December 29th, 2006

Filed under:
The Long View
7 Comments »

Where is Persia, and What Language Do They Speak There?

Back in high school, I had classmates who described themselves as ‘Persian’. Of course, there’s no country called ‘Persia’ anymore, so it always baffled me. In addition to English, these Persians spoke a language called ‘Farsi’.

I need to confess my ignorance on this: I don’t know where Persia was (or is, in the imagination of its former occupants). I also, generally speaking, don’t know what languages are spoken in sundry Middle Eastern nations. This blog post will act as a little research exercise for me, to get a better grip on the answers to these questions.

From the Wikipedia entry on the Persian people:

Persians are the main ethnic group of Iran and are the majority and dominant ethnic group of Iran. In addition, Persians are found as minorities in other countries, particularly Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, though in these countries they are usually thought of as sub-groups. Significant numbers of Persians also reside outside of Iran, with the largest communities found in the United States, Germany, England, Canada, Kuwait, Turkey and UAE. Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, and the UAE also have large populations of Persian descendents, referred to as Ajamis.

Well that’s pretty clear. A non-Persian recently pointed out to me that those of Iranian descent who aren’t keen on being identified first as Iranian. I don’t know how accurate that is. Here, by the way, is what the Persian empire looked like at its height.

Now, let’s talk languages. What do they speak where? From the CIA World Factbook, here are the major languages spoken per country:

Iran: Persian and Persian dialects 58%, Turkic and Turkic dialects 26%, Kurdish 9%
Iraq: Arabic, Kurdish (official in Kurdish regions), Assyrian, Armenian
Syria: Arabic (official); Kurdish, Armenian, Aramaic, Circassian widely understood; French, English somewhat understood
Lebanon: Arabic (official), French, English, Armenian
Israel: Hebrew (official), Arabic used officially for Arab minority, English most commonly used foreign language
Jordan: Arabic (official), English widely understood among upper and middle classes
Afghanistan: Afghan Persian or Dari (official) 50%, Pashtu (official) 35%, Turkic languages (primarily Uzbek and Turkmen) 11%, 30 minor languages (primarily Balochi and Pashai) 4%, much bilingualism
Saudi Arabia: Arabic

And what, by the way, is Farsi? It’s the local name for the Persian language.

Well that clears things up a bit. The mad language mix of Afghanistan reflects the difficulty everybody has conquering and controlling that region.

Comments: 7 Responses so far

Joe Clark
December 29th, 2006
1:50 pm

Wait till you find out that Persians ain’t Arabs and that Farsi is only tangentially related to Arabic.

For extra credit, look up Iranians in L.A.

For additional credit, cite the one and only correct pronunciation of “Iranian.”

[Reply]

jo
December 30th, 2006
4:17 am

I had the same questions about “Persia” as well. It always bugged me that people identified themselves as being from a non-country; in the back of my mind I always felt people might a well be saying they were from Narnia.

When I first met my boyfriend one clue of the good things to come was that he identified himself as Iranian straight out… Now I’m learning a few words in Farsi.

[Reply]

Andrea Coutu
December 30th, 2006
3:13 pm

Farsi is also known as Parsi.

[Reply]

Frenek
December 8th, 2007
10:58 am

I don’t see anything wrong with identifying with being Persian and not Iranian. Particularly people who immigrated to North America before Persia “became” Iran. When I lived in Los Angeles there were many people who were Persian as that is where there parents had come from or they still had a strong tie to that designation when they left Iran…which they still thought of as Persia. Just because you live in a region that experiences what you’d like to think is stability doesn’t mean that everyone has to like what some bureaucrat has decided to call the country. People told me they were Persian, fine with me. Americans, always wanting things to be so neat and tidy. Dildos

[Reply]

usa Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:02 am

Wow, so pompous and judgemental. You know sooo much about Americans. Your a joke. Wow, you can actually generalize what we americans are thinking. Sounds like bullshit European bias to me. Your logic is faulty at best. There are many Americans who take SERIOUS offense to such ignorant and rude comments. Just because the rest of the world is attempting to villify us, which by the way is the LARGEST GROSS EXHIBITION OF HYPOCRACY TO DATE, doesnt mean the there are not intelligent and articulate individauls who have pride in this country, and who subsequently hate all the parasides who feed off this country and yets disrespect it and its people at every turn.

[Reply]

Marcus
January 1st, 2008
5:35 am

Frenek…if you don’t like it, get the hell out. No need for name calling.

[Reply]

Aaron
April 25th, 2008
3:39 pm

A LOT of American’s are Dildos…but not all Dildos are American!

The nice thing about the America is that if you don’t like it, you can bitch about it and try to make changes. The not so nice thing about it is the overwhelming majority of born and bred Americans that can’t seem to think their way out of a bucket - and they LIKE IT THAT WAY! Hmmm…

Nice post. I’d always wondered about the whole Persia thing after I’d met someone and could NOT find it on a map.

Thanks!

[Reply]

Add a comment