The Persian language (Farsi) belongs to the Indo-European family of languages. However, within this family, it specifically belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch. While Farsi is the official language of Iran, there are other varieties that are spoken in Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Similar to other Indo-European languages, the usage of verbs in Persian retains a set of personal endings in additions to prefixes and suffixes. The word Faris was initially Parsi associated with the Parsa people who ruled Iran during 550 BC. The characters of Farsi are those of Arabic and have many similar words. If you are able to read Arabic, you are able to read Persian and vice versa. You may not be able to understand fully what each language is saying but you can read it. According to Britannica, it says that the oldest form of Persian was written in cuneiform in the time of King Darius. However, over time this language evolved and has also been written in epigraphic texts of Aramaic script. It is said that modern grammar in the Persian language is a lot simpler than its ancestral forms.
Furthermore, according to the Iran Chamber Society, Persian was the language of the court of the Indian kings. This language was used to engrave the walls of palaces and castles with gold. However, with the Britain empire overtaking other countries, Persian was banned from being spoken in most of the regions. There are elements int the Persian language today that can be as a result of this encountering with the British empire. For example, there are words in Faris that are borrowed from English such as “motor” for machine/motor. Also, there are words in Iranian Farsi that are similar to France such as “merci” or thank you. Understanding the evolution of languages helps one to learn about the history of the language and the country. Furthermore, it shows that languages are closer to each other than we think. I think as people increase interaction with each other through globalization and other significant events such as war, there is a great chance that languages and cultures will be influenced. The Persian language is an example of how languages can evolve when encountering such incidents. I think linguists are historians in a way because they have to understand things such as countries conquesting each other or forcing one another to use a certain form of grammar. As a result of this, they are cautious about how future events may target certain changes in languages.
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Hi Lina,
Great response! I really enjoyed how you compared Farsi to Arabic. It's amazing to see how Farsi and Arabic share the same foundation in lettering to an extent, especially considering that Farsi and Arabic are in separate language families. I have found learning about history and language families to be quite helpful in my language learning as well. I completely agree with you in that languages share more similarities than differences. I found it to be a very unexpected characteristic, and it only made sense after diving into the foundations of language this semester. I really enjoyed the ideas you brought saying that linguists are historians in a way as well. Such a thoughtful post, thanks for sharing!
I would caution that being able to read Arabic does not help you much further than the shared vocab and script. There are many short vowels in both languages that are not written. For this reason, it is almost impossible to know how to say a written word without first having heard it or seeing the hareket above and below.