Persian studies
Encyclopedia
Persian Studies is the study of the Persian language
and its literature
specifically. It is differentiated from Iranian Studies
which is a broader, more interdisciplinary subject that focuses more on the histories
and cultures
of all Iranian peoples
.
. The Avestan alphabet
, developed during the Sassanid Empire
, was derived from the Pahlavi alphabet and remained one of the most phonologically
sophisticated alphabets until the modern period. The Zoroastrian
liturgies until that point had been orally transmitted, and the ability to set these ancient texts in writing helped to preserve them. Even earlier than that, however, the invention of the Old Persian syllabary
, whose shapes were adapted from preexisting cuneiform systems
demonstrates that Iranian peoples could think critically, logically, and imaginatively about their language.
and the replacement of Zoroastrianism with Islam as the most important faith of the Iranian plateau
. Iran became part of the great Islamic community, the Ummah
, and saw the rise of Arabic
as the new language of literature
and learning. Iranian-born grammarians, rhetoricians, scientists, philosophers, theologians, contributed to the intellectual vitality of this new and vibrant civilization alongside other Muslims from other nationalities. Among the most prominent are:
Many regions of this Arab Empire
saw the almost total replacement the indigenous language by Arabic: the pre-Islamic languages of Syria
, Iraq
, Egypt
, and North Africa
exist only in isolated communities and have been largely replaced by Arabic. Not so in Iran, where the Persian language continued, albeit with an infusion of Arabic vocabulary, and thrived as the courtly language of the Islamic Orient. In fact it was in the Eastern reaches of the Caliphate, far from the seat of Arab power in Baghdad, where New Persian reemerged as a literary and courtly language.
was published in 1654 CE. As British trade
with India
increased, the focus of learning Persian shifted to the "colonial" Persian of India.
. Many scholars in prior centuries had commented on the similarities between Germanic and Iranian languages But in the 19th century, scholars for the first time postulated a common ancestor to languages like Sanskrit
, Persian
, and European languages which has since come to be called the Proto-Indo-European language
.
As important was the deciphering of Old Persian, the language of dozens of inscriptions which still stand in Iran. Sir Henry Rawlinson first discovered that the language of these inscriptions was an ancient form of the Persian language. Since these inscriptions often included inscriptions in other Cuneiform scripts, this decipherment became like a Rosetta Stone
for the languages of ancient Mesopotamia
. All that we know of the languages and histories of the empires of Babylonia
, Assyria
, Sumer
, Elam
, and so on is indirectly indebted to knowledge of the Persian language.
, Iranians first encountered Europeans in the context of the rise of the West. Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1798 CE was the first European intrusion into the Muslim Middle East and prefigured many more disruptions for the peoples of this region, especially Iran. Iran lost territory in several wars with Russia and Britain. Iran's economy suffered greatly as European sea lanes bypassed the legendary Silk Road
which had always been a pillar of Iran's economy. New industrial processes of production made traditional ways of living impossible for Iranians. As in many other countries during this time like Japan
, China
, and Turkey
, a nationalist
reaction occurred in Iran as Iranians realized the importance of modernizing as quickly as possible to fight off the encroachment of the Western powers. It was at this point that modern educational institutions in Western tradition were first opened in Iran. Iran would never be the same, and the study of language there merged with the tradition in Europe.
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
and its literature
Persian literature
Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language...
specifically. It is differentiated from Iranian Studies
Iranian Studies
Iranian studies , is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the study of history, literature, art and culture of the Iranian people. It is a part of the wider field of Oriental studies....
which is a broader, more interdisciplinary subject that focuses more on the histories
History of Iran
The history of Iran has been intertwined with the history of a larger historical region, comprising the area from the Danube River in the west to the Indus River and Jaxartes in the east and from the Caucasus, Caspian Sea, and Aral Sea in the north to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and Egypt...
and cultures
Culture of Iran
To best understand Iran, Afghanistan, their related societies and their people, one must first attempt to acquire an understanding of their culture. It is in the study of this area where the Persian identity optimally expresses itself...
of all Iranian peoples
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
.
Before Islam
The study of language in Iran reaches back many centuries before IslamIslam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
. The Avestan alphabet
Avestan alphabet
The Avestan alphabet is a writing system developed during Iran's Sassanid era to render the Avestan language.As a side effect of its development, the script was also used for Pazend, a method of writing Middle Persian that was used primarily for the Zend commentaries on the texts of the Avesta...
, developed during the Sassanid Empire
Sassanid Empire
The Sassanid Empire , known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran , was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from 224 to 651...
, was derived from the Pahlavi alphabet and remained one of the most phonologically
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
sophisticated alphabets until the modern period. The Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in Greater Iran.In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil...
liturgies until that point had been orally transmitted, and the ability to set these ancient texts in writing helped to preserve them. Even earlier than that, however, the invention of the Old Persian syllabary
Old Persian cuneiform script
Old Persian cuneiform is a semi-alphabetic cuneiform script that was the primary script for the Old Persian language. Texts written in this cuneiform were found in Persepolis, Susa, Hamadan, Armenia, and along the Suez Canal. They were mostly inscriptions from the time period of Darius the Great...
, whose shapes were adapted from preexisting cuneiform systems
Cuneiform script
Cuneiform script )) is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. Emerging in Sumer around the 30th century BC, with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium , cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs...
demonstrates that Iranian peoples could think critically, logically, and imaginatively about their language.
Early Islam
The coming of Islam announced the end of the world of AntiquityLate Antiquity
Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...
and the replacement of Zoroastrianism with Islam as the most important faith of the Iranian plateau
Iranian plateau
The Iranian plateau, or Iranic plateau, is a geological formation in Southwest Asia. It is the part of the Eurasian Plate wedged between the Arabian and Indian plates, situated between the Zagros mountains to the west, the Caspian Sea and the Kopet Dag to the north, the Hormuz Strait and Persian...
. Iran became part of the great Islamic community, the Ummah
Ummah
Ummah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation." It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...
, and saw the rise of Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
as the new language of literature
Arabic literature
Arabic literature is the writing produced, both prose and poetry, by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is adab which is derived from a meaning of etiquette, and implies politeness, culture and enrichment....
and learning. Iranian-born grammarians, rhetoricians, scientists, philosophers, theologians, contributed to the intellectual vitality of this new and vibrant civilization alongside other Muslims from other nationalities. Among the most prominent are:
- SibawayhSibawayhAbū Bishr ʻAmr ibn ʻUthmān ibn Qanbar Al-Bishrī , commonly known as Sībawayh , was an influential linguist and grammarian of the Arabic language. He was of Persian origin born ca...
(ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
: سیبویه Sībawayh) (c. 760 CE) who wrote one of the first grammars of Arabic - AvicennaAvicennaAbū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...
(ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
: أبو علي حسین إبن عبد الله إبن سینا Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā) (c. 980 CE) one of the most celebrated and influential thinkers of the Islamic Golden AgeIslamic Golden AgeDuring the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations...
contributed to astronomy, philosophy, logic, and mechanics, and helped to revive the Persian language by coining new words. - Asadi TusiAsadi TusiAbu Mansur Ali ibn Ahmad Asadi Tusi is arguably the second most important Persian poet of the Iranian national epics, after Ferdowsi who also happens to come from the same town of Tus. He was a poet, a linguist and copyist of ancient manuscripts.- Life :The information on Asadi's lifetime is scant...
(ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
: أبو منسور علي أحمد اسدي طوسي Abū Mansūr ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad Asadī Ṭūsī) (d. 1072 CE) whose dictionary represented an attempt to standardize the Persian language.
Many regions of this Arab Empire
Caliphate
The term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...
saw the almost total replacement the indigenous language by Arabic: the pre-Islamic languages of Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, and North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
exist only in isolated communities and have been largely replaced by Arabic. Not so in Iran, where the Persian language continued, albeit with an infusion of Arabic vocabulary, and thrived as the courtly language of the Islamic Orient. In fact it was in the Eastern reaches of the Caliphate, far from the seat of Arab power in Baghdad, where New Persian reemerged as a literary and courtly language.
Early Encounters
Persian was the lingua franca of a wide area, not limited to Iran. The first Europeans to encounter the Persian language were the envoys and diplomats of early modern European nations sent first to Ottoman Turkey and then to other places. The earliest motivation for the study of Persian was to win converts to Christianity.- Codex CumanicusCodex CumanicusThe Codex Cumanicus was a linguistic manual of the Middle Ages, designed to help Catholic missionaries communicate with the Cumans, a nomadic Turkic people. It is currently housed in the Library of St. Mark, in Venice ....
, a glossary of Persian and Cuman Turkish words in Latin. - a translation of the Pentateuch into Persian by the Jew Tavus
- translations from PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
of Francis Xavier'sFrancis XavierFrancis Xavier, born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta was a pioneering Roman Catholic missionary born in the Kingdom of Navarre and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. He was a student of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and one of the first seven Jesuits, dedicated at Montmartre in 1534...
History of Christ and History of Peter (c. 1602 CE)
Study of the living language, 17th century
Grammars and dictionaries of the Persian language were first composed in the 17th century during which efforts were made to understand the "Persian of the people." Later on, Persian as it was actually used declined in importance as Classical Persian literature was introduced to the continent.- Raimondo of Cremona seems to have been the first to compose a grammatical sketch of Persian, but his manuscript remained unavailable.
- the Belgian priest de Dieu published Rudimentae Linguae Persicae (1639 CE) in which he established the basic phonologyPhonologyPhonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
and morphologyMorphology (linguistics)In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
of Persian - Pater Angelus (Joseph Labrosse) studied Persian for fourteen years in the capital of Esfahan as part of the Vatican'sVatican CityVatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...
Oriental Mission. He published a monumental work composed of "fourteen folios of mini-grammar and over 450 pages of words and phrases of the living language."
Beginnings of Orientalism, 18th century
During this century, Europeans discovered the rich store of Classical Persian literature, and study of the Persian language meant study of the language as it was used in these works. The first edition of the Gulistan of Sa'diGulistan of Sa'di
The Gulistan is a landmark literary work in Persian literature, perhaps its single most influential work of prose. Written in 1259 CE, it is one of two major works of the Persian poet Sa'di, considered one of the greatest medieval Persian poets. It is also one of his most popular books, and...
was published in 1654 CE. As British trade
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
with India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
increased, the focus of learning Persian shifted to the "colonial" Persian of India.
- AnquetilAbraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-DuperronAbraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron was the first professional French scholar of Indian culture. He conceived the institutional framework for the new profession. He inspired the founding of the Ecole francaise d'extreme orient a century after his death and, later still, the founding of the...
published the first edition of the texts of the Zoroastrian Parsis in his three-volume Zend-Avesta (1771 CE). - William Jones's publication of his grammar (also in 1771 CE) marked when knowledge of Persian grammar became really accessible, since the prior works were not available to most people. He hoped the work would open up study of the Persian Classics, but it was intended to assist East India Company employees. William Jones founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1784 CE), the first OrientalOrientalismOrientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...
society.
Orientalism, Rediscovery, 19th century
During this period of intense interest in the Orient, Persian proved to be one of the most important languages for the incipient field of Comparative LinguisticsComparative linguistics
Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness....
. Many scholars in prior centuries had commented on the similarities between Germanic and Iranian languages But in the 19th century, scholars for the first time postulated a common ancestor to languages like Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
, and European languages which has since come to be called the Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
.
As important was the deciphering of Old Persian, the language of dozens of inscriptions which still stand in Iran. Sir Henry Rawlinson first discovered that the language of these inscriptions was an ancient form of the Persian language. Since these inscriptions often included inscriptions in other Cuneiform scripts, this decipherment became like a Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek...
for the languages of ancient Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
. All that we know of the languages and histories of the empires of Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
, Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
, Sumer
Sumer
Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....
, Elam
Elam
Elam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Elam was centered in the far west and the southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province, as well as a small part of southern Iraq...
, and so on is indirectly indebted to knowledge of the Persian language.
Modernization, 20th century
During the Qajar dynastyQajar dynasty
The Qajar dynasty was an Iranian royal family of Turkic descent who ruled Persia from 1785 to 1925....
, Iranians first encountered Europeans in the context of the rise of the West. Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1798 CE was the first European intrusion into the Muslim Middle East and prefigured many more disruptions for the peoples of this region, especially Iran. Iran lost territory in several wars with Russia and Britain. Iran's economy suffered greatly as European sea lanes bypassed the legendary Silk Road
Silk Road
The Silk Road or Silk Route refers to a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa...
which had always been a pillar of Iran's economy. New industrial processes of production made traditional ways of living impossible for Iranians. As in many other countries during this time like Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, and Turkey
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, a nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
reaction occurred in Iran as Iranians realized the importance of modernizing as quickly as possible to fight off the encroachment of the Western powers. It was at this point that modern educational institutions in Western tradition were first opened in Iran. Iran would never be the same, and the study of language there merged with the tradition in Europe.