Persian is an ethnicity and a language

Masoud Naseri
Dec 16, 2003

Pejman Akbarzadeh's article on the use of Persian over the erroneous Farsi or Parsi in the English language is valid and makes a strong argument. What we have to understand here is that ever language has its own way of saying another language. German, Greek, Persian, Japanese, Finnish, Chinese, they all sound very different in their native forms. But Persian and Parsi are actually not that even that different compared to some of the others on this list! The point is that you cannot change this - confusion will arise and it does neither language justice. For instance, on this website when becoming a member, Persian is listed twice! As Farsi and Persian - already people are thinking these are two different languages and this is terrible!

Also, let's not forget that Persian is an ethnicity. 51 percent of Iran's modern population is ethnic Persian. From the province of Persia (which is Pars in Persian, hence Parsi), and the surrounding interior regions. The rest are comprised of Azeris, Kurds, Lurs, Baluchis, Turkmens, and many more. It is a very multiethnic state, but it still could have remained as "Persia" in the west. Look at Russia - not every Russian is an ethnic Russian, you have Kalmyks, Chechens, Buryats, Ossetes, Avars, the list goes on, but it is still Russia.

And the Parsi of India are just Zoroastrian Persians who immigrated to India after Arabs attacked and forcibly converting (most) Persians to Islam a few centuries back. They are ethnic Persians, just as the Persians in Iran. As for the language, it is spoken by non-Persians not only in Iran (as a second language by the other ethnic groups mentioned above), but as a second language in Afghanistan as well, to unite that multiethnic state as well, although there are no ethnic Persians in Afghanistan.

And Farsi is the Arabic way of saying Persian - very insulting if you ask me. The bottom line is, the language is Persian; Persian is also the dominate ethnic group of Iran; and Persia still exists today as a central province of Iran, even though the name was expanded to call the entire country, which was never changed in 1935, rather, foreign delegates were asked to refer to it in the native way, which was as the Empire of Iran, denoting the Aryan ancestry (ironically only abut 70% are actually Aryan these days). This may have been a bad move - it should have remained as being known as Persia; maybe then people wouldn't think Persians don't exist anymore, or that the Persian language has died out, and Persians the world over would be spared from having to defend our culture and language the way we do!

Regards,

Masoud Naseri
Master of Science in Anthropology