Ciyasoft.com
September 29, 2003

From: Amir Naghshineh-Pour [mailto:abibis@msn.com]
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2003 7:07 PM
To: hatamin@ciyasoft.com; s_parsiavashi@hotmail.com; pgtf@iic.org;
md@ciyasoft.com
Cc: info@ciyasoft.com; dcpersian@dcpersian.com

Dear Mr. Hatami (http://www.ciyasoft.com),

Yesterday I bought a book about the World of Islam from Barns and Noble.

It's very much about the history of Islam from birth until now. The
three words "Persians", "Persia", and "the Persian Language" are all over the
book. The book clearly indicates the vast contributions of the
"Persians" to the East and to the world.

By eliminating or changing these words from the new books and writings
we will basically destroy our own history and nobody will know the
relationships between Iranians and their history.

It is true that Reza Shah and the Parliament at the time changed the
name Persia to Iran but it had nothing to do with the name of the language.
And it does not mean that we should use Farsi instead of Persian in English.
The word "Persian" is still utilized to refer to Persian-Iranians and has no other equivalent in English. Nobody says "Farsi people". Nobody has
abolished the word "Persian".

Up to a couple of decades ago nobody would write or refer to the Persian

language as Farsi. One could hardly find any writings or literature
older than twenty five years refer to Persian as Farsi. The language that we
speak today is not different from the one 20 years ago or 100 years ago or 200

years ago. It has been called the Persian language since the begining.
However, using the word "Farsi" in English is a new invention.

Also your other reasons about Dr. Yarshater and Farhangestan have
nothing to do with the usage of Farsi instead of Persian. On the contrary, people
like Hadad-Adel and the rest of the hardliners in the Islamic Republic are
very much against the word "Persian" or "Pars".

Unfortunately, some of us have been very ignorant and have not thought
about the severe consequences that we might encounter by disregarding what we
were and what we are and what we will be. That's why a thirty year old
country claims our islands and certain countries eliminate the word "Persian"
from the Persian Gulf or even replace it with "Arabian".

Our job is to preserve these words not demolish them. They make up our
history, culture, and language.

Sincerely,

Amir Naghshineh-pour
Iran Heritage, San Diego Chapter, CA

http://www.iran-heritage.org

>From: "Naquib Hatami" <hatamin@ciyasoft.com>
>To:<s_parsiavashi@hotmail.com>,<pgtf@iic.org>,<md@ciyasoft.com>,<abibis
@msn.com>
>CC:<info@ciyasoft.com>,<dcpersian@dcpersian.com.>,
> <s_parsiavashi@hotmail.com
>Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 09:06:56 -0400
>
>Siavash:
>
>We appreciate your interest in the Iranian heritage, literature, poetry
and
>language. However, we do not agree with your assessments with
respect to
>the application of the words "Persian" and "Farsi". Before I present
an
>elaboration on the subject, I would like to point out that our primary
>goal, as a company, is to succeed in business. If certain interest
groups
>benefit from the procurement of this goal, we would be delighted.
>
>Notwithstanding the narratives in Mr. Yarshater, in his books
(Encyclopedia
>Iranica) about the subject, we have not used the word "Farsi"
sporadically,
>or without careful attention. Also, the Farhangestan that you made a
>reference to, unlike its predecessor (which was established during the
Late
>Reza Shah), was put together rather recently by the Islamic Republic of
>Iran, and is a highly politicized organization, occupied by a group of
>appointees (headed by Mr. Hadad Adel, who was appointed by Mr. Khamenei
and
>who is not an scholar in Farsi.) Let me not get into the details of
other
>members of this organization.
>
>With respect to the Encyclopedia, although I appreciate the idea, but
we do
>not take it seriously since it has been a one-man job. Such an
>encyclopedia should have (rightly) been created by a huge organization,
>employing hundreds of scholars in each of the fields, in location, i.e.
>Iran. This is the way Encyclopedias Britannica and Americana were
created >and are being maintained.
>
>The words in question are not just Farsi and Persian, but include Iran,
>Iranian and Persia. Without going through the details, I would like to
>inform you that the word Persia was abolished by legislature about 80
years
>ago by the Iranian Parliament to solve several problems, among which,
the
>confusion between the reference to the language and to the person from
the
>country. In addition, the word Farsi is ordinarily used by many news
>media and writers, Iranians included.
>
>In the process of research and development of the machine translation
and
>OCR, and in the course of preparing technical reports, we repeatedly
need
>to make references to the country and the language, and using the Farsi
for
>the language and Iranian for the person from Iran, not only is
accurate,
>eliminates confusion and enhances clarity.
>
>Finally, even if using Farsi in place of Persian were incorrect (which
we
>believe is not), our goal is not to purify or promote the language; our
>objective is to design a practical and useful implementation of the
highly
>complex techniques of machine translation. [As an example, in our
English
>MT implementation, we do not remove such words as "irregardless" which
are
>inherently incorrect. But we have to be impartial and practical.]
>
>Finally, the word Farsi can indeed be found in most non-abridged
>contemporary modern English dictionaries.
>
>Regards
>
>Ciyasoft Management
>http://www.ciyasoft.com
>
>
Dear CIYASOFT (http://www.ciyasoft.com) correspondent,

I would like to thank you for your excellent and informative website as
well as developing software to promote different languages especially the
Persian Language.

However, on the website and supposedly in the software the word "Farsi"
instead of the word "Persian" has been used for the official and spoken
language of the Iranian/Persian people. I would like to remind that
Persian is the equivalent word for Farsi in English. Using the word Farsi
instead of Persian misrepresents the language, culture, and heritage of the Iranian

people since Persian has always been used in English for such purposes.
In recent years, due to the mass departure of Iranians from Iran as well as
the ignorance of some of whom, intentionally or unintentionally the term
Farsi has been tried to be brought into play instead of the term Persian. This

tendency has also been utilized by some low knowledgeable non-Iranians.
Please be kind enough and use the word "Persian" instead of "Farsi" on
your website and in your software.

The Academy of the Persian Language and Literature (Farhangestan) in
Tehran has specifically stated the English name of the official and spoken
language of Iran as Persian.

Furthermore, Iranian language and history masters also call it Persian.
Dr. Ehsan Yarshater, a professor at Colombia University and the editor of
the Encyclopedia Iranica http://www.iranica.com/ has stated this important
fact in his Encyclopedia.

In addition, I would like to encourage you to refer to the Iranian Languages website http://iranianlanguages.com which, has plenty of information
about the Persian Language.

Best Regards,

Amir Naghshineh-pour
Iran Heritage, San Diego Chapter, CA http://www.iran-heritage.org