Persian or Iranian

May 7, 2004

The topic of referring to the language of Iran as “Persian” or “Iranian” has been discussed here and in other publications but still the proper term is not clear to some individuals and to some organizations. What is upsetting to me is when the term “Farsi” is used instead of “Persian.” Some official forms and communications in the U.S. have used “Farsi” instead of “Persian” (e.g., Department of Motor Vehicle). I feel that these individuals or organizations are taking liberties with our identity, our historical legacy, and our culture as a whole. It is as if they have no respect for us as if there is no word for our language in English. We are being treated as insignificant or unknown individuals who need an English word to be recognized.

The result is that our language and our long standing literary tradition and contributions to world civilization are demeaned, depriving us of our heritage and our sense of legitimacy and value in the view of Americans.

Even worse, we have Iranians themselves who have contributed to this misunderstanding, even in universities where proper language should be taught.

When people recognize that one would never refer to a “Farsi” cat or “Farsi” carpet, for example, it is much more likely that awareness of the proper term will result.

In a world where brand names are everything, I find it very sad that some Iranians are contributing to the destruction of their well recognized and positive identity and moving towards one that is unknown and which contributes to ugly stereotypes often held in U.S. society about Iranians.

Here is an article which was published in www.iranian.com today (May 7, 2004) about Persian or Iranian and Parsi or Farsi.

http://www.iranian.com/BruceBahmani/2004/May/Debate/index.html .

For more discussions about this topic, you may refer to http://www.iran-heritage.org/interestgroups/language.htm

Mohammad Ala, Board Member
http://www.iran-heritage.org
http://www.persiangulfonline.org
http://www.iranalliance.org