Diamondback - An Independent Student Newspaper

May 9 2004

Hello,

Thank you for writing to The Diamondback regarding this topic. It's incredibly important for the paper to publish articles that accurately reflect the community it covers.

And I learned something new.

As reader representative, I have sent the Diamondback editors my thoughts regarding your e-mail. You are right. In the two style guides used by newspapers that I consulted, it stated that the word "Persian" is used to define the language outside of Iran; "Farsi" is used inside Iran.

I have encouraged them to use these determinants in future articles.

Thank you again for taking the time to read and write to The Diamondback. Let me know how else I can be of help.

Best,

Raymund Flandez
DBK Ombudsman

From: Opinion <opinion@dbk.umd.edu>
To: Masoud Naseri <mnaseri@uwm.edu>
Subject: Re: Persian Language

Dear Mr. Naseri,

I am forwarding your comments to our Ombudsman, or reader's representative, Raymund Flandez. I will also speak with our editor in chief, Jonathan Cribbs, about printing a correction. Thank you for taking the time to let us know about the error.

-Mary Schneidau

Mary C. Schneidau, Opinion Editor
Emily Funderburk, Deputy Editor
The Diamondback
An Independent Student Newspaper

3150 South Campus Dining Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
opinion@dbk.umd.edu
(301) 314-8200
(301) 314-8358 FAX

From: Masoud Naseri <mnaseri@uwm.edu>

Date: Sat, 8 May 2004 16:27:00 -0500

To: opinion@dbk.umd.edu
Cc: cribbs@dbk.umd.edu, a.kovalan@dbk.umd.edu, s.dance@dbk.umd.edu, k.miller@dbk.umd.edu
Subject: Persian Language

Dear Friends at Diamondback,

I am writing to express some concern over your use of the term "Farsi" over "Persian" in a recent article on your website, entitled "Nobel Prize winner to speak in Comcast" by Cristina Abello. Although this was an overall great piece, I'd like to point out this error to make it better. In English, the correct way of writing the native language of Persians is just that, "Persian". "Farsi", or more appropriately, "Parsi", is the native way in Persian to pronounce the name of the language. You do not write "Espanol" in place of "Spanish", or "Deutsch" in place of "German", so why then the use of "Farsi" over "Persian"?

This may not seem like a big issue at first glance, however anything could be farther from the truth. In the last 25 years, Iranians have felt as though their culture, history, and heritage have been on the attack. People are beginning to loose sight of this very ancient land and culture. People often erroneously believe that Persia does not exist anymore, or that it somehow changed its name to Iran. In fact, Persia was always but one piece of the Iranian Empire. Its central piece, and exists today as the province of Persia (or "Pars" in native Persian, hence "Parsi" as the language). In 1935 the Emperor of Iran officially asked all world leaders to refer to the nation as Iran, not Persia, which is but one part of Iran. It is similar to "England" versus "United Kingdom" or "Holland" versus "The Netherlands". Officially calling England the United Kingdom does not mean that the English do not exist anymore. But yet this most unfortunate fate seems to have been assigned to the Persians. When one uses the term "Farsi" over the correct "Persian", it again puts in doubt the very existence of the Persian people. The majority of Iranians (51% according to The World Fact book 2003) are ethnic Persians.

This puts the numbers at roughly 34 million Persians out of 67 million Iranians, And the official language of Iran is Persian as well. It is an injustice to them all, when the word "Persian" begins to be eradicated from the English language.

Linguists, anthropologists, academicians of all fields, Iranian and Iranian-American, agree that "Persian" should remain "Persian" in the English language, and not erroneously be replaced by "Farsi". I urge you and your fine, respected organization to take back this damage and refer to the language of Iran only as "Persian" in your future articles.

I thank you very much for all of your time and consideration. I sincerely hope I have been able to convey my message to you. Thank you once again, and please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.

Sincerely,

Masoud Naseri
Teaching Assistant & Fellow
Department of Anthropology
University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee