The word was lent to Armenian as siramarg ( սիրամարգ ) ' peacock '. On the other hand, the phrase sī murğ ( سی مرغ ) means "thirty birds" in Persian; this has been used by Attar of Nishapur in his symbolic story of The Conference of
980-503: A son, Bijan . Rostam had also a half brother called Shaghad , who was always jealous of him and provoked his death. Just as famous as Rostam was his horse Rakhsh , which had an incredibly long life like Rostam, due to divine protection, and died at the same time as Rostam. Ernst Herzfeld maintained that the dynasty of Gondophares represented the House of Suren , highest of the five premier families of Parthian Empire , invested with
1078-599: 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
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#17327723272061176-419: A struggle between Persians and invaders from the northern Caspian provinces . In Shahnameh, the life spans of the heroes who are from the generation of Sām (Rostam's grandfather) are described as being very long, and that of Rostam fits this pattern: he has reached the age of six hundred at the time of his violent demise (dying at the hand of his envious half-brother Shaghad, who kills him by throwing him into
1274-544: A well full of poisoned spears). In this incident, Rostam's faithful steed Rakhsh and the hero's brother, Zavareh are also killed. With Tahmineh , princess of Samangan , Rostam had a son called Sohrab , who was killed accidentally by his father in the time of Kay Kavus . In Banu Goshasp Nama Rostam later had a daughter called Banu Goshasp , who had a full brother called Faramarz , and both became renowned heroes in Turan and India. Goshasp, through her marriage with Giv had
1372-615: Is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages . Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran , Afghanistan , and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties , respectively Iranian Persian (officially known as Persian ), Dari Persian (officially known as Dari since 1964), and Tajiki Persian (officially known as Tajik since 1999). It
1470-664: 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
1568-628: 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
1666-404: Is a place with plenty of water. Its feathers are said to be the colour of copper in some versions, and though it was originally described as being a dog-bird, later it was shown with either the head of a man or a dog. " Si- ", the first element in the name, has been connected in folk etymology to Modern Persian si ("thirty"). Although this prefix is not historically related to the origin of
1764-796: 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
1862-675: 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
1960-408: Is best known for his tragic fight with Esfandiyār , the other legendary Iranian hero; for his expedition to Mazandaran (not to be confused with the modern Mazandaran Province ). He is also known for the story of his Seven Labours . Rostam was always represented as the mightiest of Iranian paladins (holy warriors), and the atmosphere of the episodes in which he features is strongly reminiscent of
2058-425: 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
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#17327723272062156-494: Is described. According to the Shahnameh , Zal , the son of Saam , was born albino. When Saam saw his albino son, he assumed that the child was the spawn of devils, and abandoned the infant on the mountain Alborz . The child's cries were heard by the tender-hearted simurgh, who lived atop this peak, and she retrieved the child and raised him as her own. Zal was taught much wisdom from the loving simurgh, who has all knowledge, but
2254-454: Is involved in numerous stories, constituting some of the most popular (and arguably some of most masterfully created) parts of the Shahnameh . In Shahnameh , Rostam—like his grandfather Sam—works as both a faithful military general as well as king-maker for the Kayanian dynasty of Persia. As a young child, he slays the maddened white elephant of the king Manuchehr with just one blow of
2352-460: 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
2450-475: 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 ),
2548-585: 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
2646-495: 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
2744-519: Is thought to possess the knowledge of all the ages. In one legend, the simurgh was said to live 1,700 years before plunging itself into flames (much like the phoenix ). The simurgh was considered to purify the land and waters and hence bestow fertility. The creature represented the union between the Earth and the sky, serving as mediator and messenger between the two. The simurgh roosted in Gaokerena ,
2842-491: 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
2940-728: The Hildebrandslied ), are virtually invincible in combat, and are murdered by treachery while killing their murderer on their last breath. Two Persian heroes, Rostam and Esfandiyār, share stories with the Labours of Hercules . It is written by the Royal Central Asian Society in the Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society that the struggle between Rostam and the Div-e Sepid "White Demon" represents
3038-506: 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
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3136-762: The Tārikh-e Sistān , and the Ketāb al-Sakisarān cited by al-Masudi . These related the deeds of the hero Garshasp and his descendants, Narimān , Sām, Zāl or Dastān, and above all of the latter's son Rostam. It is difficult to relate the Indo-Parthian names known from coins and history to those of the epic, which are possibly honorific titles, since a recently reported silver coin describes Gondophares (spelt in Greek script Hyndopharres) as surnamed Sām. A single ruler may of course have received more than one such title, and
3234-668: 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
3332-544: The Hōm (Avestan: Haoma) Tree of Life, which stands in the middle of the world sea ( Vourukasha ). The plant is potent medicine and is called all-healing, and the seeds of all plants are deposited on it. When the simurgh took flight, the leaves of the tree of life shook, making all the seeds of every plant fall out. These seeds floated around the world on the winds of Vayu-Vata and the rains of Tishtrya , in cosmology taking root to become every type of plant that ever lived and curing all
3430-655: The Parthian Empire . He rides the legendary stallion Rakhsh and wears a special suit named Babr-e Bayan in battles. While the narrative of the Shahname is the definitive work on Rostam, Ferdowsi did not invent the character; Rostam stories were popular as far back as the seventh century in Pars and originated much earlier, likely in Eastern Iranian-speaking territories. He famously wears
3528-511: The Rag-i Bībī rock relief in northern Afghanistan, and in the scene of a prince breaking in a foal depicted on an Eastern Sasanian silver dish attributed to the first half of the fourth century. Nicholas Sims-Williams has referred to the personal name Purlang-zin, spelt πορλαγγοζινο in Greek script, in a Bactrian document which was almost certainly written in the fourth century under Sasanian rule, claiming that this may be translated as “the man with
3626-674: 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
3724-658: 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
3822-408: The divine mandate that was the foundation of a king's authority. It appears as a bird resting on the head or shoulder of would-be kings and clerics, indicating Ormuzd's acceptance of that individual as his divine representative on Earth. For the commoner, Bahram wraps fortune/glory "around the house of the worshipper, for wealth in cattle, like the great bird Saena, and as the watery clouds cover
3920-491: 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
4018-653: The humā (Persian: هما ). The figure can be found in all periods of Iranian art and literature and is also evident in the iconography of Georgia , medieval Armenia , the Eastern Roman Empire , and other regions that were within the realm of Persian cultural influence. The Persian word sīmurğ ( سیمرغ ) derives from Middle Persian sēnmurw (and earlier sēnmuruγ ), also attested in Pazend texts as sīna-mrū . The Middle Persian word comes from Avestan mərəγō Saēnō "the bird Saēna", originally
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4116-492: The mace owned by his grandfather Sam, son of Nariman . He then tames his legendary stallion, Rakhsh . The etymology of Rostam's name is from Common Iranian "*rautas-taxma-, "'river-strong', i.e. 'as strong as a river', Rostam's mother is Rūdāba "(she) of the River Water", and his father is Zāl , who has white hair. Rostam's mother Rudaba, the princess of Kabul, was known for her peerless beauty, and Rostam's father
4214-616: The zīn-i palang or "panther-skin garment": The material surveyed so far proves that the Rustam legend was fully formed and well known in Western Iran by the seventh century AD at the latest and in the Eastern Iranian lands by the early eighth century. In some recent publications Frantz Grenet has attempted to find pictorial allusions several centuries earlier, in the “sīmurgh” depicted on the buckle of Shapur I (AD 240–272) on
4312-597: 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 ,
4410-681: 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
4508-481: The Birds , the frame story of which employs a play on the name. . The Simurgh is depicted in Iranian art as a winged creature in the shape of a bird, gigantic enough to carry off an elephant or a whale. It appears as a peacock with the head of a dog and the claws of a lion – sometimes, however, also with a human face. The Simurgh is inherently benevolent. Being part mammal, they suckle their young. The Simurgh has an enmity towards snakes, and its natural habitat
4606-683: The Indo-Scythians, but pursued them into Arachosia and the Punjab , this event probably representing interitus Saraucarum ( the perishing of the Sacaraucae) of Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus (Prologue 42). Echoes of these events are preserved in the legends of the Sistān cycle, partly incorporated in the Shahnameh , but once also surviving as independent epics, such as the Garšāspnāma mentioned in
4704-565: 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
4802-543: 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
4900-530: 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
4998-425: 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
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#17327723272065096-401: 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
5194-886: 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,
5292-428: 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
5390-427: 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)
5488-407: 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
5586-441: 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
5684-413: The bird. These versions go back to the common stock of Iranian simorḡ stories. In one of the folk tales, a hero rescues simurgh's offspring by killing a snake that was crawling up the tree to feed upon them. As a reward, the simurgh gives him three of her feathers which the hero can use to call for her help by burning them. Later, the hero uses the feathers, and the simurgh carries him to a distant land. In
5782-457: 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
5880-512: 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
5978-402: The dwelling place of the simorgh, all they find is a lake in which they see their own reflection. This scene employs a pun on the Persian expression for "thirty birds" ( si morgh ). The phrase also appears three times in Rumi's Masnavi , e.g. in Book VI, Story IX: "The nest of the sī murğ is beyond Mount Qaf " (as translated by E.H. Whinfield). Through heavy Persian influence, the simurgh
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#17327723272066076-430: 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
6174-424: The extraordinary size of her baby - so much so that Zāl , her lover and husband, felt sure that his wife would die in labour. Rudaba was indeed near death when Zāl decided to summon the Simurgh , which duly appeared and instructed him upon how to perform a Rostamzad , a Caesarean section , thus saving both Rudaba and the child. After Zāl's father, Sam, learned of his grandchild's birth, he rushed to see Rostam and
6272-402: The following phylogenetic classification: Simurgh The simurgh ( / s ɪ ˈ m ɜːr ɡ / ; Persian : سیمرغ , also spelled senmurv, simorgh, simorg , simurg , simoorg, simorq or simourv ) is a benevolent bird in Persian mythology and literature . It bears some similarities with mythological birds from different origins, such as the phoenix (Persian: ققنوس quqnūs ) and
6370-444: 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
6468-421: 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
6566-501: The great mountains" ( Yasht 14.41, cf. the rains of Tishtrya above). Like the simurgh, farrah is also associated with the waters of Vourukasha ( Yasht 19.51, 56–57). In Yašt 12.17 Simorgh's (Saēna's) tree stands in the middle of the sea Vourukaša, it has good and potent medicine and is called all-healing, and the seeds of all plants are deposited on it. The simurgh made its most famous appearance in Ferdowsi 's epic Shahnameh (Book of Kings), where its involvement with Prince Zal
6664-434: The hereditary right of commanding the royal armies , and placing the crown on the king's head at the coronation. Probably when around 129 BCE, nomad peoples, especially the Indo-Scythians ( Sacaraucae , Old Persian Sakaravaka "nomadic Saka ” or Saraucae) and the Tocharians attacked the eastern frontier of Parthia , defense was entrusted by the Parthian emperors to the Surens; and the latter eventually not only repelled
6762-402: The historical names may be repeated in succeeding generations. Mughal era manuscripts depicting Rostam's seven labours and other feats: The word 'Rustam' is synonymous with physical prowess, especially for wrestlers in Persian, Urdu, Hindi and Persianate cultures generally. For example, The Great Gama was popularly referred to as Rustam-e-Hind , or "Rustam of India". Rustam remains
6860-487: The illnesses of mankind. The relationship between the simurgh and Hōm is extremely close. Like the simurgh, Hōm is represented as a bird, a messenger, and the essence of purity that can heal any illness or wound. Hōm – appointed as the first priest – is the essence of divinity, a property it shares with the simurgh. The Hōm is in addition the vehicle of farr(ah) (MP: khwarrah , Avestan: khvarenah , kavaēm kharēno ) ("divine glory" or "fortune"). Farrah in turn represents
6958-410: 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
7056-432: 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
7154-536: 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
7252-464: The name simurgh , "thirty" has nonetheless been the basis for legends incorporating that number – for instance, that the simurgh was as large as thirty birds or had thirty colours ( siræng ). Other suggested etymologies include Pahlavi sin murgh ("eagle bird") and Avestan saeno merego ("eagle"). Iranian legends consider the bird so old that it had seen the destruction of the world three times over. The simurgh learned so much by living so long that it
7350-466: 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
7448-499: 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
7546-414: 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
7644-732: 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
7742-542: 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
7840-473: The panther’s skin” and that it represents “a clear reference to the zīn-i palang of Rustam.” [...] the first element of this name, is the Bactrian word for “panther” or “leopard”. In the Shahnameh , Rostam is a native of Zabulistan , a historical region roughly corresponding to today's Zabul Province , southern Afghanistan . His mother Rudaba was a princess of Kabul . Rostam is the champion of champions and
7938-694: 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
8036-536: 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
8134-602: 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
8232-536: The simurgh's many powers, Esfandiyar strikes it in the neck, decapitating it. The simurgh's offspring then rise to fight Esfandiyar, but they, too, are slain. In classical and modern Persian literature the simorḡ is frequently mentioned, particularly as a metaphor for God in Sufi mysticism . In the 12th century Conference of the Birds , Iranian Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar wrote of a band of pilgrim birds in search of
8330-429: The simurgh. In the poem, the birds of the world gather to decide who is to be their king, as they have none. The hoopoe , the wisest of them all, suggests that they should find the legendary simorgh, a mythical Persian bird roughly equivalent to the western phoenix . The hoopoe leads the birds, each of whom represent a human fault which prevents man from attaining enlightenment. When the group of thirty birds finally reach
8428-613: 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
8526-573: 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
8624-717: 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,
8722-436: The time came when he grew into a man and yearned to rejoin the world of men. Though the simurgh was terribly saddened, she gave him three golden feathers which he was to burn if he ever needed her assistance. Upon returning to his kingdom, Zal fell in love and married the beautiful Rudaba . When it came time for their son to be born, the labor was prolonged and terrible; Zal was certain that his wife would die in labour. Rudaba
8820-485: 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
8918-414: Was Zāl. Zāl was one of Persia's most powerful warriors and a great general who conquered many rebellious tribes and ruled over Zabulistan. Zāl was known for his wisdom and was unparalleled in riding and fighting on horseback. He once demonstrated his skills to Emperor Manuchehr to seek his approval to marry his lover Rudaba. In Persian mythology, Rudaba's labour in giving birth to Rostam was prolonged due to
9016-597: 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
9114-528: Was introduced to the Arabic -speaking world, where the concept was conflated with other Arabic mythical birds such as the ghoghnus , a bird having some mythical relation with the date palm , and further developed as the rukh (the origin of the English word " roc "). Representations of simurgh were adopted in early Umayyad art and coinage. Simurgh is shortened to "sīmir" in the Kurdish language . The scholar C. V. Trever quotes two Kurdish folktales about
9212-467: Was near death when Zal decided to summon the simurgh. The simurgh appeared and instructed him upon how to perform a cesarean section thus saving Rudaba and the child, who became one of the greatest Persian heroes, Rostam . Simurgh also shows up in the story of the Seven Trials of Esfandiyar in the latter's 5th labor. After killing the wicked enchantress, Esfandiyar fights a simurgh, and despite
9310-481: Was overjoyed. Rostam was brought up and trained by Zāl in warfare. When Rostam single-handedly slew a mad elephant, his father sent him on his first military assignment. Rostam's task was to conquer the fortress on the summit of Mt Sipand where his great grandfather, Nariman, once besieged it and was slain in the battle. Rostam breached the fortress, defeated the enemy, ransacked its treasury and reported his success to his father, Zāl, and grandfather, Sam. He undertakes
9408-597: 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
9506-613: 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
9604-492: 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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