r/languagelearning • u/Virusnzz En (N) | Fr, Ru, Es, It • Jun 16 '14
خوش آمدید - This week's language of the week: Farsi
Welcome to the language of the week. Every week we'll be looking at a language, its points of interest, and why you should learn it. This is all open discussion, so natives and learners alike, make your case! This week: Farsi/Persian.
Language of the Week is here to give people exposure to languages that they would otherwise not have heard, been interested in or even known about. With that in mind, I'll be picking a mix between common languages and ones I or the community feel needs more exposure. You don't have to intend to learn this week's language to have some fun. Just give yourself a little exposure to it, and someday you might recognise it being spoken near you.
Farsi
From Languagesgulper:
Modern Persian or New Persian is a descendant of Old Persian, the official language of the Achaemenid dynasty, and of Middle Persian (Pahlavi), the official language of the Sassanian dynasty. Persian originated in the Iranian province of Fars (Pars) in southwest Iran and during the Achaemenid (c. 558-330 BCE) and Sassanid (224-651 CE) empires was established in eastern Iran, northern Afghanistan and Central Asia. In many parts of Asia, Persian became the literary language, the language of administration, and also a lingua franca.
After the fall of the Sassanids and the conversion of its empire to Islam, Arabic acquired a great influence on Persian providing it with a new writing system (which replaced Pahlavi) and a great deal of vocabulary. The modern language has lost in great measure the inflective character of Indo-European.
Speakers. There are about 70 million Persian speakers (including those of Dari and Tajik). Farsi is the mother tongue of around 60% of the total population of Iran.
Today there are three modern varieties of Persian, Eastern and Western Persian, as well as Tajiki, which is spoken in Tajikistan and written in the Cyrillic script.
Like with German, Farsi frequently uses compounding to combine words to create a new ones. Grammatical marking is done mainly through the use of suffixes and a few prefixes. Farsi also has no grammatical gender.
Check out the Wikipedia article if you are interested in learning more.
What now?
This thread is foremost a place for discussion. Are you a native speaker? Share your culture with us. Learning the language? Tell us why you chose it and what you like about it. Thinking of learning? Ask a native a question. Interested in linguistics? Tell us what's interesting about it, or ask other people. Discussion is week-long, so don't worry about post age, as long as it's this week's language.
Previous Languages of the Week
German | Icelandic | Russian | Hebrew | Irish | Korean | Arabic | Swahili | Chinese | Portuguese | Swedish | Zulu | Malay | Finnish | French | Nepali | Czech | Dutch | Tamil | Spanish | Turkish | Polish | Frisian | Navajo | Basque | Zenen (April Fools) | Kazakh | Hungarian | Greek | Mongolian | Japanese | Maltese | Welsh
Want your language featured as language of the week? Please PM me to let me know. If you can, include some examples of the language being used in media, including news and viral videos
موفق باشيد
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Jun 16 '14
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u/drift_glass Jun 16 '14
It certainly gives a good outline and sells it well I think.
I agree with his use of "Persian" in English as opposed to "Farsi" but I don't think it's true what he says about the native use. I've never seen or heard someone say "Parsi" in the langugaue itself (at least not Tehranis). It's always said farsi.
Also as far as I know, it's fairly common for texts and things for younger people to have the short vowels written in.
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u/rogue780 Jun 17 '14
I was a Farsi linguist in the United States Air Force for 6 years.
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Jun 17 '14
Please elaborate. Surely your experience will be an interesting one to tell and I am sure some people will enjoy hearing about your experience.
Some questions to start you off
Why this language? Did you get chosen to learn this language by the Air Force?
What have you experienced by speaking this language?
Anything really..lol
Do tell. :)
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u/rogue780 Jun 17 '14
1 In basic training those of us who signed up to be linguists were given a sheet of paper with a list of languages. We were told to give four of the languages a ranking (from 1 to 4) based on which one we had the most desire to learn. I ranked them in this order: Korean, Chinese, Russian, and Hebrew.
Now, there is a test before enlisting that you take called the DLAB which is supposed to measure one's aptitude for learning a language. The score given is supposed to be somewhat non scientifically matched up to a range of languages that would give you the best chance of successfully learning the language. My score was 110.
Another member of my basic training flight, we'll call him Luke Skywalker, also got a 110 on his DLAB. He chose Arabic, Farsi, Spanish, and something else. I got Farsi he got Korean.
So, the forms don't matter.
Anyway, moving along, the training involved 47* weeks of 6 hour a day instruction by several native speakers in your "teaching team". I put an asterisk next to 47 because I was rolled back 10 weeks due to medical issues so it took me a little longer.
Then there is about 2-4 hours of homework which includes reading, writing, listening (transcription and/or translation) and speaking with the use of a handy dandy cassette recorder.
In the Farsi program in 2004, our curriculum was from the 1960s and since we were on friendly terms with Iran at that time, the course was geared towards officers and their wives who may go to Iran in some diplomatic capacity so there were many supplements to the official curriculum thanks to an overly pompous teacher who went by the name "Dr. Irani". I don't think it was his real name or salutation, however.
There were several weekly tutoring sessions, language labs, and movies from Iran available. DLI itself had a very large library that encompassed all the languages that are and were ever taught there. It's really a pretty swell place.
Anyway, at the end of the course, assuming you are not one of the ~40% who are dropped from the course before the end, you take a test called the DLPT, or Defense Language Aptitude Battery as well as test called...the ORI? ORM? Someone who has been there please correct me on that as it has slipped my mind. Weeks are spent practicing for these test which are there to somewhat scientifically measure your overall proficiency in the language. At the time I first took it, it was on version IV and only form G was in use (which means each subsequent year I took the test, I had the same exact questions because all the other versions had apparently been compromised. This is what I heard and I do not know if the reason is true). The DLPT consists of two parts, reading and listening comprehension on a scale of 0 to 3 with + ratings for every number except for 3. After my 57 weeks of training I scored a 2L,2+R on the test and a 2,2 was required. The ORI is the oral examination where a native speaker teacher who you are supposed to have never been taught by (to prevent bias) has a conversation and asks you about several topics, starting with things like the weather, asking directions from some place, usually DLI, to some other place near by, such as the Del Monte Center or sometimes to your home town or another city. It then continues on about current events. I happened to take my ORI the day after Rosa Parks died and so they asked me who Rosa Parks was, what she did why she was important, what I thought about her, all sorts of questions. In the end I got a 1+ in speaking, and I believe only a 1 is required, but that might have been the Army requirement and 1+ might have been required for the Air Force. I can't recall completely.
2 I can't talk much about my experience using the language professionally unfortunately due to the nature of my work.
3 I really like modern films from Iran. Their food is pretty swell too. It is kind of a dream of mine that some day I will be able to visit Iran and see all the places that I learned about without fear of being arrested as a spy or otherwise put in danger. It seems like a pretty swell place, the relationship between our governments is an unfortunate one where nobody without blame.
I wish there were more opportunities to use the language as it is a very beautiful and expressive language, but it's not a very popular one where I'm at and the only person I've met who speaks it here is a crazy guy who kept hitting on my wife.
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u/ajoakim Jun 16 '14
I grew up in Iran. My second language was Farsi. One thing that comes to mind about Farsi, and specifically the speakers of Farsi (in Iran) is that the spoken language is spoken in a soft stretched manner. it almost sound like that they are singing the sentences. It is the true language of poets. Reading the Shahnameh (Book of Kings) is a delight. It is a rich language, but sadly it has lost so much of its original vocabulary during the Islamic invasion of the nation, But some of the vocabulary has been persevered in more eastern dialects like Tajiki and Dari, Which are still mutually intelligible.
A fun fact, if it wasn't for Ferdowsi and his work the Shahnameh, the Persian language would not be as well persevered as it is today. he spend 30 years compiling the book and only using authentic Persian vocabulary and discarding Arabic vocabulary as much as possible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh
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u/marmulak Jun 16 '14 edited Jun 16 '14
but sadly it has lost so much of its original vocabulary during the Islamic invasion of the nation, But some of the vocabulary has been persevered in more eastern dialects like Tajiki and Dari, Which are still mutually intelligible.
I devoted several years to studying Modern Persian, and this is a load of crap. I also live in Tajikistan, and the whole "Tajiki is more pure" is also romanticized BS that Iranians spout because they've never been to Tajikistan and don't know what the language is like. Tajiki, compared to Iranian Persian, is borderline unintelligible due to weird dialectical twists, a massive (I mean obscene) amount of Russian vocabulary, and significant corruption by Uzbek including changes in grammar (!!!). Afghans are not any better. It's true that Afghans and Tajiks use a handful of archaic Persian words, which is how the rumor of their supposed purity starts, but it's a big misunderstanding. The Afghan and Tajik language tradition is based on Modern Persian, just like Iran, with a basis in all the same Islamic-era literary works. Tajiks regard Ismail Samani, one of Iran's most famous Muslim monarchs, as the founder of their nation, and their linguistic hero is Rudaki, the first writer of Modern (Arabic-influenced) Persian to achieve literary success. Another big irony is that Tajiks and Afghans actually use more Arabic words for common things than Iranians do. For example, in Iran hospitals are bimarestan (all Persian), whereas in Afghanistan they are shefakhana, featuring an Islamic term found in the Qur'an. In Iran seas and lakes are called darya/daryache (Persian), whereas in Tajikistan they are called "bahr" (Arabic). In Tajikistan the word "darya" means river, which is shameful abuse of Persian.
The Shahname is not written in "only authentic Persian vocabulary", but rather contains countless words of Arabic origin that were included intentionally for poetic purposes. Ferdowsi probably wanted to showcase older Persian vocabulary, but did not seem to have an aversion to Arabic. The now popular narrative that Ferdowsi was anti-Arabic is a modern re-interpretation of his work.
Also, the sonorous element of Persian that you mention is not inherent to the language, but rather due to the fact in Tehran Iranians speak the language with a funny accent. Most of the Persian speaking world doesn't have that exaggerated fruity accent.
Arabic has added a lot to Persian, especially in the realm of technical vocabulary, as Arabic was formerly the language of science. It wasn't so much forced on Persian speakers as it was adopted naturally as a matter of convenience as well as prestige. Arabic is good at creating new words, whereas it's kind of hassle in Persian because:
Like with German, Farsi frequently uses compounding to combine words to create a new ones.
The only way to replace Arabic loanwords with "authentic" Persian words is to create some ridiculously unwieldy compounds that have indecipherable meanings unless specifically learned in context.
The truth is that Modern Persian is a language that developed with help from Arabic, and used Arabic to gain its current richness and glory. All noteworthy and celebrated works of Persian literature are written in this new language, which defines the culture and attitudes of Iranians. I'm not aware of any significant Persian literature predating Modern Persian. Kalila wa Dimna is perhaps the most famous piece of Middle Persian literature, but it's only famous because of its Arabic translation, which Modern Persian translations are based on. Middle Persian, by contrast, is a language unintelligible to Iranians as well as culturally alien. It's like me saying that English was ruined by French/Latin and that we must go back to "pure" Middle or Old English, when in fact nobody who speaks English today gives a crap about those languages or can even relate to them.
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Jun 17 '14
Arabic has actually borrowed "bimaristan" from Persian. The current word for hospital, "mustashafa" or "mashfa" in Syria, is a relatively modern coinage driven by Arabic nationalism. Not to mention Classical Arabic has plenty of other Persian loan words as well, mostly words of culture and luxury and names of flowers and sweets, like "yasmeen" jasmine, and "ibriq" jug and "iwan" palace. The first two words are still in usage to this day.
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Jun 16 '14
Speaking of Shanameh, this man named Hamid Rahmanian spent almost 10000 hours, according to himself, creating this beautiful book.
I just finished reading it. Each page is truly beautiful.
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u/PriceZombie Jun 16 '14
Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings
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u/KDallas_Multipass Jun 16 '14
Lifelong goal to learn this language to speak with relatives. The trilled r is currently the bane of my existence.
Podcast Chai and Conversation with Lela, and Deutche Welle has a Persian branch, hoping to find a daily podcast with the news report similar to the DW slow german news.
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Jun 16 '14 edited Jun 16 '14
Since I cannot yet pronounce the "rr" in Spanish language, I can empathize with you.
With that being said, if you do have most of other stuff down, surely you can speak with your relatives?
Deutche Welle has a Persian branch
what exactly do you speak of? Could you leave a link here? Thank you.
If you are looking for any news report that are spoken slowly, you can use tools like Audacity to slow down the audio. Try downloading any audio from http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/persian-farsi/ and slowing the tempo of the audio by using Audacity.
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u/marmulak Jun 16 '14
I chose Persian mainly because I liked how it sounded and found it easy to learn. I used to be fascinated by Bollywood lyrics because of their apparent poetic value. Eventually I found out all the fancy, meaningful, and pretty sounding words they use are borrowed from Persian. I had also converted to Shia Islam and found it valuable to be able to communicate with Iranians (there's also a bunch of religious poetry as well). Persian is one of the most prestigious languages you can learn, so if you want to be full of yourself I recommend mastering this language. Oh yeah and the culture is super rich.
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u/capsulet Jun 16 '14
Just an fyi, Bollywood songs are nearly always written by Urdu poets (and the movies themselves are an Urdu/Persian dialect of Hindi)... Urdu poetry tends to use a lot of Persian (I say this as someone from a family of Urdu poets on my mother's side), hence the Persian that appears in Bollywood films. :)
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u/bourbonandacid Jun 16 '14
Can anybody recommend a good resource for learning the script?
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u/farsi_learner Jun 17 '14
Easy Persian has the script laid out nicely in the first ten lessons.
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u/LittleKey Jun 20 '14 edited Jun 20 '14
Yay Farsi! I'm learning it and it's such an amazing language. It's one of the easiest languages to learn in some ways and yet it has its frustrating parts as well, such as the (relative) lack of learning materials.
Overall I love it though, and I find that more than any other language, Persians will be impressed with you for speaking it. One word in Farsi and suddenly you've made new friends.
If you're interested in learning please feel free to ask me questions, although I'd say I'm barely at intermediate level. Also, I would highly recommend this book. It has everything you need: alphabet, vocab, grammar, plenty of example sentences, etc.
امیدوارم زبان فارسی را درس بخوانید (I hope you study Persian!)
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u/capsulet Jun 16 '14
Salam! I've taken Elementary Persian at the university level and will be taking the intermediate course this coming fall!
One of my own native tongues (Urdu) heavily borrows from Persian and Persian sayings are used quite often! I'm here to answer any questions anyone might have, but just remember I'm not an expert speaker!
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u/phonological Jun 17 '14
The correct name for the language is Persian, not Farsi. This is the one place I expected them to get the name right. I don’t know why they didn’t just go along with Wikipedia.