Word is that the Iranian president wants some 2000 loan-words in the Farsi language dropped, and Persian words used in their place. The offending words are mostly from Western languages---"pizza," for instance.
Three things come to mind:
* If you removed all the loan-words from Farsi, what would be left? There are so many Arabic and Turkish words in that language. Though, actually, it might be interesting to hear a mulla try to preach a sermon using no Arabic words whatsoever... it would likely be pretty short, anyway.
* Muslims, including probably the Iranian president himself, often take pride in the number of words in European languages which have Arabic origins. Suppose the US (for instance) were to embark on a programme of linguistic cleansing... replace words such as "algebra", "sugar", "alcohol", "algorithim" and "muslin"?
* Good luck... :-)
Lord God, I knew that man was an idiot. Why not try to actually improve the lives of Iranians, and work on making Iran a place that people may actually want to visit? Or does that sound too much like work to him?
And just like the Danish embarrassment, the language will be afflicted with unwieldy words and phrases to compensate for the lack of a leader with an at least room-temperature IQ.
Now I've got a headache. And a craving for Danish.
Hmmm, strange and probably won't take among the population too much. Tehrani Persian uses 'merci' for 'thank you'. It doesn't work in France at all, where English loan words are fashionable in Paris these days. [shaking head...God, I'm never going to get to visit Isfahan!]
- A Salafi in worship, a Sufi in society, a Secularist in government.
algebra, sugar, alcohol, algorithim and muslin ...
and COFFEE!!
I'd love to see an extensive list of all the Arabic words in the English language.
hakim
like a crackhead for coffee
I heard that Iceland is very concerned with the purity of their language, and have some committee to oversee the matter.
http://www.languagehat.com/archives/001879.php
http://www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/site/search/search.php?word=ICELANDIC...
http://indoeuro.bizland.com/tree/germ/icelandic.html
And, the French are this way also. It irks them that people will use foreign expressions such as "Le Week End".
Up until Vatican II in the 1960s, the Roman Catholic church had a doctrine considered by the Eastern Orthodox to be heretical (termed philetism); a belief that the Mass/Liturgy can only be served in the three "sacred" languages , Hebrew, Latin and Greek (the three languages used on the sign above the cross "King of the Jews"). Saints Cyrill and Methodius, in the nineth century, went to the Slavic nations and devised the cyrillic alphabet out of Greek and Hebrew letters. Of course, that first language of the Russian Church, Church Slavonic, became a sacred cow,and for centuries, people were reluctant to pray in any other language.
And yet, the alleged miracle at Pentecost, described in the Book of Acts in the New Testament, is a miracle of many languages; each person in the crowd simultaneosly heard the same apostle speak in the listener's own native tongue. Modern Pentecostals misinterpret the passage, and feel that they must develop the gift of speaking in some tongue unknown even to themselves, as a sign or token of their spiritual development. Even Paul, in one epistle, rebukes people for such practices, and says that only one should speak at a time, and someone else should translate.
I imagine that somewhere, there must be Muslims who experiment with prayers and service in a language other than Arabic.
One young Pakistani swore up and down to me that the prayers of his Masjid were in his Urdu language (a version that he could not understand).
When one speaks of being progressive, and of reform, then it is only natural to move towards the worshiper's mother tongue.
I tried my best to learn the Greek of the Orthodox liturgy, and the New Testament, and I made much progress in understanding, but my comprehension and fluency never equaled my mother tongue of English.
I would have to disagree with Hedonist's contentions of Farsi being influenced by the modern post-Ottoman Turkish language or even the Uthmani Turkish language of the imperial past, Persians were Shia and why would they incorporate the language of their rival?
Farsi is rich in Arabic loan words, especially those pertaining to liturgical terms, but even Persians use "namaaz" instead of "salaat" quite frequently.
Persians do not use the chand-sitara (crescent and star) to identify themselves as Muslims, why would a Shia do that? This is a Sunni Turkish symbol, remember, the Safavids and Ottomans were fighting over control of Iraq, a nation that during the time of Revelation was heavily Persianized in the 7th century.
The Turks, or their ancestors prior to moving into Anatolia, lived for some time in Iran, and their language, not the language of Iran was influenced by the people of Pars. Even the term Farsi is indicative of linguistic Arabization of Persian, since the Arabs lack the "P" which is prevalent in the Muslim Indo-European languages of Farsi/Dari and Hindi/Urdu.
Don't insult Persians by telling us that we are influenced by Central Asian nomads who squeezed out the indigenous peoples of Greek and Armenian heritage in Asia Minor.
OmarG, you can visit Isfahan.
Americans can visit the mullahocracy, my family ignores the State Department's warnings all the time about Americans visiting Iran. My mother crossed into Iraqi Kurdistan by foot for lunch and some tea in 2004, while I was deployed in the Gulf she was enjoying herself in American-occupied Iraq.
And being a white American revert to Islam, and speaking English at that, you will be treated like a king.
White skin carries you far in Middle Eastern Muslim circles, especially bearing an American nationality. They won't let you speak Farsi or Arabic of course, instead they will use you to practice their English and invite you to their table or picnic.
Salaam Gustavo, glad to "see" you here.
I'm no linguist, but I do know that Farsi has a number of Turkic loan words. How these entered the language I don't know; I had assumed that they were probably acquired from Turkmen tribes which kept invading Persia/Iran over the centuries, and/or Azeri influence. Until today, there is a large percentage of Azeri speakers in Iran.
When we were last in Tehran we had few language problems, though none of us spoke Persian---a couple in our group spoke an Iraqi Turkoman dialect, and that sufficed for conversing with the large number of people who know Azeri.
Of course, the linguistic borrowing goes the other way as well. Ottoman Turkish has many loan-words from Farsi.
I have some Turcomen blood in me, though my family has acquired over the generations a "Persian" identity, but you are correct about the Azeri influence on the Persian language.
Persian is a mixed hybrid language like English, given its history and being a land bridge between Asia and the Middle East.
Turkic is a more accurate description than Turkish, which refers to modern-day Turkey, those people are not even full-blooded Turkic peoples anymore, they have alot of Slavic blood in them now, with all that meddling and conquering of Christian Balkan lands.
But there is a strong Azeri influence in Iran's language.
But the French tried a similar scheme, by providiing alternatives to words like
chat
e-mail
Internet
browser
click
etc.
If Muslims ever do create a supranational state, English, not Arabic would be the official language. Arabic would be the liturgical language with parallel English translation.
Gustavo, I already speak Persian, so it wouldn't wholly be a matter of them 'letting' me. But, I get what you mean. In any case, the Iranian embassy recently reversed its policies and will not issue visas to Americans since Ahmedinejad took over. Looks like the spring cooling between Iran and the US was over before it could get started... Oh, and there are planty of Azeri and other Turkic words in Persian some of which date from the Seljuk period: 'tuman' is but one common one. They're even more common in the spoken Persian of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. All languages borrow words, but don't worry, it doesn't detract from anyone's Persian identity.
- A Salafi in worship, a Sufi in society, a Secularist in government.
I have a question, how fluent are you in Farsi?
Because I hear Hamza Yusef sometimes speak Spanish when addressing Latino Muslims, it is correct, but there is a slight noticeable accent.
And the more I listen to some of the native speakers of Arabic in my community college Arabic class, I notice that they too speak it all slightly different.
So have you also studied Ottoman Turkish since you are a Near Eastern studies graduate student?
What was your undergraduate degree in anyways?
I can read Persian pretty well and even write in it with the help of a dictionary, and speak it in most circumstances. But, naturally I have an unmistakable foreign accent. It doesn't help that I use the Afghani pronounciations of vowels which are different from Iranian. As for Ottoman Turkish, I haven't formally studied it, just read a few grammars about it. My undergraduate work was mostly in anthropology and international economics with a fair amount of business courses that I took in community college before I moved on to a four year institution.
- A Salafi in worship, a Sufi in society, a Secularist in government.
Right now I'm taking some community college classes, I love the community college. The classes are smaller and more personal than those available at the elite state national research universities like UCLA, my alma mater.
I'm doing a career change, from history/sociology with a minor in Chicana,-o studies to either medicine or nursing, so I'm taking the pre-requisites for both now and then apply, and see what happens. I might get my teaching credentials though just to have another option available to me.
Gustavo- go figure
Ginan, are you saying that I talk about myself all the time.
I am sorry if it comes across that way, I guess to me being Muslim is intensely personal but I also see that others also interject the personal in their discussions about Islam.
If you don't like my comments, that is fine, ignore them.
I don't think you're going to persuade Omar to think any differently about his feelings pertaining to his community and the community in general in the United States.
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