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Pežman
Akbarzadeh
Persian
Gulf Organization's Rep. in Tehran
Persian (Iranian) people in
the English-speaking countries are the only community who
use two different terms to refer to their language,
"Farsi" and "Persian." This behavior
has caused some confusion among the Westerners as to the
appropriateness of these terms.
"Farsi" (an
Arabic adaptation of the word "Parsi"), is the
indigenous name of the Persian language. Just as the
German speaking people refer to their language as
'Deutsch', the Greek 'Ellinika' and the Spanish 'Espanol',
the Persians use 'Farsi' or 'Parsi' to identify their
native form of verbal communication.
In English, however, this
language has always been known as "Persian" ('Persane'
in French and 'Persisch' in German'). But many Persians
migrating to the West (particularly to the USA) after the
1979 revolution continued to use 'Farsi' to identify their
language in English and the word became commonplace in
English-speaking countries.
In the West when one speaks
of 'Persian Language', people can immediately connect it
with several famous aspects of that culture and history
such as Persian Gulf, Persian Carpet, Persian food,
Persian poetry, Persian cat, etc. But "Farsi" is
void of such link which is only obvious for people in
Persia (Iran) and a few other nations in the Middle East.
The Academy of the Persian
Language and Literature (Farhangestan) in Tehran has also
delivered a pronouncement on this matter and rejected any
usage of the word "Farsi" instead of Persian/Persa/Persane/Persisch
in the Western languages. The first paragraph of the
pronouncement states: "PERSIAN has been used in a
variety of publications including cultural, scientific and
diplomatic documents for centuries and, therefore, it
connotes a very significant historical and cultural
meaning. Hence, changing 'Persian' to 'Farsi' is to negate
this established important precedence. Changing 'Persian'
to 'Farsi' may give the impression that it is a new
language, and this may well be the intention of some Farsi
users…"
Fortunately all
International broadcasting radios with Persian language
service (e.g. VOA, BBC, DW, RFE/RL, etc.) use
"Persian Service", in lieu of the incorrect
"Farsi Service." That is also the case for the
American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre
for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, and
several American and European notable universities.
Some mistakably believe
that, in English, the official language of Iran should be
called "Farsi," while the language spoken in
Tajikistan or Afghanistan should be labeled as
"Dari," and "Persian" should be
utilized to refer to all of them! However, the difference
between the Persian spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, or
Tajikistan is not significant and substantial enough to
warrant such a distinction and classification. Consider
the following case. An Egyptian and a Qatari engage in a
conversation in Arabic. They will encounter a great deal
of difficulties in comprehending each other. Despite this
fact, however, the language used in their conversation is
referred to as "Arabic." No one will even
attempt to classify their respective dialects separately
and refer to them as "Qatari" and
"Egyptian"! On the other hand, Persians, Tajiks
or Afghans can converse in Persian and easily understand
each other. Then, why should their dialects be classified
separately and referred to by different names?
In English, usage of
"Farsi" in place of "Persian," that
has been common since 1980s, is as inaccurate and odd as
using "Farsi Gulf" instead of "Persian
Gulf."
Source: CHN
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