Zara Kian shared with us a few facts about Farsi.

Persian language stems from Indo-European, before Arabic was introduced in Iran, it was called “Parsi”, but later it changed to “Farsi”!

photo Carolina Farina

This is because the Arabic language does not have the “p” sound. Persian writing has changed three times, first it was Cuneiform, then Pahlavi, and finally the Arabic alphabet was introduced. Arabic added 4 letters, Gh (گ) , P (پ), Jh(ژ), ce(چ) thus now the Persian alphabet has 32 letters.

After the advent of Arabic, scientific language and the most common books were written in Arabic, but all Iranian scientists continued to speak “Persian” while also learning Arabic.

In the history of Iran, Iranian people have always spoken Persian. In my language there are words that have common roots with other languages, for example Italian, mother (madar), mother (maman), father (pedar), father (baba), English brother (baradar), bad (bad), pardis (paradise), French, like pomad (pomata), pjhame (pyiama), Russian, like samavar, shoghal, Arabic, like mahsul (products), zendeghi (life).

To conclude, I want to dedicate this Farsi poem to you:

صدا کن مرا
صدای تو خوب است
صدای تو سبزینه ی آن گیاه عجیبی ست
که از انتهای صمیمیت حزن می روید
در ابعاد‌این عصر خاموش
من از طعم تصنیف یک کوچه تنهاترم
بیا تا برایت بگویم
چه اندازه تنهایی من بزرگ است
و تنهایی من شبیخون حجم تو را پیش بینی نمی کرد
و خاصیت «عشق» این است

Call me.

Your voice is dear to me.

Your voice is the green essence of the rare plant

growing at the bottom of an affable sadness.

In the depths of this quiet afternoon

I am lonelier than the taste of a song

whispered in an alley’s perception.

Come, I will tell you how vast my loneliness is.

And my loneliness wasn’t waiting

The nocturnal assault of your form.

And this is the nature of love.

Sohrab Sepehri