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Preface

History of Persian language
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Persian language once was a lingua-franca and served as a court language in Persia, India, Caucasus, Central Asian states and even was the language of poetry for Othmani sultans. It influenced the wide geography. Sometimes it’s called as French of the Orient. Where the role of Arabic can be compared with the Latin in Europe. The Persian literature is one of the richest in the world and well known in both west and east. Some 100-150 years ago the speakers of this language could be found from Istanbul and Balkans to China and Bangladesh, and even in some parts of nowadays Russia such as Tatarstan and Bashkortostan Persian was taught as second or third language.  

Nowadays Persian language despite common view is still spread far from modern Iran. Central Asia and Caucasus today hold millions of Persian language speakers with different dialects and accents. It kept its official status only in three countries in Iran called as Farsi, in Afghanistan as Dari and Tajiki in Tajikistan, but still spoken in many regions of Uzbekistan, Pakistan and some Arab countries. In Azerbaijan and Dagestan (southern autonomous republic of Russia) in several villages and regions different versions of Persian are spoken which often called as Tat language the endonym may varies. Muslims, Christians and Jews of Caucasus speak their variants of Persian and consider it as the mother tongue. Near the most ancient city of Russia Derbent one can hear words from very old version of Persian which goes back to Middle Persian 5-6 centuries AD.

      Perhaps it’s not obvious that cities of Samarkand and Bukhara became a birthplace of Persian renaissance. The earliest Persian poets were originally from nowadays Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan such as Hanzala Badghisi, Abu Hafs Sughdi, and of course Rudaki who is known as the father of Persian literature. Rudaki served in Samanid court in Bukhara 9-10 centuries AD, he was originally from Panjrud which is in nowadays Tajikistan close to Samarkand, Uzbekistan that’s why very often he referred as Rudaki Samarkandi. At Rudaki’s period Persian was more often called as Farsi-Dari. This language became court language, writers and poets served by writing in this language, translating historical and religious books from Arabic to New Persian. At end of Samanid rule Ferdowsi started composing Shahname. Later, in 11 and 12 centuries AD New Persian started to spread to Central and Western Iran, India, Anatolia and Caucasus. Most of the early poets were from this area. Such as a well-known poet, Sufi mystic Rumi was born in Wakhsh nowadays south Tajikistan or Balkh (Afghanistan).

Classical Persian language was a language of sophisticated part of the societies. Many dynasties that ruled from 10th century strived to support Persian literature. The role of Central Asian or Khorasani Iranian languages in a New Persian vocabulary, phonetic and structure is significant. Loan-words from local Sogdian, Bactrian and Khwarezmian languages in Persian are found in early literary works. Moreover, nowadays some phonetic features and vocabulary of Classical Persian is more preserved in the regions of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Some sounds and words are not any more common in Iranian Farsi due to modernization that occurred in 20th century and influence of English, French and neighbor languages.

Our trip to Uzbekistan is educational and enlightening we want to share some basic knowledge about classical Persian literature and language. You will hear how sounds the language that in its new stage which we call now New Persian with the literature that goes back to 9th and 10th century AD around 1200 years ago. Old Persian and Middle Persian goes back to 2500 years ago and 2000 years respectively. The language of Firdawsi, Rumi, Hafez and Rudaki. We will talk about history of this language, its role and literature, we will compare different variants of Persian how certain words changed due to evolution but speakers still can comprehend and use them. We will also talk about other languages that was spoken in this region before and at the time of Persian such as Turkic, Sogdian, Khwarezmian and Bactrian. Apart from that our trip includes some details of modern life in Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent. Culture, art and history of modern Uzbekistan.

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Tour to Uzbekistan. History of Persian language
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  • Suleyman Kurbonov
    Persian language teacher
    • Suleyman teaches Persian language for last 4 years both Iranian Farsi and Afghan Dari. Apart from that Suleyman is researcher of ancient Iranian languages such as Middle Persian and Sogdian

    • He has been studying Persian more than 20 years. He is a researcher of the history of Persian language, literature and comparative studies of different dialects of Farsi


To contact
WhatsApp +7968-796-87-90


Email: suleyman@goftman.net
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