Persian language

“ Most of the Persians go through some sort of education, but that their learning is not pushed to any great length may be gathered from the fact that reading the Persian language fluently is still a rare accomplishment in Persia. The Persians grow up both ignorant and superstitious, believing for the most part in Mahomed and Ali and Hussein ”

“ During successive ages, four idioms have prevailed in Persia, and Persian literature may be divided into four corresponding periods.
First. The period of the Zend (living) , the most ancient of the Persian languages; it was from a remote, unknown age spoken in Media, Bactria, and in the northern part of Persia. This language partakes of the character both of the Sanskrit and of the Chaldaic. It is written from right to left, and it possesses, in its grammatical construction and its radical words, many elements in common with the Sanskrit and the German languages. ”

“ Before I conclude this preface, it will be proper to add a few remarks upon the method of learning the Persian language, and upon the advantages which the learner may expect from it. When the student can read the characters with fluency, and has learned the true pronunciation of every letter from the mouth of a native, let him peruse the grammar with attention, and commit to memory the regular inflexions of the nouns and verbs ; he need not burden his mind with those that deviate from the common forms, as they will be insensibly learned in a short course of reading. ”

“ But the Arabs, again, at the very outset of their career of conquest and conversion, had been, in science, art, literature, and polite manners, the pupils of the Persians, whom they had conquered; they stood to them in the same relation as the Romans stood to the Greeks. Now, the Persians speak a language which is neither Semitic, like Arabic, nor Turanian, like Turkish; it is a branch of the Indo-European or Aryan family of speech. A large infusion of Persian words thus found its way into Arabic, and through Arabic into Turkish ”

“ England possesses some of the best, if not the best, of Persian scholars (alas! he who was here in my mind, Lord Strangford, is no longer among us) , yet there is no chair for Persian at Oxford or Cambridge, in spite of the charms of its modern literature, and the vast importance of the ancient language of Persia and Bactria, the Zend, a language full of interest, not only to the comparative philologist, but also to the student of Comparative Theology. ”

“ The subjects of the Persian kings belonged to more than one race, and, just as in the present day a Turkish pasha in the East has to publish an edict in Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, if it is to be understood by all the populations under his charge, so the Persian kings were obliged to use the language and system of writing peculiar to each of the nations they governed whenever they wished their proclamations to be read and understood by them. ”

“ The compiler of the Burhani Kati, a Persian Dictionary, to be compared to the Arabic Kamus, or “sea of language,” quotes and explains a great number of obsolete words and philosophic terms upon the authority of the Desátir: this evidently proves the great esteem in which this work was held. Let it be considered that a dictionary is not destined for the use of a sect merely, but of the whole nation that speaks the language, and this is the Persian, considered, even by the Arabs, as the second language in the world and in paradise. ”

“ But, strictly speaking, the medieval Persian language is called Pahlavi when it is written in one of the characters used before the invention of the modern Persian alphabet, and in the peculiarly enigmatical mode adopted in Pahlavi writings.... Like the Assyrians of old, the Persians of Parthian times appear to have borrowed their writing from a foreign race. But, whereas the Semitic Assyrians adopted a Turanian syllabary, these later Aryan Persians accepted a Semitic alphabet. ”

“ Some men never heard of the Asiatic writings, and others will not be convinced that there is any thing valuable in them ; some pretend to be busy, and others are really idle ; some detest the Persians, because they believe in Mahomed, and others despise their language because they do not understand it : we all love to excuse, or to conceal, our ignorance and are seldom willing to allow any excellence beyond the limits of our own attainments ”

“ The structure of New Persian New Persian. has hardly altered at all since the Shāhnāma; but the original purism of Firdousī, who made every effort to keep the language free from Semitic admixture, could not long be maintained. Arabic literature and speech exercised so powerful an influence on New Persian, especially on the written language, that it could not withstand the admission of an immense number of Semitic words. There is no Arabic word which would be refused acceptance in good Persian. But, nevertheless, New Persian has remained a language of genuine Iranian stock. ”

“ Old y often appears as j: Zend yāma (glass) , New Persian jām; yavan (a youth) , New Persian javān. Two consonants are not allowed to stand together at the beginning of a word; hence vowels are frequently inserted or prefixed, e.g. New Persian sitādan or istādan (to stand) , root stā, birādar (brother) , Zend and Pahlavī brātar. [78]
Amongst modern languages and dialects other than Persian which must be also assigned to the Iranian family may be mentioned:—Modern Dialects.
1. Kurdish, a language nearly akin to New Persian, with which it has important characteristics in common. ”

“ The Persians are direct descendants of the Zend people. Their language is nearly the same as Sanskrit. Out of ten Zend words, seven or eight are Sanskrit.
Persian history may be traced back into time relative; for, when it passes into time absolute, the advanced state of the people in science, especially in astronomy, their social condition, and their architecture and ornamental art, prove that they must have existed in a social bond for thousands of years, in order to develop and to attain that progress which excites our astonishment even after the lapse of more than 6,000 years. ”

“ Finally, after the conquest, and when Persia was thoroughly made over into a province of the Moslem empire, arises, in the tenth century, the modern Persian, and becomes during several centuries, and even to our own day, the vehicle of an abundant and admirable literature, rich in every department, in poetry, fiction, history, philosophy, science. ”

“ Thus, while the excellent writings of Greece and Rome are studied by every man of a liberal education, and diffuse a general refinement through our part of the world, the works of the Persians, a nation equally distinguished in ancient history, are either wholly unknown to us, or considered as entirely destitute of taste and invention. ”

“ Their language belonged to the Eastern or Iranian division of Aryan speech and was known as Old Persian, which continued to be spoken until the fourth century before the Christian era. From it were derived Pehlevi, or Parthian as well as modern Persian. The great book of the old Persians, the Avesta, which was written in Zendic, also an Iranian language, does not go back to the reign of Darius and was remodelled after the Christian era, but the Old Persian of Darius was closely related to the Zendic of Bactria and to the Sanskrit of Hindustan. ”

“ Nor should a student of the mental attitude of a people ignore the curious ideas that are to be found amongst the women. One who had moved a great deal amongst the women of Yezd, assured me that they were almost invariably under the [43] impression that the less familiar words occurring in the Persian translation of the Scriptures were English, and that it was a common thing for a woman who was accustomed to the European pronunciation of Persian, to be referred to as knowing the language of the Ferangis. ”

“ The development of Persian poetry under these first native dynasties was slow. Arabic language and literature had gained too firm a footing to be supplanted at once by a new literary idiom still in its infancy; nevertheless the few poets who arose under the Ṭāhirids and Ṣaffārids show already the germs of the characteristic tendency of all later Persian literature, which aims at amalgamating the enforced spirit of Islamism with their own Aryan feelings, and reconciling the strict deism of the Mahommedan religion with their inborn loftier and more or less pantheistic ideas ”

“ Quotations from Hafiz and Saadi play as large and as apposite a part in his dialogue as they do to this day in the conversation of any well-educated Asiatic who has been brought up in countries where Persian is the language of literature and fashion. No one who has not been in the East can fully appreciate the talent for self-detachment and for successful assimilation of an alien mode of thought and expression which such an exercise demands. ”

“ The Persians live chiefly on rice, fruit, and coffee, and eat very little meat; they luxuriate in baths, and the poorest amongst them endeavour to have a horse. They use the Turkish language, and are nearly all Mahometans; they used to worship the sun and fire, though very few continue to do so still. The Persian ladies never appear in the streets or any other public place, without having long veils, in order to conceal their faces, as the Turkish ladies do. The Persians are very like the Turks in their manners and customs, which I described to you before. ”

“ The Persians possess numerous works on rhetoric, geography, medicine, mathematics, and astronomy, few of which are entitled to much consideration. In philosophy may be mentioned the "Essence of Logic," an exposition in the Arabic language of the doctrines of Aristotle on logic; and the "Moral System of Nasir," published in the thirteenth century A.D., a valuable treatise on morals, economy, and politics.
10. EDUCATION IN PERSIA.—There are established, in every town and city, schools in which the poorer children can be instructed in the rudiments of the Persian and Arabic languages. ”

“ There are many tribes in Persia, many of whom live a wandering life. The Persians are distinguished for their politeness and learning. The Turkish is the common language; the Persian being only spoken by the people of science and literature.
The Persians are generally a handsome race. Their dress is peculiar and fitted to their climate. The men wear a long robe, wide trousers, and a silk or calico shirt. Robes of various kinds are worn, tied by a muslin sash. ”

“ I think this last statement [204] is less true of the women. But in our early days at Yezd, when Dr White and I were both struggling with the Persian language, and all of the teaching had to be done by Armenian hospital assistants, who, although admirable fellows, had perhaps not wholly grasped exactly what was wanted, we had strong evidence of what I am now saying. For the moment I could speak the language and began to see something of the people, man after man would come to me, all with the same question, “We have heard a great deal ”

“ This plan of rendering the sentences will, it is be- lieved, give great aid to the student in mastering the language. He will see at a glance the several ways in which a sentence may be rendered, will observe the force of words, and will be able to compare idiom with idiom. [1]
4. It has been customary to regard Persian as a language easy of attainment ; this is far from being the case. A certain degree of proficiency may easily be reached ”

“ No poetry has ever been more peculiarly national than that of Persia, for three centuries her lyre has been virtually silent, and yet her people cherish with peculiar fondness the memory of her poets. The finest odes of Hāfiz and the most beautiful passages of her Shāh Nāmah still live, even in the memory of her peasants; and the sorrows of Lailī and Majnūn will be chanted by Persian and Arab as long as the sons of the desert are found amidst the roses of Īrān. ”

“ Under the hands of a host of editors, scribes and copyists, who have no scruples anent changing words, names and dates, abridging descriptions and attaching their own decorations, the florid and rhetorical Persian would readily be converted into the straight-forward, business-like, matter of fact Arabic. And what easier than to islamise the old Zoroasterism, to transform Ahrimán into Iblís the Shaytan, Ján bin Ján into Father Adam, and the Divs and Peris of Kayomars and the olden Guebre Kings into the Jinns and Jinniyahs of Sulayman? ”

“ Persia proper was a small country, three hundred miles from north to south, and two hundred and eighty from east to west, inhabited by an Aryan race, who brought with them, from the country beyond the Indus, a distinctive religion, language, and political institutions. Their language was closely connected with the Aryan dialects of India, and the tongues of modern Europe. Hence the Persians were noble types of the great Indo-European family, whose civilization has spread throughout the world. ”

“ Whatever is visible and common is seldom or never represented by the Persians, even in their books, by the help of Arabic words: the sun and stars, the sea and river, the earth, its trees, its fruits, its flowers, and all that it produces and supports, are seldom named by them by other terms than those which their own language is capable of affording; but in expressing the abstract thoughts of their minds, and they are a people who think much and well, they borrow largely from the language of their religion—the Arabic. ”

“ Persia proper was a table-land, lying between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, with deep valleys and rapid rivers. It was such a country, with such a climate, as required a constant struggle by mankind for existence. Thus was produced a vigorous race, a race of our own blood, Aryans, that had one great wave of emigration to the West, peopling Europe, and a later wave into India. The Persians were quick, keen-witted, lovers of art and poetry, filled with energy and courage, and having a very high regard for truth. ”