Persian language

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Persian ( Fārsī )

Spoken in

Today (as mother tongue and lingua franca):

AfghanistanAfghanistan Afghanistan Iran Tajikistan Uzbekistan
IranIran 
TajikistanTajikistan 
UzbekistanUzbekistan 

Historical (used as an elite language and in poetry):

TurkmenistanTurkmenistan Turkmenistan Bahrain Azerbaijan Pakistan India Turkey Iraq
BahrainBahrain 
AzerbaijanAzerbaijan 
PakistanPakistan 
IndiaIndia 
TurkeyTurkey 
IraqIraq 

speaker an estimated 60 to 70 million native speakers, 50 million second speakers
Linguistic
classification
Official status
Official language in AfghanistanAfghanistan Afghanistan ( Darī ) Iran (Fārsī) Tajikistan ( Tādschīkī )
IranIran 
TajikistanTajikistan 
Language codes
ISO 639 -1

fa

ISO 639 -2 ( B ) per ( T ) fas
ISO 639-3

fas

The Persian language (Persianزبان فارسی, DMG zabān-e fārsī ) is a pluricentric language in Central and Southwest Asia . It belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family and is the official language in Iran , Afghanistan and Tajikistan . Persian is a major language in West and Central Asia and is spoken by 60 to 70 million people as their mother tongue and another 50 million as a second language.

In Persian, the language Fārsi (فارسی) called. Fārsī-yi Darī (فارسى درى) Is the official name today in Afghanistan ( "Afghan Persian"), with the Iranian Zoroastrians their language Dari call. The Cyrillic written Tajik is spoken in Central Asia variety of Persian, and indeed the variety in Azerbaijan and Dagestan ( Russia ).

The New Persian , especially about Lehnwortbildungen heavily influenced by Arab, developed in the Middle Ages to the most important scholarly and literary language of the eastern Islamic world and had great influence on the neighboring Turkic languages (v. A. The Azeri , Ottoman , Turkish and Chagatai Language ), Armenian Georgian , as well as the languages ​​of northern India, especially Urdu . For centuries, Persian was the higher official and educational language in the Mughal Empire in India and other Islamic-ruled states on the Indian subcontinent.

Many Persian words have also been adopted into European languages. In German , the words “ bazaar ”, “ caravan ”, “ magician ”, “ paradise ”, “ pistachio ”, “ chess ”, “ scarf ” and “ check ” are known. The Persian literature is international with poets like Rumi , Omar Khayyam , Hafiz , Saadi , Nezami , Jami , Ferdowsi and Sadegh Hedayat become known.

distribution

Today's distribution of Persian in the Middle East. It is clear from the map that not all of Iran's residents are native speakers of Persian and, on the other hand, Persian is the native language for a large part of the population of Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
The Persian language in the world
Green : official language (Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan)
Orange : Persian-speaking minorities

Persian is spoken by 60 to 70 million people as their mother tongue and another 50 million as a second language. About 41 million native speakers live in Iran, another 15 million in Afghanistan and 15 million in Central Asia (mostly in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan ).

Persian-speaking percentage of the population in the Iranian provinces

Persian was used as the official language in parts of what is now northern India in the 18th century and was the only non-European language that Marco Polo reported was used at the court of Kublai Khan (13th century).

Today there are significant Persian-speaking communities in Iraq and the Gulf States (especially Bahrain , the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait ). There are other small language islands in Georgia , Azerbaijan , Russia and in the Pamir Mountains, among others . Persian-speaking communities have also developed in Europe and the United States.

Designations

Traditionally, this language is called Persian in European countries - named after the old Persian core province of Fārs (Pārs) in southern Iran.

Terms in Persian:

  • In the Sassanid period , the name of the language was Pārsīk or Pārsīg .
  • Since the Arab-Islamic conquest of Persia , the name has been Fārsī (فارسی).
  • The name Fārsī-e Darī (فارسی دری) on. The short form Dari (درى) is derived from Fārsī-ye Darbārī, "Persian of the royal court" (Persian دربار Darbār, 'royal court') and is used in Afghanistan today.
  • The New Persian dialects of Central Asia have been referred to as the Tajik language since the Soviet era .

Older language levels

The development of the Persian and Iranian languages ​​in general is divided into three periods:

  • Old Iranian (until 100 BC )
  • Central Iranian (100 BC to about 900 AD)
  • New Iranian (from 900 AD).

Old Persian

Of the old Iranian dialects, only Old Persian and Avestan are adequately documented, the other languages ​​of this group only indirectly. The name "Avestic" of the northeastern language in the ancient Persian Empire comes from the Avesta , the sacred script of Zoroastrianism . Apart from its religious use, it died out centuries before the rise of Islam; probably the language dissolved in the related Bactrian . Old Persian has been handed down in cuneiform texts from the southwest of the Achaemenid Empire (around 560 to 330 BC) . It was spoken for longer there, but Aramaic was more used as the administrative language .

Old Persian and Avestian are very close to Sanskrit and thus to Ur-Indo-European ; Like Greek and Latin, they belong to the inflected languages ​​and are the ancestors of today's Neo-Persian. In contrast to the younger language levels, Old Persian had a more complex grammar with up to seven cases and three genera. The dual is still preserved alongside the singular and plural. The cuneiform script used for Old Persian was specially invented for this purpose and is a clockwise mixed phonetic and syllabic script (like the Indian scripts), which is supplemented by eight word characters and special numerals. Above all, monumental inscriptions on rocks or buildings have survived. Usually there is an Elamite and a Babylonian version next to the old Persian version .

Middle Persian

Central Iranian languages ​​were not only Middle Persian and its related Parthian , but also some other languages ​​of Central Asia . Thus, in Bactria (now northern Afghanistan) as Bactrian spoken in Choresmien Choresmisch in Sogdia (see Samarkand and Bukhara ) Sogdian and some Scythians (Saka) in Chinese Turkistan Saka . In addition to secular literature, both Christian and Buddhist literature emerged in the Sogdian language . Bactrian is preserved in some inscriptions recently discovered in Afghanistan and other parts of Central Asia; choresmic texts were written after the Islamization of the region.

Parthian was spoken mainly in the Arsacid Empire (around 250 BC to 226 AD). It is well documented by inscriptions of the first Sassanid kings, although it was already losing its importance at that time and could only last longer in eastern Iran. It influenced Middle Persian, the official language of the Sassanid Empire (226 to 651 AD). Middle Persian is grammatically easier than Old Persian and was mostly recorded in Aramaic script - that is, with letters that sometimes represent several sounds. It slowly lost its importance after the conquest of Persia by the Arabs (7th century), but some Middle Persian literature was translated into Arabic. Most Middle Persian scripts were lost in the Middle Ages.

The New Persian

development

New Persian developed into the international standard language of Central and Southwest Asia from the 9th century. The Persian-Jewish written in Hebrew is of particular importance as the earliest evidence of the New Persian language. In addition to Parthian and Middle Persian parts (see above), it also has parts from other Iranian languages. In its generality, New Persian is a mixture of the most important languages ​​of ancient Iran.

Even if the language is called Persian today, its origins are not exclusively attributable to Old or Middle Persian, which comes from the province of Fars . Since the language developed in Central Asia , it is likely that the Eastern Iranian languages ​​( Bactrian , Sogdian ) influenced this language significantly. The number of Parthian and Sogdian loanwords in modern New Persian (the Parthian had already penetrated in Middle Persian times, and Parthian is a north-west Iranian language) is considerable, but in the core area the original Persian (south-west Iranian) base is still recognizable.

In addition, New Persian is considered the language of Sufism and mystical Islam. Some of the greatest works of Sufism were written in Persian, including the works of the poet Rumi (Rumi), Hafiz (Hafez), Saadi (Sa'di), Omar Khayyam (Omar-e Hayyam) Onsori ( 'Onṣorī) and Ansari (Ḫ w āǧa 'Abdullāh Anṣārī). The Shāhnāme ('Book of Kings') by the poet Abū l-Qāsem-e Ferdousī is considered a model work . The poet worked for 35 years on this work, which is one of the earliest in Neo-Persian and contains only a very small number of Arabic foreign words. To this day, Ferdousīs shāhnāme is the basis of Persian national consciousness in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

New Persian has a more regular and therefore simpler grammar than Middle Persian, as well as a simple sound system and many Arabic loanwords and phrases that came into Persian after the conquest of Iran by the Arabs . Many old Persian inflections were lost (e.g. the case inflection), as was the grammatical gender . Such language simplifications (especially inflections) occur in many modern European languages ​​- e.g. B. in English or in French .

New Persian has long been the lingua franca (common language of communication ) of the Orient and serves today as such in many parts of Central and South Asia. Today, New Persian is the cultural and official language in Iran , Afghanistan and Tajikistan . A standard work of the New Persian language is Dehchodas Lexikon .

font

New Persian uses the Perso-Arabic script

Persian has been written in Arabic script since the Islamization of Persia . In order to be able to reproduce those sounds that did not exist in Arabic (which is not related to Persian), the Arabic alphabet was expanded by four additional letters (see table below), so that the Persian alphabet comprises a total of 32 letters. (For the Latin transcription at Wikipedia, see Persian transcription .)

pronunciation Letter Surname
[p] پ pe
[tʃ] چ če
[ʒ] ژ že
[G] گ gāf

Persian-speaking minorities in the Caucasus (for example Tat ) write in Cyrillic .

Written language - standard spoken language - dialects

The Persian language also knows a large number of dialects, some of which are quite different .

Iran

After a child has naturally internalized a local dialect (e.g. that of Isfahan or that of Kerman ), it learns the high-level, official Persian at school (فارسی رسمی, Fārsi-ye rasmi ). However, since this is the always text-based written language (فارسی کتابی, Fārsi-ye ketābi ), the so-called standard spoken language must also be learned, which was originally the local dialect of Tehran (لهجۀ تهرانی, lahǧe-ye tehrāni ). During the 20th century, however, the “Tehran” dialect of the capital ( Tehruni ) spread throughout the country and is now understood everywhere. As normal and, in contrast to the dialects, supra-regional colloquial language (زبان محاوره, zabān-e moḥāwere ) the spoken standard language is used in everyday conversations, but also in speeches, on television and radio, etc.

The difference between the Tehran dialect or the spoken standard language and the official written language lies primarily in the pronunciation, whereby, for example, ān usually becomes ūn and two successive vowels are often bridged with a very soft consonant, which is not the case in the written language gives. In addition to individual words, certain enclitic pronouns and personal endings as well as their connection to another word, e.g. B.پات( pā-t ) insteadپایت( pā-y-at 'your foot'). This also affects the conjugation of verbs, which can also lead to shortening of the present tense, as inمی‌رم( miram ) insteadمی‌روم( mirawam 'I'm going'). Furthermore, the word order sometimes differs from that of the written language.

Afghanistan

For the official language Dari (officially: Fārsī-yi Darī ) in Afghanistan the Kabul dialect in its formal form is decisive, which differs from the Tehran counterpart in its vocabulary and, in contrast to this, is more strongly oriented towards the literary written language in pronunciation . At least with regard to the latter, and at least when ignoring foreign words, it is more original. De facto, however, this dialect is only consistently spoken in Afghanistan in very few contexts such as reading the news. In everyday life, a clearly different colloquial language has developed that is graded in its application depending on the situation. As a result, the term dari is used by many as a term for both formal and colloquial language.

Another dialect spoken in Afghanistan is Hazaragi , which is spoken by some of the Hazara ethnic group . However, the spread of this dialect decreases, which is partly because of the Hazaradschat migrating Hazaras assimilate linguistically quickly.

Grammar of New Persian

Sentence structure

The sentence structure is generally subject - object - predicate . However, both subject and object can be omitted if they are represented by a pronoun or if their meaning arises from the context of the statement, so that in the result the subject-object structure can only be recognized by the predicative verb ending. Correspondingly, the sentence structure can also appear as an object-predicate-subject, even a predicate-subject-object or even a predicate-object-subject. Basically, the main clause precedes a subordinate clause, which is often introduced by a conjunction . Since there are determiners or determiners that identify parts of a sentence, the sentence structure in the Persian language is not very strict and is often changed in dialects and poetry. As in other Indo-European languages, the subject-rhema structure takes a back seat to the subject-object-predicate structure as the primary structuring element of the sentence structure.

Articles, pronouns, nouns

Persian has no article . The determinateness of a direct accusative object can, however, be represented with the help of the postposition rā , while indeterminacy is mainly indicated by adding the unstressed suffix -i . In the case of a plural, certainty is indicated by using the plural form (see below), whereby the addition of the suffix - i or the absence of the postposition rā (in the case of a direct object) means again an indeterminacy. There is also no grammatical gender . Instead of possessive pronouns , either the personal pronoun or a personal ending is added to the noun or preposition .

Both for the genitive -connection of two nouns and for the connection with an adjective, the ending -e (after the vowel -ye , classical and Tajik -i ) is added to the first noun . This ending is called Ezafe ("addition"). Adjectives are followed up and are immutable. For example, the genitive compound "Fatemes Apple" is formed as sib-e Fāṭeme (سیب فاطمه). The adjective sabz "green" results in "Fatemes green apple" as sib-e sabz-e Fāṭeme (سیب سبز فاطمه). These connecting phonemes are pronounced but usually not written. Recognizing the ezafe is difficult for learners because the ezafe is not written as a short vowel in Arabic script. Only the y after vowels appears in the script, while the Hamze ( Hamze-ye Ye ) above the ending -h (ـهٔ) is also often not written (anymore). The phrase "He ate Fateme's green apple" ( Sib-e sabz-e Fāṭeme rā chord -سیب سبز فاطمه را خورد) could be written in Persian as "The green apple ate Fateme" ( Sib-e sabz Fāṭeme rā chord -سیب سبز فاطمه را خورد) can be misunderstood if one does not think about the second ezafe or if the personal pronoun 3rd person singular, "he / she / es" ( Persian او, DMG ū ), is missing. Therefore, in order to avoid this misunderstanding, this sentence must be formed with u (he / she): u sīb-e sabz-e fāṭeme-rā ḫord -او سیب سبز فاطمه را خورد.

Plural

The plural is usually formed regularly by adding a suffix: While the use of -ān on people ( Persian آقایان, DMG āqāyān "gentlemen" or Persian آغایان, DMG āġāyān "eunuchs") and animated beings ( asbān "horses") restricted, -hā is actually used for inanimate things ( darhā "doors"), but can be added to almost everything in today's colloquial language ( irānihā "Iranians") ) and even replace irregular loan plurals from Arabic ( ketābhā instead of kotob "books"). In some cases the two forms of -ān and -hā coexist and each have a special meaning ( sarān "heads" and sarhā "heads" to sar "head").

Verbs

The Persian verbs have a present and a preterital stem . These stems form the basis for all tenses . Since the verb stem is not changed within a tense (in contrast, for example, to some verbs in the German present tense: "du g i bst", "wir g e ben"), the Persian verb conjugation is very regular. The (unabridged) infinitive ( masdar ) has -tan or -dan as formans and can also be used as a noun. A shortened infinitive (preterital stem) is formed by leaving out -an .

The present and past tense are formed by adding a personal ending to the corresponding verb stem. In the present tense, the prefix mi- is added to the verb stem, except for the verbs budan ('to be') and dāschtan ('have'). However: The prefix mi می is only left out if “haben” is inflected alone as a full verb and is conjugated here. The full verb dāschtan ('have') retains the lexical meaning, as an auxiliary verb not. The use of the prefix mi is e.g. B. Mandatory for compound verbs in which dāschtan functions as an auxiliary verb; Examples are bar dāschtan ('to pick up , take off'), yād dāschtan ('to remember'), bāz dāschtan ('stop'). The grammatical formula is: Parts of speech e.g. B. noun + mī + present stem of dāschten = dār + sign Personal pronoun z. B. man bar midāram or man bāz midāram , man yād midāram or man dust midāram ('I love') or man negah midāram ('I keep').

The lexical meaning of dāschtan as a full verb is canceled here. It now has a changed semantic meaning and only a grammatical auxiliary function. In the present tense in the progressive form (pers. Ḥāl-e estemrāri ) z. B. man dāram michoram : “I am eating”, literally “I have been eating”. Dāschtan is also omitted from compound verbs : one dāram midāram is completely wrong, while one dāram miravam (“I am walking”) is correct. Perfect and pluperfect are similar to the Germans by using the participle perfectly formed .: rafts on = "I have gone"; rafte budam = "I was gone". For the future tense a construction with the verb stem chāh ('to want') and the short infinitive without -an is used: chāham raft = “I will go”. In colloquial language, as in German, the present tense is often used instead of the future tense.

An important tense is the durative (corresponds to the English past continuous tense ), which expresses a continuous or repeated activity (form only recognizable in the past tense). The subjunctive is used in a similar way as in Romance languages and more often than in German. Two forms are used: On the one hand, the same form as in the durative in the past for "no longer satisfiable" conditions ( Agar u miāmad - 'If he had come') and on the other hand, through the simple past tense to represent a "still satisfiable" condition ( Agar u-rā didí - 'If you should see him').

There is also the subjunctive , which is formed by the present tense with be instead of mi- as a prefix, negated with na- instead of mi- . This form is used in conjunction with modal verbs: Mī-chāham be-chābam ('I want to sleep'). furthermore, it comes after agar = if, if the sentence represents a fulfillable condition, as in the sentence “When the sun shines” ( Agar chorschid be-tābad ), in contrast to non -achievable conditions like Agar schab chorschid mi-tābid ('When the sun at night rail '). In addition, the subjunctive as jussive can express a request and is then translated into German as “shall”: Loṭfan beneschinand “You should please sit down”. Indirect speech , on the other hand, is not expressed with the subjunctive: Goft ke sag rā nemibinad "He said that he does not see the dog" (literally: "sees").

Belonging to the Indo-European language family

Certain similarities in the basic vocabulary of the Persian language in relation to other Indo-European languages testify to a common origin, whereby a comparison is more obvious in older language levels. This is especially true of Old Persian and Avestan with regard to Sanskrit .

The Indo-European relationship of numerous Persian terms can be deduced from the comparative method and the laws of sound shifting. Examples:

old Persian Middle Persian neopersian ancient greek Latin German English Swedish Polish Lithuanian
pitar pidar pedar پدر patḗr πατήρ Father father father fa (de) r ojciec tėvas
mātar mād (ar) mādar مادر mḗtēr μήτηρ mater mother mother mo (de) r uterus motina
brātar brād (ar) barādar برادر adelphós ἀδελφός frater Brothers brother bro (de) r fry brolis
(not attested) ducht (ar) wicked دختر thygatḗr θυγατήρ filia daughter daughter yolk córka dukra
nāman nām nām نام ónoma ὄνομα noun Surname Surname namn imię vardas
martiya ("mortal") mard mard ("man") مرد anḗr ἀνήρ mortalis murder murder murder martwy ("dead") mirtingas ("mortal")
dadā-tanaiy dādan dādan دادن dídōmi δίδωμι dare give give giva, ge dać duoti
hishta-tanaiy avishtadan istādan ایستادن hístēmi ἵστημι sistere stand was standing stå stać stoti
manā (me) man (me, me) man (me) من emé ἐμέ me me me mig mnie mane
pantscha pandsch pandsch پنج pénte πέντε quinque five five fem pięć penki
hafta detention detention هفت heptá ἑπτά septem seven seven sju siedem septyni
rāsta rāst rāst راست orthós ὀρθός rectus right, right right rätt, riktig prawy dešinė

Since there are no characters to represent Old and Middle Persian, only New Persian and Old Greek are given in the original script.

Morphological comparison:

to be (present tense):

urindo-european Sanskrit old Persian neopersian ancient greek Latin German Polish Swedish Lithuanian
* esmi asmi amiy hastam هستم eimí εἰμί sum I am yestem jag ar esu
* essi asi (not attested) hasti هستی eî εἶ it you are jesteś you are it I
* esti asti astiy have / ast هست estí ἐστί est he is jest han ar yra (esti)
* smesi / * smosi smas amahiy hastim هستیم esmén ἐσμέν sumus we are jesteśmy vi ar esame
* stes stha (not attested) hastid هستید esté ἐστέ estis you are jesteście no esate
* senti santi hatiy hastand هستند eisín εἰσίν sunt you are są de ar yra (esa)

give birth (present tense):

urindo-european Sanskrit old Persian neopersian Greek Latin Old Slavic ahd. German
* bhero bharami baramiy mi-baram می برم phérō φέρω fero berǫ biru i give birth
* bheresi bharasi (not attested) mi-bari می بری phéreis φέρεις fers beresь biris you give birth
* bhereti bharati baratiy mi-barad می برد phérei φέρει ready beretъ birit he, she, it gives birth
* bheromes bharamas baramahiy mi-barim می بریم phenomena φέρομεν ferimus beremъ berames we give birth
* bherete (s) bharatha (not attested) mi-barid می برید phérete φέρετε fertis berete beret you give birth
* bheronti bharanti barātiy mi-barand می برند phérusin φέρουσιν ferunt berǫtu berant they give birth

Other examples:

  • do - French deux 'two' - Lithuanian you 'two'
  • schesch - Polish sześć 'six' - Lithuanian šeši 'six'
  • murders - Latin mors, mortis 'death'
  • setāre - 'star'
  • zamin - Polish ziemia 'earth'
  • to - Lithuanian do 'you'
  • pā - Latin pes 'foot'
  • tārik - English dark 'dark'
  • bordan - 'burden' (to bear)
  • reftan - 'grab'
  • na - Lithuanian ne 'no'
  • yugh - 'yoke'
  • dschawān - Latin iuvenis 'young'
  • garm - 'warm'
  • musch - 'mouse'
  • nav -   - Latin navis 'ship'
  • ancient Persian upari -   - ancient Greek hyper , Latin super 'about'

A peculiarity in Persian is that original consonant groups were initially broken up by a vowel, cf. z. B. b [a] rādar 'brother', g [e] reftan 'grasp', s [e] tāre 'star'. This development is likely (but not with certainty) to have occurred under the influence of Arabic, as it can only be found in New Persian, which arose during and after Arab rule. The emphasis on Persian words is usually on the last syllable.

Loanwords

Loan words in New Persian

Since the Islamization of Persia, more than 50% of today's Persian vocabulary has been borrowed from Arabic. From a statistical point of view, the number of Arabic loanwords is around 8,000 out of 20,000 literary vocabulary used every day or, in other words, around 40% of everyday vocabulary (if you do not include additional derivations and word combinations). In Persian literature, the proportion of Arabic loanwords varies depending on the style, subject, or discourse, with usage increasing steadily over the course of history. Therefore an abstract from the Schahname of the poet Firdausi contains only approx. 9% Arabic loanwords with an application frequency of approx. 2.4%, while in the eulogies of the poet Onsuri it is approx. 32% loanwords with a frequency of 17%.

Recently, there has also been a significant number of borrowings from the Turkic languages ​​and neologisms from languages ​​such as English, French and Russian. The proportion of Turkish and Mongolian words is estimated to be 2–3% of the total vocabulary. In the case of Arabic loanwords, despite the adapted pronunciation, the original Arabic orthography is adhered to exactly, at least in the root; the plural formation may differ. Many of these words have Persian equivalents, but some of them can be assigned to a different style level or are simply used less often. The influence of Arabic becomes particularly clear in the compound verbs, which often consist of an Arabic noun and a Persian verb with a comparatively unspecific meaning (e.g. "make" or "give").

Persian loan words in other languages

Conversely, Arabic has also adopted words from Persian that were borrowed mainly during the first four centuries of Islam - both directly and indirectly. Most of these words come from Middle Persian , the official language of the Sassanid Empire , which to some extent served as an administrative language in the early centuries of the Islamic era. Also, the Turkic languages , especially the Ottoman and the Chagatai Language, many Persian loanwords. Due to the dominance of Persian-speaking dynasties in India, especially the Mughals , the Indian languages, particularly Urdu , have borrowed numerous Persian words.

Persian loan words in German

All loanwords from Persian did not enter the German language directly , but took routes via neighboring languages ​​with which Persian was in contact throughout history. In the historical order, these are Greek with the Western successor language Latin (e.g. Paradeisos from the Avestian pairi-daēza , neupers.فردوس/ firdaus , "zoo"), then Arabic , into which many Persian cultural words were included when the Arabs conquered the Sassanid Empire and which then passed the terms on to French , especially via the language bridge in Andalusia (e.g. bazar from neupers.بازار/ Bāzār , "market", but also checkmate on the neupers.شاه/ šāh , "ruler", and Arabic مات, DMG māt , "(he) died"). During the so-called “ Turkish Wars ” in the 16th and 17th centuries, further Persian loanwords were adopted into German via Ottoman-Turkish (e.g. Muselman from Ottoman-Turkish musslüman , which in turn translates to neupers.مسلمان/ mosalmān , "Muslim", goes back) and since the 19th century the Hindustan , Persian terms in English (e.g. jungle from neupers.جنگل/ ǧangal , "forest", or pijama from neupers.پی جامه/ peyǧāma , lit. " trousers ") passed on. In general German dictionaries, 194 words of Persian origin ( Iranisms ) were found. For 68 of these loans, it can be stated when they were transferred into German. The course of their increase from the 8th to the 20th century corresponds to the Piotrowski law .

Persian literature

Probably the best-known work of Persian literature in the West is the collection of stories Thousand and One Nights , a retelling of many Iranian folk tales and fairy tales. Today's Persian was shaped primarily by Persian poetry. Two well-known poets of Persia were Saadi and Hafiz . Even Goethe settled in the West-Eastern Divan of Hafez inspired. Other well-known poets are Rumi , Omar Chayyām , Rudaki , Ferdousī or Dschami . Many works by Persian scientists - such as B. the mathematician al-Khwarizmi or the doctor Ibn Sina ( Avicenna ) - should be mentioned here.

Since Persian was the language of education and diplomacy in the early Ottoman Empire, in the Islamic-ruled areas of India from 1200, and in southern Central Asia, the literature in these areas was decisively influenced by Persian literature. Much Persian literature was written in India in particular. The forms of Persian lyric poetry and the themes of the epic were adopted in the other languages ​​of these regions. This is particularly true of Urdu literature, the early modern literature of Central Asia, and Ottoman literature . Parts of Persian poetry forms and motifs can also be found far beyond. In Bosnia, for example, as part of the Ottoman Empire, Persian literature was cultivated and forms of poetry were adopted, but Bosnian literature developed largely in contrast to the Ottoman forms. The Persian heroic novel Hamzanama reached the Indonesian island of Lombok in the 16th century via maritime trade , where it is performed as a shadow play. The Georgian translation of the Persian love epic Wis and Ramin is considered to be a high point of medieval Georgian literature. and is cited as exemplary by the Georgian national epic The Warrior in a Tiger Skin .

As an Ottoman educational language, Persian was important for diplomacy with the Ottoman Empire, which is why Persian was also taught at the K&K Academy for Oriental Languages in Vienna, founded in 1754 . There was Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall trained, whose translation of the poems of Hafez inspired Goethe to West-Eastern Divan. However, attempts to adopt the Persian poem form of Ghazel could not prevail because German, unlike Persian, is difficult to rhyme and a poem with only one rhyme in German seems artificial. In the English-speaking world, Omar Chayyām and, in the early 21st century, Rumi are read primarily .

literature

Web links

Wikibooks: Persian  - learning and teaching materials
Wikibooks: Wikijunior Languages ​​/ Persian  - Learning and teaching materials
Wikiquote: Iranian Proverbs  - Quotes

References and comments

  1. ↑ TM Masti︠u︡gina, Lev Perepelkin, Vitaliĭ Vi͡a︡cheslavovich Naumkin, "An Ethnic History of Russia: Pre-Revolutionary Times to the Present", Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996. p. 80 : "" The Iranian Peoples (Ossetians, Tajiks, Tats, Mountain Judaists) "
  2. ^ Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian Languages , Routledge 2009, p. 418.
  3. ↑ Bozorg Alavi, Manfred Lorenz: Textbook of the Persian language. Langenscheidt, Leipzig etc. 1967; 7th edition ibid 1994, p. 15.
  4. ↑ THE HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL LITERATURE IN THE PERSIAN LANGUAGE, BERTOLD SPULER
  5. ↑ Iraq. Retrieved November 7, 2014 .
  6. ↑ Short form of Fārsī-yi darī , official name for the Persian language in Afghanistan.
  7. ↑ Abdolazim Hakimi (Ph.D) Comparative Phonetic Study of Frequently Used Words in Iranian Farsi versus Tajik Farsi // Journal of American Science 2012: 8 (4)
  8. ^ Bozorg Alavi and Manfred Lorenz : Textbook of the Persian language. Langenscheidt, Leipzig etc. 1967, 7th edition, ibid 1994, ISBN 3-324-00253-2 , p. 5
  9. ↑ Armenia and Iran iv. Iranian influences in Armenian language. Retrieved January 2, 2015 .
  10. ↑ Georgia v. Linguistic contacts with Iranian languages. Retrieved January 2, 2015 .
  11. ↑ 53% of the population according to "Iran" in the CIA Factbook 2011.
  12. ↑ 50% of the population according to "Afghanistan: Population" , in the CIA Factbook 2011.
  13. ↑ John Andrew Boyle: Some thoughts on the sources for the Il-Khanid period of Persian history. In: Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, British Institute of Persian Studies. Volume 12, 1974, p. 175.
  14. ↑ Linguists attributed this in part to the fact that the Arabic language or script did not know the p-sound or the ursemitic p-sound had become f in Arabic. With regard to Persian, however, this thesis is questionable, since many former (Persian) p-sounds were converted into b-sounds when they were adopted into Arabic (e.g. Iṣbahān from Middle Persian Sepahān ) and original Persian terms such as pedar ("Father") or panǧ ("five"), continued to keep their p-sound. Accordingly, it was a sound shift from p to f that took place at that time, as in other Indo-European languages .
  15. ↑ Short forفارسى دربارى, DMG fārsī-ye darbārī , 'court language'.
  16. ↑ Alavi / Lorenz (1994), pp. 15 and 179-197
  17. ↑ Alavi / Lorenz (1994), pp. 258-263.
  18. ↑ Examples:تهرانی( tehruni 'Tehran'),نان( now 'bread').
  19. ↑ Alavi / Lorenz (1994), p. 33 f.
  20. ↑ http://www.learn-persian.com/deutsch/Lektion_14.php
  21. ↑ cf. Mohammad-Reza Majidi 1990
  22. ↑ See Duden. The dictionary of origin , Mannheim 1989, p. 220 (“give birth”), p. 105 (“burden”), ISBN 3-411-20907-0 .
  23. ↑ Alavi / Lorenz (1994), p. 16
  24. ↑ Encyclopaedia of Islam, XII (Supplementband), Leiden 2004, p. 446b: “ Loan words from Arabic constitute more than 50% of the contemporary Persian vocabulary, but in elevated styles it may exceed even 80%. ”
  25. ^ JR Perry: Arabic elements in Persian . In: Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition .
  26. ↑ Éva M. Jeremiás: Keyword: Iran iii. Languages ​​(supplement) . In: Encyclopaedia of Islam . Leiden, 2004.
  27. ↑ Ehsan Yarshater: LANDS OF IRAN - Turko-Iranian symbiosis . In: Encyclopaedia Iranica , Online Edition .
  28. ↑ A. Tafażżolī: Iranian Loanwords in Arabic . In: Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online edition .
  29. ↑ For this compound term, there is here one more theory.
  30. ^ Karl-Heinz Best : Iranisms in German. In: Glottometrics 26, 2013, pages 1–8 (PDF full text ).
  31. ↑ INDIA xiv. Persian Literature , at www.iranicaonline.org, accessed October 24, 2018
  32. ↑ IRAN viii. PERSIAN LITERATURE (2) Classical , at www.iranicaonline.org, accessed October 24, 2018
  33. ↑ URDU , at www.iranicaonline.org, accessed October 24, 2018
  34. ↑ CHAGHATAY LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE , at www.iranicaonline.org, accessed October 24, 2018
  35. ↑ Stefan Sperl; Christopher Shackle (Ed.): Qaṣīda Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa , vol. 1: Classical Traditions and Modern Meaning , Leiden: Brill, 1996, pp. 281-300.
  36. ↑ Hamid Algar: “Persian literature in Bosnia-Herzegovina”, in: The Journal of Islamic Studies 5/2 (1994), pp. 254-67.
  37. ↑ VISRAMIANI , at www.iranicaonline.org, accessed on October 24, 2018
  38. ^ Translations of the skeptical quatrains ascribed to Omar Chayyām
  39. ↑ On the contemporary reception of Rumis Masnavi in the USA with complete neglect of his Islamic background cf. the article by Rozina Ali “The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi” in the New Yorker on January 5, 2017, [1] .