A proposal

7/7/2012

Drod abar ašmāh!

Dear friends,

I came across this website completely by accident last week and it was a very pleasant surprise for me to discover it. I had the same idea about eight years ago while learning Modern Persian (Farsi) and having a hard time memorizing the numerous Arabian loanwords. I thought then - why not use the extensive Middle Persian literature to restore the original Iranian words and create a "pure language" ("azvān-ī pāk" as I called this project then) that would be more understandable because of the self-explaining nature of its vocabulary (at least for the person with Indo-European background). But I had no materials even to begin this (internet was not so accessible then too) and eventually my poverty forced me to drop out of my Iranian studies at university with very little possibilities to continue alone. That's why I was very happy to discover that
other people have had a similar idea and even have begun to implement it. Your site is excellent and contains so many useful materials, but it seems abandoned for some time without much activity and indeed it would be pity if this idea also fails like so many good things in this world and age. I'd like to inquire whether this project still goes on and is it possible to communicate with the team developing it? Maybe some discussion group or forum online, where one can ask questions, receive updates about the project and also to practise Pārsīg language with other members? (I think this would be very helpful and would facilitate and fasten greatly the learning and development process).

With kind regards,
Ardavarz
(a.k.a. E.Kolarov from Bulgaria)
ardavarz@gmail.com

2 Comments

Kelly O link

12/29/2020 09:36:30 pm

Hello mate nicce blog

Persianica

2/16/2021 02:27:25 am

Modern-day Persian is not 'Arabized'.

Never was, never will.

In fact, modern-day Persian vocabulary consists of 75%-80% native Persian words of pure Indo-European origin.

Only 20%-25% of the Persian vocabulary consists of borrowed Arabic loanwords, which already have been Persianized. Meaning they are incomprehensible to an Arabic-speaker randomly.

And for all borrowed loanwords exist pure Persian terms.

English (60%) uses way more borrowed loanwords than Persian (20%-25%) does.

Spanish and Turkish also use many borrowe Arabic loanwords. On top of that, Turkish also utilizes many borrowd Persian loanwords.

Persians nowadays prefer to use native Persian words over borrowed ones.

And the language is called Persian in English.

In Persian, modern-day Persian is refered to as 'Parsi'. 'Farsi' should be deemed as completely incorrect.

Persian poets of medieval times actually did an amazing job in perserving the poetic Persian language by using as little as possible borrowed loanwords.

Just check any Hafez or Saadi poem
The native to borrowed ratio is 75% native and only 25% borrowed.

In modern times: Listen to any modern-day Persian pop song. Persian music and poetry utilize no more than 20% of borrowed loanwords. 80% is always pure Persian.

'Arabized Farsi' is an extremely hurtful and disrespectful term and should not be utilized. 80% of the words which are used in Middle Persian or Parsig and are already used in modern-day Persian (Parsi), hence making this 'Arabization' claim even more ridiculous.

I'm a native Persian speaker and while reading through these Parsig vocabulary worksheets provided on this site, I literally see every single and each Parsig word being commonly and actively utilized in modern-day Persian (Parsi) one way or another. This honestly makes me so glad and happy.

So, there is still hope and the current linguistical state of the Persian language is looking pretty good.

And lastly, Persian is an Iranic Indo-European language.

Arabic is a Semitic Afro-Asiatic language.

These two languages are completely unrelated to each other in terms of phonetics, phonology, morophology, syntax, grammar and, as proven above, vocabulary.

It makes more sense to compare modern-day Persian to Portuguese, Spanish, Sanskrit, German, English, French, etc. as they are all Indo-European languages having stemmed from the same Proto-Indo-European mother language.

Persian certainly should do a purification of its vocabulary. But even the current Persian vocabulary is still miles away to ever be considered 'Arabized'. A simply look into any Persian dictionary would suffice to prove that these claims are dilusional and nonsensical.

If the Persian vocabulary ever truly consists of billions upon billions of Arabic loanwords, then Arabs would memorize Persian en masse and become amazingly flient Persophones.

Yet, Arabs understand 0% Persian and face extreme difficulty understanding Persiam grammatical rules, when trying to study modern-day Persian (Parsi).

Why?

Because there is no connection between the two.

Never was, never will.

And no borrowed loanword in this world could ever change that.

Persian will forever and always remain Persian.

A proposal

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